Friday, March 04, 2016

I Am Link

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--- Today's Must Read - The only thing more comforting than coming home after a long week and putting my feet up and watching Female Trouble is coming home after a long week and putting my feet up and watching several episodes of The Golden Girls, and tonight has comfort coming because I just whizzed through Frontier's great big Oral History of the show, wherein they interviewed several writers and producers of the classic sitcom, and my nostalgia for all things Sicily Slash St. Olaf is off the charts.
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--- Today's Second Must Read - Friend of MNPP Matthew Eng wrote up a glorious ode to the wonders of Kristen Wiig for Tribeca Film that is very long (I only say that so you're prepared) and worth every single word. I still sting when I think of the fact that I have still so far missed her work in Zoolander 2; I am dying to watch the silly nonsense she came up with in that movie, even if the rest looks played the eff out.
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--- Here's To Your Fuck Frank - This year marks the 30th anniversary of David Lynch's masterpiece Blue Velvet, and I guess it's gotten a total restoration, which will be playing here in NYC at Film Forum at the end of this month! You can watch the trailer on their website; meanwhile The Playlist shares that attractive poster you see to the right there. I love Film Forum for hosting things like this, I really do, so don't take me as ungrateful, but god I wish they had a better actual screen on which to watch such things. I want to watch Blue Velvet on the Ziegfeld's screen dammit.
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--- South Korean Superstars - Well this is helpful of them - Variety rounds up what South Korea's three geniuses are lining up next, after coming to America and, uh, now returning back home: Oldboy and Stoker helmer Park Chan-wook's got The Handmaiden, his adaptation of the "lesbian crime novel" called Fingersmith (we previously posted on that here) -- speaking of, Amazon just bought the US rights to that movie. I think we might see it this year? Then there's Snowpiercer director Bong Joon-ho who has got Okja, that monster movie with Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal we told you about here. That should film this year. And then there's Kim Ji-woon, the director of the phenomenal I Saw the Devil, who's re-teaming with his usual actor Song Kang-ho on Secret Agent, a noir thriller, which should also film in 2016.
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--- Kanye's Got No Dignity - You will probably never ever see me linking to a story about Kanye West again, but I couldn't really resist this one - he recently tweeted out a screengrab of his computer screen showing that he is planning on sampling a Sufjan Stevens song! (He got in a bunch of trouble because he was torrenting it, ha.) Anyway it's a wonderful song of Sufjan's - the one called "Death With Dignity" off of his latest album slash masterpiece Carrie & Lowell. Kanye, having recently lost his own mother, probably feels a kinship with C&L, which is about Sufjan's own mother's recent death. Anyway it's a shame Kanye's such a shithead; he can sometimes show good taste.
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--- Shooting The Future - This news is about a week old but it's been shamefully long since I've done one of these link round-ups so I am behind - Sam Raimi is turning George Friedman's non-fiction hypothetical book The Next 100 Years, which tries to guess what will happen here on Earth politically, economically, so on and so forth, over the next century, into a movie called World War 3... so I am guessing that Mr. Friedman has some dire prognostications? Just guessing. Anybody read the book? No word on if Raimi's making this or his remake of A Prophet first.
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--- And Speaking of week old stories about big time directors adapting books I haven't read, Steven Spielberg has cast the leading man (uh boy?) for Ready Player One, his adaptation of the book by Ernie Cline, and it is Tye Sheridan, adorkable Tye Sheridan. RPO is about a teenager who has to navigate a treasure hunt inside a virtual reality world. The film had already cast the great Ben Mendelsohn. And I ask again: anybody read this book?
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--- Farewell Farrell - Since I saw Dogtooth director Yorgos Lanthimos' latest deranged delight The Lobster (starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz) last fall (here's my review) I will probably always consider it a 2015 film, and I keep forgetting it hasn't even come out here in the US yet! And now all y'all have got longer to wait -- for some unexplained reason the studio A24 just delayed its release to times unknown, even though it was supposed to come out in just one week. (thanks Mac) I'll make sure to keep track of it though since I am dying to see it again myself. Anyway at least I have Olivia Colman (who gives a terrific performance in The Lobster) giving a fascinating, weirdly funny performance on The Night Manager (which I am totally digging) right now to keep me warm...


8 comments:

Row-bin said...

Read RPO when it came out. My main concern is the difference between reality and virtual reality in the film, as it's made quite clear that multiple characters look very different in their real/fictional lives. So the casting I've seen thus far makes sense for the virtual world but not the real one. It'll be interesting to see what Spielberg does re: that.

Francisco Estrada said...

He wasn't torrenting Sufjan's song, he was torrenting something else, a synth program I think. Hopefully he paid Sufjan if he was planning to sample his song anyway.

Anonymous said...

A24 makes amazing movies, but they are so incompetent when it comes to releasing them.

Scot said...

Can you please use kanye's newly minted (by me) name from now on - not that I ever expect you to ever post about him again. He should always be called kanye kardashian! I so want to see how THAT plays out!

Mark B. Wise said...

Ready Player One is a love poem to late 80s geek culture. I enjoyed it, but it's not a Story for the Ages.

Daniel said...

I just read Ready Player One for the second time - it's so much fun, an absolute blast to read. But I share the concern voiced above about how they're going to do the whole virtual world/real world thing. If ever there was a film that called for extensive use of motion-capture performances and digital surroundings, this would be it. It will be interesting to see what Spielberg does with it. There's also a BIG reveal about one character's real world appearance that I don't know if they'll be able to accomplish or not given how everything has a press release these days, but who knows? Stranger things have happened.

I am totally with you on Film Forum's dinky screens. They're fine and all, but I want to see all the films that show there on BIG screens. Also: Curse you for reminding me that the Ziegfeld is dead and gone!

John said...

The Golden Girls was and still is a very funny show. I like them all but I always really enjoyed Sophia and Blanche. Betty White is now the only cast member still alive.

Curtis said...

@Daniel and/or Mark: In your opinion, is Ready Player One still worth reading if you didn't grow up in the 80s? I was going to read it before the movie came out (since I'm a big Spielberg fan) but after realizing what the book was, I'm worried I won't enjoy it because most of the references will go over my head.