Wednesday, August 31, 2016

A Smile While I Away

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I have to run to a screening so I will
just leave this here to keep you company.
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I Am Link

--- Fifty Inches - ET talked to Jamie Dornan about a few things, including the next season of The Fall and his upcoming horror-drama The 9th Life of Louis Drax with Sarah Gadon, but of course the takeaway is the part where they ask him if he's gonna show his dick in the Fifty Shades sequel and he pleads the fifth. Oh Jamie, we've already seen the damned thing! What can it matter now? Just walk around without any pants on all the time at this point. Seriously. Do.
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--- Wiser Kid - Stephen Cone, the director of the terrific (and queer) two-some of films The Wise Kids and Henry Gamble's Birthday Party, is currently shooting his third movie, hurray! It's called Princess Cyd and it's about a girl from South Carolina who spends the summer with her aunt in Chicago and falls for a local tomboy. Cone gives good quote about his fascination about the relationships between young people and adults at that link so don't miss it; he's such an interesting and curious filmmaker.
--- Dead Eyes - This is a pretty nerdy bit of business about John Carpenter's classic The Thing but if you're nerdy on that movie you'll want to click on over to the Blumhouse website where they've maybe gotten a handle on the movie's ambiguous ending thanks to cinematographer Dean Cundey, who did an interview for the new blu-ray release of the film where he talks about a lighting trick they used to denote who's a Thing and who isn't a Thing.
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--- Norma Jean - Assassination of Jesse James director Andrew Dominik has that Nick Cave doc coming out so he's doing press and he's talking about his next film, which is that Marilyn Monroe movie (I hesitate to call it a bio-pic because it sounds like he's doing something more interesting than that term implies) Blonde -- Netflix has picked it up so there is forward momentum but it sounds like Jessica Chastain's off of it; no word on the lady who'll step into her place. Playing Marilyn is a tricky business, so I hope she's sturdy.
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--- Learn Me Good - Harmony Korine is now set to direct Tampa, an adaptation of Alissa Nutting's apparently darkly comedic and controversial book about a teacher getting involved with a teenage student. Anybody read it? I could've sworn I'd posted about this story before because I went out and bought the book awhile back, but I can't find that post so I don't know what inspired me to buy the book way back when. Maybe one of you encouraged me to read it? I don't know. I still haven't read it though. But hooray for Harmony!
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--- A Monster Delays - One of my most anticipated movies remaining this year, JA Barona's A Monster Calls, just got delayed a full two months from October 21st to December 23rd! Damn damn damn! It's supposedly a good sign towards the quality of the film that the studio wants the movie in awards competition or something but I could give a rat's, I just want to see the thing already. It also seems like a strange bet to me - if the movie's as good as the book it will involve some fine acting but a movie starring a great big CG tree-monster isn't exactly in the Academy's wheelhouse. Here's the trailer, if you wanna cry.
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---  And Speaking of Movies I Am Looking Forward To, the folks over at The Film Experience (except not me, I missed this one) did a list of the movies playing film festivals this fall that they're most looking forward to and I can't really disagree with anything they included, so it seems my participation was moot anyway. I wouldn't change a thing! Okay my enthusiasm for La La Land isn't quite as high as theirs is (musicals, ya know) but I still plan on seeing it. Oh and PS I am seeing one of the movies listed here tonight! Whee!
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--- And Finally I don't really know what inspired Bryan Fuller to say these things while talking to the folks on a podcast about American Gods, his forthcoming Neil Gaiman adaptation... well, besides Bryan's brilliance when it comes to massaging the internet press (of which I include myself, cuz here I am!) ... but I gotta quote these passages here because... obviously.

"We have so many visual effects that involve digital erections... We have conversations, ‘Well, should we get [a] dildo and strap it onto the actors, is that going to be more cost effective? Or is it easier just to give them digital erections?"

Bryan, Bryan, Bryan! The cheapest boner is a real boner! Boners are free, and abundant. But seriously there are several candidates in this cast that I hope he's talking about becoming members of the Boner Club but mostly I  hope we're talking about lots of Ricky Whittle boner action (oh Ricky Whittle)... and PS to myself I should really be doing a better job keeping up with Ricky's Instagram, as that picture above makes abundantly clear. Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn.
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Henry Cavill Makes Us Happy

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I assume you all saw the pictures of Henry Cavill at the beach yesterday - if you missed them, click here. After they appeared I was perfectly happy for a few minutes (which if you know me might be a record) but then it struck me...
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...and I wasn't so happy anymore. Unhappy! But I guess Henry and/or Henry's people felt that quake in the force and today...

I am happy again!
Viva happiness!
(via, thx Mac)

ETA oh wait there are even more!
Hit the jump for even more!

I Will Follow You, Taylor Kitsch

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The Dowdle Brothers, the directing duo who made the decent US remake of [REC] called Quarantine and the decent Paris Underground horror-thriller As Above So Below (my review) are lining up a more prestigious gig for their next gig - they are making a miniseries about the 1993 stand-off in Waco, Texas between David Koresh and his cult of Branch Davidians and the FBI, and it will star Taylor Kitsch as Koresh and Michael Shannon as the lead FBI negotiator. Koresh was a good-looking guy (you know how them cult leaders be) so I don't immediately scoff at casting pretty-boy Kitsch as him, but I'm not sure it's the right kind of pretty?
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Collider says that this would make for a great subject for a season of American Crime Story but I can't see Ryan Murphy & Co. being that interested in the police aspect. I mean who would Sarah Paulson even play? (Oh my god Sarah Paulson should play Koresh.)

Anyway the series will be based on a pair of books, A Place Called Waco by a former member of the cult and Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator by the dude that Shannon is playing. It's weird that nobody's really taken on this subject before right? I mean besides Tim Daly, of course...

Today's Mood

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Good luck to each and every one of you unseeing this gif of Sigourney Weaver's dummy getting manhandled behind-the-scenes of Aliens. I feel as if I am laying the curse from The Ring upon you -- I have passed the horror along now, perhaps I can be free.......... (nope, it never goes away)
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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

you can learn from:

Pretty Woman (1990)

Vivian: Edward, are you in town on, 
uh... business or pleasure ? 
Edward: Business, I think. 
Vivian: Business, you think. Well... let me guess. 
That would make you... a lawyer. 
Edward: A lawyer. 
Vivian: Mm-hmm. 
Edward: What makes you think I'm a lawyer ? 
Vivian: You've got that... sharp, useless look about you.
Edward: I bet you've known a lot of lawyers. 
Vivian: I've known a lot of everybody.

A happy 67th birthday to Richard Gere today!
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Five Frames From ?

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What movie is this?
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Good Morning, Gratuitous Donald Glover

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I've been seeing Donald Glover all over the place lately, what with his new FX series Atlanta - which he created and wrote - premiering in a week, and so it's a good thing I like looking at Donald Glover, and all. And since I only watched Community sporadically and I don't listen to his music I hope the show's good - it will finally give me an outlet for looking. 

Anyway I've posted some pictures of Donald in the past, click here for them, but I figured twas as good a time as any here on the precipice of this maybe-something to gather up a buncha pics since they're just sitting all over the internet asking to be gathered up, and shuffle them into one nice big place. Here is that nice big place. Or rather after the jump is that nice big place....

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Blue Fassy

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I feel as if I haven't been paying enough attention to the fact that there's a movie starring Michael Fassbender that was directed by Derek "Blue Valentine" Cianfrance that is out in two days, so here's an attempt to rectify that -- here are two pictures of Fassy & Derek on the set of The Light Between Oceans which I scavenged from this interview with the latter at The Film Stage. They could make out and I wouldn't complain. Anyway in case you missed this movie's trailer we covered that right here - this is an adaptation of the 2013 book by ML Stedman, which I have not read. Have you? I believe it was a big bestseller.... or at least it seems like the sort of book that would be a best-seller anyway.


Beach Body By Cavill

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How much pressure do you think Henry Cavill's publicist has been putting on him to do one of these beach photo-shoots? (Let's not pretend the photographers just happened to catch him, surprise, okay? We're all adults here.) And I wonder how many of these publicists saw Orlando Bloom's Dick Adventure and doubled and tripled their dogged efforts. The bar's been already raised, Henry! But we'll take the baby-steps alongside you, baby. We'll even hold your... hand? Sure, hand. Hit the jump for the rest...

Alan Bates, Mustache Icon

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I should have known better than to even go looking for pictures of Alan Bates in Georgy Girl earlier today for my post on the movies of 1966, because what happens when I go looking for pictures of Alan Bates in anything any time is I end up looking at pictures of Alan Bates forever, and ever. Today started with Georgy but before I knew it I had stumbled upon the above picture of Alan in Richard Lester's 1975 film Royal Flash, and now I am obsessed. It didn't take much. Just...

... that mustache and several strange and erotically-suggestive shots of Bates with his co-star Malcom McDowell to do it. I have absolutely no clue what's going on in this movie...

... but I can't wait to find out. Have any of you seen it? The entire thing has been uploaded onto DailyMotion thankfully, so our internet-scouring isn't too difficult to do so, if need be. Here, let us watch it together...
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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:


J. Lawrence Bradford: I'll ask you to return my check, please.
Carol King: Your check, huh that's on exhibition over there 
on the wall. I figured you'd stop payment on it. 
 J. Lawrence Bradford: I'll take the necessary steps... 
Carol King: You'll do what? Listen, you made a sap out of 
yourself and you tried your best to make a sap out of me. 
Now I never want to see you again, understand? 
And as for your check, well, you don't think I hold 
myself as cheaply as all that do you? 
J. Lawrence Bradford: Cheaply? Ten thousand dollars? 
Carol King: Well that's your estimate of me, not mine. 
That check is framed, not cashed! I put it there to remind me 
never to get mixed up with your kind again! 

My boyfriend's a big fan of the Busby Berkeley musicals and even though I'm not much for musicals I've made it through them on the strength on two things and two things alone -- 1) those kaleidoscopic dance numbers they're famous for, and 2) Joan Blondell, who I always find extremely likeable.

And it's good to have somebody on-screen to like when there are gorillas like Ruby Keeler & Dick Powell clomping around. (Ugh those two are the worst.) Anyway here's my favorite thing from any Berkeley movie -- the "Forgotten Man" number that ends this film:
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Blondell was born 110 years ago today! 
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Great Moments In Movie Shelves #81

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"Put... ze... candle... beck."

I caught James Whale's The Bride of Frankenstein on TCM this past weekend and every time that happens not a week can pass without me digging out my copy of Mel Brooks' 1974 film Young Frankenstein to complete the set -- well with Gene Wilder's death yesterday this took on a sad urgency. I'm glad to say that even with that spectre cast upon it the film still had me crying with laughter, and I knew once I was reminded of this scene we'd be posting it today. Here:
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One thing I wanted to note on this movie that I haven't entirely formulated out in my head but I figure it's now or never what with the way my attention span's dissolved into non-existence -- the roles for the actresses in Young Frankenstein (the tremendous trifecta of Teri Garr, Madeline Kahn, and Cloris Leachman) are as funny, if not funnier, than the men's.

I suppose in a sane world such things wouldn't need to be pointed out, but this is a film written and directed by men, as so many are, and these days it feels so novel (case in point: Rose Byrne in the Neighbors movies) when a woman's given anything to do in a boy's movie that watching this movie from 1974 kind of felt like a revelation seen through today's lens.

Granted we're talking about comic-actresses with the chops of Teri Garr, Madeline Kahn, and Cloris Leachman here! And they were often the best things in movies that were paying less attention to them, too. But give 'em the chance and pow bang right in the schwanzstucker. And we have (many, many) comic-actresses out there today capable of these comic heights. We just gotta stop sticking them in shitty roles -- we've regressed in such odd ways, in some ways. Let's stop it.

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1966

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Siri, the strange lady who lives inside my phone and talks to me, is determined to make this series pretty easy for me - the past several times that I have asked her to pick me a number between 1 and 100 she has rarely strayed out of the latter half of the 20th Century, when movie-making was full tilt boogie and where I have many options from which to choose. I keep feeling self-conscious about this, like you're going to think I'm cheating and asking her several times before I get one from an easy year, but I promise you: I go with whatever one she says first. I haven't gotten a repeat year yet. 

So anyway this morning Siri told me 66, whether you believe me or not, so The Movies of 1966 it is. We did 1967 just three weeks back, which brings with it a complication - one of the movies I chose for my five favorite films of 1967 is Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-up, which had a weird release schedule that straddled the two years. I went with 1967 because I wanted it on my list then, but you need to know that if I hadn't used it for that earlier list it would have made this list. Blow-up is one of my favorite films of ever. (One of the films below also straddles the two years but I'm using it here, so tit for tat I guess.) So let's get to what did make it...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1966

(dir. Mike Nichols)
-- released on June 22nd 1966 --

(dir. Ingmar Bergman)
-- released on October 13th 1966 --

(dir. Robert Bresson)
-- released on May 25th 1966 --

(dir. Roman Polanski)
-- released on November 7th 1966 --

(dir. John Frankenheimer)
-- released on October 5th 1966 --

(Note: It's weird that all of my picks from a year well into
 the 60s are shot in black and white, right? An atypical bunch!)

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Runners-up: Georgy Girl (dir. Silvio Narizzano),
Torn Curtain (dir. Alfred Hitchcock), 
Django (dir. Sergio Corbucci),
Fantastic Voyage (dir. Richard Fleischer),
Masculin Féminin (dir. Jean-luc Godard),
Chelsea Girls (dir. Morrissey/Warhol)
Never Seen: Chimes at Midnight (dir. Welles),
Daisies (dir. Chytilová), A Man and a Woman (dir. Lelouch)
What are your favorite movies of 1966?
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Five Frames From ?

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What movie is this?
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