Wednesday, August 16, 2017

I Am Link

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--- Sasha's Fierce - I was just thinking about American Honey actress Sasha Lane earlier today (for a post you're all going to enjoy tomorrow morning, wink wink) and wondering when the heck she was going to show up in something since she was tremendous in that movie, and he we are! I have conjured greatness from the ether with my thoughts once again. Sasha is in the process of signing on to the Hellboy reboot! The one that we're excited about despite its immediate Del Toro history because of director Neil Marshall and an amazing cast that already includes David Harbour, Ian McShane, and Milla Jovovich.
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--- Vroom Vroom - This almost became a "Quote of the Day" post but then Edgar Wright kept talking and talking and the good quotes kept coming and I realized I'd have to quote the entire thing for that so instead here I will just send you over to Vulture where the Baby Driver director got asked about the movie crossing the 100 million dollar mark this week, his biggest hit ever by a whole lot, and he used the occasion to smartly celebrate original screenplays. Lord knows I wasn't a fan of Baby Driver - an anomaly among Wright's work for sure - but I'm happy for its success all the same for all the reasons he elucidates here.
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--- Scarlet Spider - Tom Holland needs to dust off his "That's a spicy meat-ahh-ball"'s because he's about to play the real-life Italian teenager Pino Lella (you have no idea how hard I am wishing his last name was "Grigio") who was forced into the German Army during WWII and used his time there saving Jews by ferrying them through the Alps. Kind of Schindler's Mountain, then. It's called Beneath a Scarlet Sky and it's based on the book by Mark Sullivan - anybody read it?
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--- Peak Peaks - I could spend all day sharing links about Twin Peaks with you because some of the best writing on the internet is happening right now thanks to David Lynch's triumphant cacophony of sound and image aka That TV Show, and because I am currently reading two books about the world (this one and this one, and I can't believe I never knew that second book has existed for 25 years until this week).

But here's just a pair -- I wish they'd formatted this better (the embedded tweets are pretty sloppy) but Birth Movies Death did an amazing round-up of the overlap between images we have seen on the new batch of episodes with images from Lynch's artwork. He's been playing with some of these his entire career. 

And second I loved this piece at the Ringer praising Kyle MacLachlan's brilliantly fractured performance as Dougie Jones and Evil Coop, and what it all means, and I just have to share the article's conclusion (slightly spoilery obviously) because this is super on-point about the entire show's purpose, i think:

"With every tic and affectation — every burst of violence from Evil Coop, every slurred pronouncement from Dougie Jones — MacLachlan further delineates the differences between the first Twin Peaks and the follow-up. At first, the tensions in this season simply seemed like a result of Lynch and Frost making the story they wanted to make, regardless of nostalgia. But heading into The Return’s final stretch, frustrated nostalgia almost seems to be the point. It’s even written into the text: The typically catatonic Dougie comes alive whenever he makes contact with iconic motifs from the original show, like coffee or cherry pie. These aren’t meta references for meta’s sake. Instead, they’re part of The Return’s larger meditation on how much or how little people, places, and things can shift over, well, almost 30 years. We see it in the diminished state of Catherine Coulson, who was dying of cancer when she filmed her last scenes as the Log Lady; we see it in Amanda Seyfried’s Becky Burnett (née Briggs) following in her mother Shelly’s footsteps by getting trapped in an abusive relationship. Most of all, though, we see it in everything MacLachlan is doing, and how well he’s doing it."
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--- Never Halt - The second best show on TV isn't quite on TV yet but it will be in a few days - Halt and Catch Fire returns for its fourth and final (sigh) season on Saturday night (smartly side-stepping the clotted Sunday night landscape) and Vulture chatted a very fine chat indeed with its breakout bleached wunderkind Mackenzie Davis, mi amor. A big chunk of the conversation is about how her character in Ridley Scott's The Martian was Korean in the book, and she has some really interesting stuff to say about the position she found herself in with that whitewashing controversy. God I love her. I can't wait to see her in Blade Runner - she (and Villenueve) are the things I'm most excited about there by leaps and bounds.

--- Gang Bang - It's the 50th anniversary of Arthur Penn's film (although just calling it a "film" seems too small a word in this instance) Bonnie & Clyde (perhaps you have heard of it) and over at The Film Experience Eric wrote up a very fine little ode to the movie and its long, deep legacy, and oh yeah its incredible white-hot movie-star pairing with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. I mean they're so hot they burned the Oscars fifty years later!
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--- Gone West - Despite all the beefcakey trailers I still haven't gotten out to see Ingrid Goes West yet (it's been a busy dang week) but there are a good pair of interviews with its cast going around - our pal Jose got to chat with Aubrey Plaza about it over at The Film Stage and the talk turned to how fucking great Bette Midler is, of all things, but why not? Aubrey says she's dying to put together a movie where they play mother and daughter and what a coincidence I am dying to see that movie. Make it happen! And second over at BuzzFeed our pal Jarett got to talk to Ingrid co-star and resident slab of hunk Billy Magnussen and Billy calls himself "a piece of ass" and my life will never be the same. I don't know how Jarett didn't just fall out of his seat. Stronger than me!
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--- Chinny Chin Chin - Bruce Campbell's second memoir came out yesterday - it's called Hail to the Chin and it shares his exploits of the past fifteen years ever since he wrote and released his first memoir, the eminently enjoyable If Chins Could Kill. I think he's a little rough on his chin. It's not that crazy a chin, Bruce. Anyway he chatted with BD about the book and says he's got a third one already in the works but we shouldn't plan on seeing that for another fifteen years. No word on what the "Chin" title will be. He also talks about Ash vs Evil Dead's upcoming third season there, I guess but I skipped that part because I didn't want spoilers. Oh and there are also a couple promo videos (for the book) starring the man right here. (thanks Mac)
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--- Twilight of the God - As if I needed more reason to fall harder head over dick for Robert Pattinson after his great streak of acting roles culminated in this month's tour de force in Good Time (here is my review) he went and talked to the LA Times (thanks Mac) about his stiff case of cinephilia, and he said he's currently been binging the movies of Ken Russell, including The Devils. I want to watch The Devils with Robert Pattinson! He calls Oliver Reed's performance therein "unreal." Oh, Rob.
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---  And Finally some TV casting news to thrill about - Barbara Hershey, whose career is lots and lots more than starring in Beaches but who will always be Hillary Whitney to me all the same, has joined the new season of The X-Files! She's playing "a powerful figure who represents a mysterious organization" and given where the last little run of episodes ended (with a kind of apocalypse breaking out) I imagine that'll be something to see. Just like Beaches!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love your link posts. You're always so thorough explaining the links it makes them more interesting. It's usually a lot of work that seems to go unnoticed... So, thanks, for this thankless job.

iggy

Jason Adams said...

iggy -- Seriously, thank you a lot for that; these posts take TONS of work and I often put them off for longer than I should because I have this weird sense memory of how much effort goes into them, so acknowledgement here specifically is encouraging :)

Shane said...

I just got finished reading "Beneath a Scarlet Sky" literally 2 days ago. It was a great book and absolutely astonishing that it is a true story. The whole time I was reading it, I kept thinking "This would make a great movie." Tom Holland has the right look and charm for Pino, not to mention the acting chops. I'm really excited for this!