Curio: Suspect and Fugitive

Alexa here with your weekly arts and crafts.   Nathaniel's banana Bond boredom from last week reminded me of a project that Seattle-based artist Kris Garland/Rakka Deer did back in 2008.  Titled Suspect and Fugitive, the series involved making one item a day from suspect (questionable) and fugitive (non archival) materials. This involved Rakka combining pop culture portraiture with food (and sometimes other materials) in new and clever ways every day for one year.

Like this pancake Cate Blanchett...

Pancake Blanchett

Maybe Nathaniel should try this.  Favorite actresses and foodstuffs maybe?  In any case, here is some more inspiration courtesy of Rakka from Donnie Darko to Doris Day after the jump

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Podcast: Charming Musicians, Frosty Survivors, Talking Apes

It's one-on-one podcast time this week. Nathaniel and Nick discuss two movies they're sympatico on (Begin Again and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) and one which halfway divides them (Snowpiercer). 

You can listen at the bottom of the post or download the conversation on iTunes. Continue the conversation in the comments.

Index
00:01 Intro & Scene Stealing
01:30 Begin Again: rough starts, Mark Ruffalo's abrasiveness, Keira Knightley overall excellence, how it compares to Once.
14:00 Why we're not talking Boyhood. Plus the difficulty of grading ambitious movies.
20:00 Snowpiercer: allegory, structure, and the fight over the final cut, Tilda Swinton of course. Plus Bong Joon-ho and Korean cinema.
35:00 Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: highlight scenes, amazing imagery, franchise politics, Jason Clarke, and Caesar vs. Koba.
45:00 "Lost Stars" 

What is this picture doing here? You'll have to listen to find out.

Begin Again Snowpiercer Dawn of...

1973 Look Back: Biblical Musicals

Our celebration of 1973 continues with Andrew on Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar

In 1970 John-Michael Tebelak was completing work on his master’s thesis project about Jesus Christ at Carnegie Mellon University. Before long he would pair up with musician and lyricist Stephen Schwartz and in May of 1971 the musical Godspell would officially begin playing. Around the same time, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice were finalising work on a rock album, a concept musical of sorts, on the last ten days of Jesus' life. The album would be released in the fall of 1970, and one year later Jesus Christ Superstar, the musical developed from the soundtrack, would open on Broadway. By some weird happenstance the fates of the two Jesus musicals would be tied*. Two years later, the two musicals (both moderate hits on stage by that time) saw screen adaptations released in 1973.

One religious stage-musical adapted to the big screen is a curiosity; two religious film musicals – both of them from recent stage hits -  in a single year is fascinating. Two religious film musicals in the same year from recent stage hits which both cover, generally, the same subject? Too intriguing to ignore.

Two Jesus musicals, two very different Jesuses. More...

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Beauty Vs Beast: A Dog Eat Dog World

JA from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty Vs Beast," which is a real Hemingway-esque battle between the forces of Man and the forces of the Untamed Wildnerness. On the one side we have Tom Hanks, multiple Oscar winner, as the determined Detective Scott Turner, trying to solve the most important make-it-or-break-it case of his career. And on the other side... there's Hooch, the junkyard dog who witnessed this most heinous act of murder.

As the VHS box said at the video-store I worked at in high school, they're the oddest couple ever unleashed! Today is actually the 25th anniversary of Turner & Hooch's release, and heck, somebody should note it. Tom Hanks would probably rather it be forgotten, and I probably haven't seen the movie in 20 years, but I was 11 when it came out and dang it... I totally saw it. That means something.

T&H was actually a pretty big hit though (as movies with adorable feisty doggies sometimes are). It was in that period post-Big pre-Philadelphia where Hanks was flailing a bit - people look back fondly on The Burbs and Joe Vs The Volcano now but at the time tweren't so, and then there's the giant sucking sound of The Bonfire of the Vanities. And Turner & Hooch, of course. Of course! The story of a neatnik cop learning to love a tower of slobber. And in return, as the film's Wiki puts it, "on a positive note Hooch also instigates a romance between Turner and the new town veterinarian Emily Carson (Mare Winningham)." But I think the main user review of the film at IMDb says it best:

"My boyfriend loves this movie so I watched it and I laughed. Hooch acts exactly like our dog- big and messy and destructive. Tom Hanks was very convincing as a meticulous detective and Hooch is a hoot as a dog that can rattle him.. All in all this is a good movie to watch on a rainy afternoon like we did."

What more could you ask for? Now on to the choosing!

poll by twiigs.com

One week is all you've got to slap a leash on your winner and march them around the ring - tell us in the comments who you're barking for!

PREVIOUSLY Last week I asked you guys to choose between the Devil and an Oscar-winning actress, and I'm not surpised the actress took it but proving he's no fluke the Devil really put up a good fight. Still it was Chris MacNeil who walked about with 3/4s of the ultimate vote, winning not just her daughter back from the depths of Hell itself, but also your validation (clearly the bigger prize). Said brookesboy:

"Ellen is so brilliant in this film, I have to go with Chris. Still, that devil has some impressive tricks up his sleeve, even if theoretically he is against vulgar displays of power. Team Chris! Give her that damn crucifix already!"

Introducing Pt 2... Blair and Candy

Previously on "Introducing": Tatum, Sylvia & Madeline

It's just 3 days until the Supporting Actress Smackdown of 1973. Bless StinkyLulu for dreaming up this event years ago because it's still so fun. But first some unfinished introductions: how do Candy Clark and Linda Blair enter their movies. If you hadn't yet seen the movie would you be expecting an Oscar nomination from these first scenes? What do the scenes telegraph for first time viewing? 

Sure do love you.

Hi, Mom!

11½ minutes in. Meet "Regan" (Linda Blair in The Exorcist)
How fitting that she first appears in bed, since she'll spend the bulk of the movie in one albeit it under far more horrific circumstances than a good night's sleep. As the scene begins her mother Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) has heard noises in her Georgetown rental and checks on her daughter first. Sound asleep. But there's a telling pan left to the open window, curtains blowing, and despite the maternal warmth and blissful lack of scoring or over-done sound design at this moment (it does sound plausibly like a rat or racoon in the attic) the scene is subtly chilling. The Exorcist understands the slow build and modulation and starts pianisssimo.  Chris kisses her daughter and pulls the covers up. When we see Regan again five minutes later she's just a typical bouncy teenager who talks pretty horses and steals cookies. If you'd never heard of The Exorcist before you first saw it (fat chance) you could safely assume that both the mom and the daughter might soon be in peril, but nothing else. The Exorcist establishes home life normalcy first before demonic insanity betrays its fragility.

Babe. What a bitchin' babe!

30¾ minutes in. Meet "Debbie" (Candy Clark in American Graffiti)
American Graffiti is about four friends after high school graduation but by the half hour mark they've all split up and the film becomes four parallel films as they cruise around the strip in different cars or on foot. We meet so many characters, first spotted from car windows, including one previous blonde fantasy girl that Debbie's entrance doesn't seem major... at first. Initially Debbie is presented in completely objectified fashion as Terry (Charles Martin Smith) calls her a Babe (to himself) and hears other men cat call her. He follows her in the car and she's getting nervous in this neighborhood and walks faster. But after a minute of fruitless one-sided conversation from his car he tells her she looks like Connie Stevens. Her temperature changes and she beelines straight for him, suddenly a different person. It's a special entrance just from Clark's offkilter switch. She's the one suddenly objectifying... only its the car she's lustfully eyeing and possibly more compliments, too.

She'd get the ultimate compliment with an Oscar nomination.

Be here on Thursday afternoon when our awesome panel discusses these five nominated performances in the monthly Smackdown event. This is your last day to vote on the 1973 supporting actress shortlist by sending me heart ratings -- for only the ones you've seen -- on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being unimproveable feats of acting. (Reminder: Next month is 1989)