The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)

A couple of weeks ago news spread around the internet that Universal might revive The Creature From the Black Lagoon as part of their planned Classic Monsters universe (every studio wants their own connected franchises now post Marvel Studios). It didn't seem like much of a news story at the time, full of "mights" and "possibly" and "they're interested in Scarlett Johannson." Scarlett for the buxom conquest, not the amphibious creature of course!

You know the type of "news" I'm talking about. The type we get when there's no story at all yet. But since we're celebrating 1954 next week with the Smackdown, why not travel back in time to the original to see if it's worth reviving at all?

I may or may not have seen this old horror flick as a child on TV but if so I had no recall whatsover so this would be like a first screening. I imagined from the posters that it would be like a watery King Kong, a tragic beauty & beast story. This was quite wrong. 

Thoughts I had while screening... 

• Rather unexpectedly the film begins with a brief "Creation of the Earth" myth complete with Biblical narration and visuals of explosions, clouds, and an earth-like sphere, followed eventually by more nature footage of stormy oceans and sand.

It's surprisingly easy to picture Terrence Malick at 10 years of age agog at a drive-in in the Midwest when the movie arrived in early 1954. (10 might be the ideal age for this.)

More after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Curio: Getting Intimate With Ingrid

Alexa here with a curio in honor of Ingrid Bergman's centennial.  A few years ago, during a stop at Brooklyn thrift shop The Thing for some record shopping, I spied a paperback lying with a small pile of vintage books. There's nothing I love more than a pulpy celebrity biography, so I left the store without any LPs and with Ingrid Bergman: An Intimate Portrait in my bag instead.

It turned out to be perfect summer reading...

Click to read more ...

Miscellania: Tarantino's Quotes, Horror's ROI, and Crown's Actors

Dan Callahan interviews Ingrid Bergman's daughters for her centennial
Vulture Quentin Tarantino interviewed. He likes the films of the Duplass Brothers, loves The Newsroom (um, okay?) and disses on Cate Blanchett and Oscar Bait. 
Salon is Daniel (Ralph Macchio) the real bully in The Karate Kid? A contrarian reading
Planet Money Horror films continue to be the best return on investments for producers 
AV Club rumor has it that George Miller is being courted for Man of Steel 2. Danger! There's no way Warner Bros would let him go as expectation averse wild with that franchise as he allowed himself to go with his own franchise for Fury Road 
Grantland rising screenwriter Max Landis (yes, son of John) talks American Ultra, studio franchises versus original material and admits he "despised" Jurassic World

Salon talks to Gaby Hoffman (Transparent, Girls) about her unique roles of late
Mashable now superheroes are even entering the beauty industry with face mask treatments
Variety names ten actors to watch but some of them have been with us a long time like mumbling Emory Cohen (he's got a huge role in Brooklyn later this year, and thankfully he's dumped the mumbling and excessive tics for that one) or are couple of years into it like Short Term 12's Keith Stanfield. Glad to see Tessa Thompson (Dear White People) and Bel Powley (Diary of a Teenage Girl) on the list
Empire the great Alfre Woodard joins the cast of Luke Cage for Netflix in a very big role 
Film School Rejects on the best shows of the summer coming from the most unlikely places (like USA's Mr Robot or Lifetime's UnReal). But maybe they kill their own argument with MTV's "Scream" which I keep hearing is truly terrible. 

About Male Privilege and Hollywood's Resistance to Female Directors
/Film good essay with very solid points on the lack of female directors being offered big studio jobs and Colin Trevorrow's recent responses about the problem. He clearly means well but his response is naive - suggested that women have too much integrity is a bit too flatteringly sexist -- like a 'but women are sugar and spice and too noble to lower themselves thusly!'

Off Cinema
The Hugo Awards this year's sci-fi literary awards had all sorts of drama with shady ballot stuffing and conscientious objecting to said ballot stuffing and so on so they've elected "no awards" in several categories. But big winners were Marvel's "Ms. Marvel" for graphic story "Guardians of the Galaxy" & "Orphan Black" for the drama prizes. The top prize for Best Novel went to "The Three Body Problem".
Boy Culture "Beat it, I'm Madonna" a great video mashup of Michael Jackson & Madonna
Vimeo Penis painting the Queen and Princess Diana. No really. And obviously NSFW 

Actors in The Regular News
Variety turns out one of the all time best French actors was on that Amsterdam to Paris train that was attacked. He sounded the alarm. Well done, Jean-Hugues Anglade.
The Wrap sad about this - Rosie O'Donnell's 17 year old mixed up with drugs, a 25 year old alleged heroin dealer arrested for endangerment of minor. And Rosie just played a sad mom with a troubled teen daughter onThe Fosters.

Finally
Netflix is making a series The Crown about the early reign of Queen Elizabeth. Helen Mirren had to step down from her signature role this time since the series takes place when she was but 21 years of age and inherited the thrown. Claire Foy, who played Anne Boleyn in Wolf Hall, plays the royal. People magazine has photos but they don't share this one so I thank Kevin Daly for providing. It's John Lithgow as Winston Churchill and the wondrous screen bitch Harriet Walter as someone... not sure who.

Love her. And she doesn't get enough credit. She's so terrifically callous in Sense & Sensibility (1995) and we've seen her several times in other costume dramas: Young Victoria, Downton Abbey, Cheri, A Royal Affair.

Beauty vs Beast: Audrey in the Middle

Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" -- you're probably vividly aware at this point that this month's Supporting Actress Smackdown is tackling the ladies of 1954, especially since just the other day the Smackdowners listed some of their favorite things about that year. And what a year it was! I was pretty tempted to give this week's contest over to my favorite movie of all-time Rear Window (it's in a lifelong dead heat with Rosemary's Baby for that mantle, actually) but... well that's awfully expected of me. How many of these posts have I already dedicated to Hitchcock movies?

So I looked a smidge deeper and found a perfectly pleasant second pick -- after all, who wouldn't want to put themselves in Audrey Hepburn's designer shoes for a moment? Sabrina it is! Make like you're Billy Wilder's leading lady and choose -- Bogart's puppy-eyed businessman or Holden's suave playboy?

PREVIOUSLY Last week we brought it on with the rival cheerleading squads of Bring It On -- but who brought it bigger in the end? In a reversal of the movie's well-reason donouement we've handed our trophy to the loveable cheaters the Rancho Carne Toros! The curse of the dropped spirit stick is broken! Said Jonn:

"Team Jesse Bradford brushing his teeth isn't an option?!"

H8teful Eight vs Black Mass: Character Posters

Manuel here bringing you two sets of character posters that are sure to adorn plenty of dorms soon. White, red and gray is in, apparently, as the new posters for Quentin Tarantino’s eighth film The H8teful Eight (am I doing th8t right?) and the Johnny Depp-starrer Black Mass show:

Click to embiggen (or see them individually here)

We probably knew these were coming for the Tarantino flick (whose trailer we discussed in all its gif-tastic glory), but I can’t be the only one surprised that we’ve got such stylish character posters for that Whitey Bulger flick. When discussing its trailer, we talked about whether this might be the film to bust Depp out of its rut or further bury him in prosthetically-enhanced performance purgatory. Jury is still out, though not for long as the film opens September 18th. We have to wait a bit longer for Tarantino's latest which is waiting until Christmas to be unwrapped.

Click to embiggen (or see them individually here) 

So many male actors! Only Leigh and Johnson offer some much-needed actressing at the edges to both casts. Which set gets your vote?