Links. Episode #14,001,382
Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at 5:52PM 
I apologize for my uncharacteristic absence today. The day is just not really working out for me. Enjoy these links while I try to shake the mood off.
Frankly My Dear... Captain Adama Edward James Olmos honored at the Florida Film Festival. He's still very proud of his contributions to Blade Runner and Stand and Deliver.
My New Plaid Pants signs on to the Saoirse Ronan bandwagon post Hanna. People keep asking me if I have seen this. I have not seen this. I need a reason as I'm so not enjoying this teen assassin pop culture craze. It makes me so queasy.
Slash Film Robert Richardson, one of our favorite DPs will shoot Brad Pitt's World War Z movie.
Sunset Gun on an unusual choice in heartbreaking Woody Allen pictures: Take the Money and Run.
The AV Club looks at the new Mike Leigh Topsy-Turvy DVD.
The Wrap the BFCA has a spin off group now BTCA which will host Emmy style awards. Hopefully they'll use their powers for good and not try to predict the Emmys. The Emmys, way more than the Oscars, need pushes towards quality tv when they are often so content to vote for whatever they voted for the year before, even when shows take quality downturns.
Celebrity Blend Kelly McGillis is working at a Rehab Center. Good for her.
Slate with Arthur in the pop culture air again -- albeit sobered up -- here's a piece that looks on artists before and after sobriety including Stephen King and Martin Scorsese.
One of the things that makes The Shining one of the best books ever written about alcoholism is that it doesn't know what it is about. It was an act of urgent self-diagnosis, conducted in the pitch dark.
Finally...
Tribeca Film asks if movie theaters should think more like Netflix. I L-O-V-E this idea. I really think subscription models are the way to go in many business.
Would you buy admission to your favorite movie theater on a subscription basis?
Reader Comments (21)
Hanna doesn't really celebrate the fact that she's an assassin (well, the final scene kind of glorifies it a little). If anything it shows how odd and out of place it makes her. Then again, I don't find myself too bothered by most things in terms of cinema violence, so I wasn't really going to be critical of that aspect to begin with.
I would buy a subscription to a movie theatre if I lived in a major city. But at my local movieplex? No way.
I agree with @adelutza. I think theater subscriptions would work VERY well in major cities. I would most definitely subscribe. AMC is already making you pay to participate in their "rewards program."
A subscription for me would only work in a major city and one that had an arts/cinema scene. Ideally a theater like the Cinemark in Evanston I used to go to when I lived in Chicago. One side shows the popcorn flicks and the other shows the indies. My tastes vary too much for a subscription to your standard mall cineplex.
Cinefamily in Los Angeles has a subscription membership and it works marvelously. Of course all screenings are available for individual tix at about $10 a piece, but for $30 a month, you get unlimited screening, members only screenings, and some other goodies. More premium memberships offer special things like advanced seating (they have couches that fill up quick) and guest passes too. When I was jobless, I bought a membership for a month and saw 10 movies. (maybe more, they do a lot of double/triple features at will)
So yeah, subscriptions are amazing at well run places.
Agree with what Daniel Armour said. This is so far from being "Hit Girl: The Movie," even if there is a moment or two (like the above-mentioned final shot) that sort of veers into that territory. Not a great movie, but Wright and the cast/score/cinematography totally elevate the script and make it something special and strange.
I agree in re: to Hanna...it's a fantastic movie...total 180 to Kick Ass...the acting is incredible, and the story is much more concerned with Hanna's internal conflict as an outsider and observer in modern society...Saoirse and Cate were great and it's easily one of the more intriguing and better movies so far released this year.
I would absolutely subscribe to my favorite theater.
Subscription movie theaters would not work...
First of all, how do you stop someone from handing over their pass to someone else?
Second, the reason that Netflix works is because all 20 million of their subscribers can watch the same thing at the same time..the system might crash, but you get my point. Movie theaters have capacities.
Third, I don't think it can be a monthly pass. It definitely needs to be a yearly subscription. That way people will still go to the movies in slow months and not let their membership lapse.
There's a way that they might, but it needs to be thought out. I wouldn't mind paying $400 a year for an AMC pass that I could use at all AMC Theaters, not just one or two but ALL of them.
You might think that $400 sounds like a lot of money, but that's 32 movies at $12.50...Yet, if you also have a yearly pass you would pay a $2-3 (Rather than a $5) surcharge for 3-D movies. This would also be another way to get people to see 3-D movies.
Lastly, do you know that you can get discounted tickets online for nearly every major movie theater chain? I don't pay more than $8 to see a movie at AMC (unless it's in 3D or Imax) and neither should you. Regal, Landmark, Laemmle, AMC, Angelika, IFC...they ALL have discounted tickets. #End Rant
well the reason i think it's a good idea is that it would encourage movie theaters to make sure they are special places and not just a screen that's slightly bigger than what you can get at home.
Obviously if movie theaters offered this people would only buy subscriptions to the places with good seats and screens. and those are the theaters that should stay in business anyway. For a long time i've known that the shitty experiences you get at some movie theaters have really dampened enthusiasm for the general public to "go to the movies" when they can see movies at home so easily.
i also think the subscription model would encourage people (after a while) to take more chances on what kinds of movies they'd go see. and it would encourage theaters to book less obvious choices too -- like one alternate screen or a small movie on a big screen every once in awhile. it's kind of like how the HBO model lets them spend a lot on a production that wouldn't necessarily make a mint if people were only buying that program individually.
In the UK Cineworld cinemas have an unlimited card that you sign up to for at least a year from £13.50 a month and can see as many films as you like. Seeing as one normal adult ticket is about £8.50 you can make a fantastic saving and never miss a film. I wouldn't have seen Black Swan five times without it!
I've totally bough advance tickets, like months in advance for the Cinematheque when it was still open. I don't know if that counts.
LOL Paolo. Then tears that a Cinematheque has closed. Did you buy tickets for anything, then it closed and you never got to see it?
They have a system like this in the UK at the Cineworld chain, I have never used the scheme but it seems to work as its been running for a few years now. You have to sign up in person and they put your photo on the card so that others can't use it.
http://www.cineworld.co.uk/unlimited
I just need one reason to see Hanna: Olivia Williams. Really looking foward to see what she's gonna do with what seems to be a tiny, tiny part. But she always leaves an impression, no matter how tiny or not all that interesting the part is supposed to be.
The Emmys aren't solely in rinse and repeat mode with their winners. They're the only awards group that actually watches submissions of their nominees and don't rely on a popular vote to choose their winners. Not sure if there needs to be an entire TV awards spinoff for the BFCAs, but it might be interesting to see what they come up with in their winners. Usually their TV nominees are just three nominees and the most popular choice wins. Hope this group goes to more effort than that for their winners.
10 reasons to see Hanna:
1. Saoirse Ronan solidifies herself as a really gifted actress and shows a physical side of herself that will surprise you.
2. Storytelling and film making allusions to Grimm fairy tales, Fassbender, Tom Tykwer, and the French films of the '80s by Carax, Besson, and Beineix.
3. The awesome Chemical Brothers score.
4. Cate Blanchett in maybe her most fun role in years, playing a vampy and almost mystical villain.
5. Dripping wet Eric Bana.
6. The entire middle section travelogue in which Hanna continually runs into a hippy-dippy family caravan headed by Olivia Williams. Hanna's relationship with the daughter is really special, and the girl who plays the daughter is HILARIOUS.
7. Tom Hollander's wickedly deranged performance. This the same doofus from In the Loop?! The scene where he's whistling in the container park is creepy and bizarre.
8. The realization that Joe Wright is capable of a lot more than we ever thought possible and is clearly as big a film nerd as the rest of us.
9. It's encouraging to see a Hollywood action movie that is this unique and clever that also somehow manages to make a decent amount of money.
10. The last line of the movie and the cut to the title card. Awesome.
There. Don't tell me that no one's given you a good reason to see it. I will never stop telling people to go watch it. I loved it.
I thought Hanna was awful and forgettable. Save your money and see Screan 4 instead.
This is probably kind of irrelevant news, but anyway as you're a big Almodóvar fan...
I was watching the news and there was the teaser to an interview/piece with him tomorrow. He had just received the poster for his next movie which he showed to the camera. Unfortunately it isn't as imaginative as the teaser poster. Half of it is that disturbing image with Elena Anaya wearing a white mask. So, half the poster is the right side of her face with that mask, and the other half is Banderas' left side of his face. Probably his most mainstream poster. I cannot think of an example of a similar poster, but I'm sure I've seen that design (the two main actors half heads) lots of times.
Reporting from Madrid for TFE, iggy. ;)
I've just realised last time I talked about Almodóvar it was also about the posters, about those fan made posters I thought were legitimate. I feel typecast