"The Link! The Link!"
Sunday, July 10, 2011 at 10:15PM 
My New Plaid Pants Meet Brienne, who'll be very important on Game of Thrones. Eventually.
Critical Condition asks what it will take to get Ewan McGregor an Oscar nomination? We've been asking this for years. He ought to have at least two by now (Moulin Rouge! and Trainspotting)
Tom Shone makes a sound ExPat confession about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Heh.
Frankly My Dear remembers Richard Linklater's Slacker for its 20th.
Pajiba Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) will play Hervé "the plane! the plane!" Villechaize in the biographical My Dinner With Hervé. Like Pajiba I don't see a resemblance at all but Dinklage is a great actor so we wish him all the best in the role.
Sunset Gun recommends Over the Edge with Matt Dillon as a great time capsule and timeless rebellion teen film. I haven't seen this one but I'm now intrigued.
PopMatters I'm not going anywhere near Zookeeper but I'm finding the reviews somewhat interesting in a staring through thick glass kind of way. This one wonders which voice actor has the worst job in the film. That's a good question!
Several blogs have been noting the revision of the Straw Dogs poster -- the original version is to your right where Alexander Skarsgård is mysteriously inside of or ramming into James Marsden's eye (ouch!) rather than reflected in his glasses. Poster design is so half-assed these days, right? It looks much better (to your left) now all black and white and reflected. BUT while they were revising shouldn't they have come up with their own design rather than just recreating the original poster from the 70s Dustin Hoffman film?
Poster design is just so frustrating in Hollywood. The internet reminds us every single day -- and usually several times an hour -- that there are abundant graphic artists out there with the talent to make this another golden age of movie poster design and it just never quite happens. Hollywood, which runs on images, doesn't trust the visual literacy of its clients.
Maybe they shouldn't. I mean I'm sure you've all heard someone look at the rare illustrated movie poster and say "is that a cartoon?" but it's still sad-making.
Reader Comments (10)
you're being a bit of sourpuss about the HP finale, no? The mixed quality of the movies aren't poor enough to deserve Transformers-level hate and there are a lot of people who are getting fairly sentimental about this last one, seeing the amount of time they've spent with the books this past decade. I hated several of the movies myself, but the positive reviews and spirit of camaraderie around this last movie makes for sheer good fun and nostalgic times. I wish you'd just ignore it.
I thought Ewan McGregor was superb in last year's "The Ghost Writer," playing the James Stewart/Cary Grant Everyman part in a very Hitchcockian Polanski film. In fact, I thought he was better than two or three of the Oscar nominees, but it didn't surprise me at all that he gained no awards buzz. He's too subtle and charming, which some people confuse with lightweight. And perhaps, like Grant, he gives off--horror of horrors!--a whiff of sexual ambiguity.
It was a crime that he wasn't nominated for "Moulin Rouge," a performance that made me want to reach into the screen a la "Purple Rose of Cairo" and ask him to marry me. (And I didn't even like "Moulin Rouge" that much. Sacrilege, I know.) I'm afraid he'll have to go the "I Am Sam" or "King's Speech" route to get nominated. He'll need a big honking accent or he'll have to play a famous person and gain 50 lbs for the part. Or he'll have to wait until he's 70 and get an honorary Oscar.
I agree with lily about the HP thing, posting that bitter Tom Shone post really wasn't necessary. He even tries to allude to some conspiracy around the whole franchise, like all critics had to be favorable, just cause he doesn't enjoy them. Narcissism at its worst. Besides the first two (total bores) the rest had something to offer. 6+3 (brilliant, though most changed from books, pissing off many fans), 4 (well made action film with emotional climax), 5 (somewhat of a mess, but sections worked quite well), and 7Pt.1 (didn't feel like a whole film, granted, but very well made). While HP is no LOTR, the makers at least put sound effort and craft into each one. Same can't be said for several other current popular franchises. Let's save the snark for when it's warranted.
owen -- yep. rare is the performer that can excite Oscar while appearing effortless onscreen. I can thiink of only one that comes immediately to mind: Jeff Bridges. And it still took him decades to win an Oscar.
lily & drew-- how is it sourpuss and snarky to link to that post? I think Potter fans are too defensive. Nobody can say I didn't try with that series. I saw every one of the films (well, haven't seen the last yet) and during the middle I sort of enjoyed them (mostly 3 & 5) but i just don't think they're very well made, very well acted, or very interesting.
but maybe it's just residual anger from last year. I shouldn't hold a grudge but what a con job that was. and what long reaching quality-reducing consequences i fear it will have on franchise filmmaking in general (a medium that needed no encouragement to get yet more cynical, repetitive and greedy)
but you'll be happy to hear that I jetissoned an idea that was cooking about a Potter run through here on the blog on each film this week. because i do realize people don't like it when i talk about them so i shall keep my mouth shut (except for to possibly review the last one)
I hope Ewan and Dinklage will receive at least a nomination sooner or later...
I hate the idea of a Straw Dogs remake. I love the original movie so much. In comparision, Michael Haneke's Funny Games is for kids...
They're remaking Straw Dogs? Why?
They're copying the original poster, point for point? WHY?
Regarding Ewan - A Holocost movie would do it, I think. Thank God, however, that he doesn't seem to care - would we love him as much if he were yet another greedy, ambitious, grasping awards-whore? Not likely. I agree with Owen that he was terrific in The Ghost Writer, but far to subtle for AMPAS. His just-right performance as a hapless Everyman is one of the things that makes the movie "stick" in my brain, but to awards bodies I guess it doesn't look like he's doing "anything" (you'd think that people in the film industry would know better?) They prefer someone doing "SOMETHING" - chewing scenery, speechifying, suffering, BIG BIG BIG, etc - which is why Meryl gets nominated for almost everything.
I do take issue with Doug finding Ewan "believable" in Star Wars - nothing saved those turkeys, nothing whatsoever. I think maybe Ewan took it on at first as a lark (and a great paycheck, as well as a nod to family tradition and little-boy fantasy) - but did it look like he was really having a good time by the second one? It takes a particular type of wicked, perverse genius to divest Ewan McGregor of every hint of charm, warmth, charisma, etc - and sadly, George Lucas is that wicked sonafabitch.
Hollywood's so lame. They should've cast an unknown.
No, no,no don't stop making digs against the HP franchise, go on with your sourpuss self, Nat ;-).
I don't hate the Harry Potter movies, they are not interesting enough to warrant such a strong emotion, but I do enjoy reading that I'm not alone in my opinion about them (something that seemed like it might be the case in the last few days of Pottermania).
Nathaniel - sorry. You're no sourpuss - that was a silly thing for me to say. But definitely a bit derisive of the franchise on a whole, and understandably, but I think I also have some right to point out that this is just an especially vulnerable time for us HP fans.
And I completely agree about the movies. I'm a hardcore fan of the books, but I hope that my love/worship is never irrational (we HP fans are pretty biased, but I like to think that we're at least aware of it, and at least capable of taking a joke - that's why we love all those youtube parodies like the HP musical and Puppet Pals), and if anything, my love made the movies even bigger disappointments for me. My memories of the movies mainly consist of leaving the theater and railing about how miserably they failed at adapting the books. But right now is just kind of a last hurrah, and everyone's trying to enjoy it, especially those who literally grew up with the books, such as myself. Our adoration has a pretty intense personal aspect to it, so we're bidding farewell to not just a movie franchise, but an era. Yes, that sounds pretty dramatic, but that's how most of us feel - and goodbyes are hard!! So I think that I'm probably coming off as the real sourpuss here, not you, who understandably never had a huge emotional connection to the books in the first place - so what I was doing is begging for a little leniency for the time being, and afterwards when we recover, you should say whatever you like. I sincerely hope you'll find the last movie enjoyable.