Linknesses
Saturday, September 24, 2011 at 7:20PM 
Just Jared The Rum Diary gets a Johnny Depp-centric poster, opens in October... "absolutely nothing in moderation" tagline. What'cha think?
IndieWire Millenium buys Rampart and aims for an Oscar push for Woody Harrelson this year. My my my Best Actor is getting crowded, right?
Fandor's blog Keyframe just hosted a Guy Maddin blog-a-thon. Check it out.
Movie|Line talks to Sigourney Weaver about supporting Taylor Lautner through the action genre minefields with Abduction. (What a world, right?)
Wow Report Mia Farrow makes a LOL. Best tweet ever?
Cinema Blend Katey interviews Andrew Haigh the writer/director of Weekend. I really enjoyed talking to him too (my interview if you haven't seen it) but I love the bit about his dialogue writing that she gets him to discuss 9/10 minutes in. Very interesting process he has! I should've asked him about that. The bane of interviews is always thinking of things later that you really wish you'd asked.
MNPP James Dean's brotherly love screentest for East of Eden.
Ultra Culture makes a funny with the Meryl Streep poster for The Iron Lady
OffCinema
Sociological Images Elizabeth Warren is my new hero. Finally, a Democrat who can convey message in a clear, confident, convincing way.
Drawn If you're an artist reading, this lengthy video on celebrity caricature is super interesting in terms of technique and how to capture likenesses that are always so manipulated. This bit on Conan O'Brien's hair is choice.
I will draw his hair how we expect it to look, as if it had its own anatomical structure."
-John Kascht
75th Anniversary!
Have you played with this current Google Doodle honoring Jim Henson's birthday yesterday? (Shame I forgot about this one for blog purposes. Grrrr).
It's fun to play with though it's a bit difficult to replicate the two best surprises.
10|25|50|75|100, Guy Maddin, James Dean, Mia Farrow, Muppets, Sigourney Weaver, politics
Reader Comments (8)
I got the glasses coming off and the red monster having a bite.
What did I miss?
BJT -- those were the only two big surprises i found. anyone else?
What do I think about The Rum Diary? Well, it smacks just a bit of artistic redundancy because this director made Withnail and I twenty-four years ago. I'll see it, mostly because I think it's likely to be interesting, but, based on the trailer, it's a very light take on the subject matter and almost certainly outside of Oscar's taste. Though I'd say it's the front runner for the Lead Actor Comedy Globe.
My current predictions for that in chronological order of release:
Owen Wilson, Midnight in Paris
Steve Carell, Crazy, Stupid, Love
(maybe) Paul Rudd, Our Idiot Brother
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 50/50
Johnny Depp, The Rum Diary
Christoph Waltz, Carnage
That poster leaves me cold, both visually and because I feel like I'm exhausted with Depp. Could not care less if I tried.
The best thing about that tweet from Mia (bless her) for me was that it led me to her blog and reminded me I need to donate and pay more attention (any attention, in fact) to the situation in Africa. Bless her again for being a genuine activist, and for having a sense of humor and handling Silverman's jibe in a classy way - it can't have been easy for one's family/personal life to still be a standing national joke for the last umpteen years.
Also, the Iron Lady poster satire is funny but the original poster (and teasers) make Thatcher look like something of a "kewpie doll" to me, someone cute and adorable. She was anything but; and I live in the US not UK but I understand her policies hurt a lot of people. Maybe it's better than I'm thinking - I should wait until it come out - but the marketing makes me rather uneasy. If you're going to make a film about Thatcher I'd rather it be about Thatcher than watch Meryl coast on her easy charm and charisma (the way she did in Julie and Julia. Yes it was fun to watch and yes Meryl was being a ham, but that was a fun subject, so no harm done.)
Why is Sigourney Weaver so intent on being in such awful movies like Abduction or that coemdy flick with Jamie Lee Curtis earlier this year (or was it last year?)? Is she really not being offered anything else?
And I have Johnny Depp fatigue as well.
Lara -- re: Sigourney. She either has a terrible agent, is bad at reading scripts or just isn't being offered anything good. But at least she's never had a problem staying employed.
I'm stunned that more of today's young promising filmmakers aren't beating down her door though. My favorite thing about Tarantino coming up was how desperate he was to play with his living breathing action figures from his youth, giving the careers fresh life as a result. You'd think most young directors having grown up with ALIENS would think that Sigourney was the shit.
ah well...
I'm not sure if I'm still embargoed on it or not, but I saw a work-in-progress screening on The Rum Diary, and without saying anything else, I think we can safely put Giovanni Ribsi and Richard Jenkins into Supporting Actor consideration.