whoa. no link roundups in forever. time to catch up on movie news and/or must see web droppings
Yahoo Movies Fine Thelma Adams piece on Prometheus' "foreign object" sequence. [shudder]
24 Frames Noomi Rapace and Sigourney Weavers' Alien franchise screen tests
IndieWire six life saving tips for cinematographers from the great Darius Khondji (Se7en, Evita, Midnight in Paris, and more...)
Empire Penelope Cruz will star in her fifth Pedro Almodóvar movie Fleeting Lovers (title may change) which starts shooting this summer. Yay! Double Yay! All About My Mother star Cecilia Roth is also in the cast.
YouTube if there's anything I hate about YouTube it's the ability to name your videos "official". But this "Official" Les Miserable trailer starring (gulp) Katie Holmes is kind of a good prank... I mean Nightmare!
In Contention production designer J Michael Riva (Django Unchained, The Color Purple) has passed away at 63.
Awards Daily Singin' in the Rain is getting a 60th anniversary rerelease on July 12th. Just in time for the Gene Kelly Centennial. And yes, if I can manage it here at the Film Experience July and August will house a big Gene Kelly retrospective right here at the Film Experience. He's up there with Montgomery Clift in my favorite (male) movie star charts after all.
Life of Pi the tiger growls memorably for the first time on the official website. Also he looks amazing.
Movie|Line Better three years late than never. Xavier Dolan's award winning debut film (and Canadian Oscar submission in its year) I Killed My Mother is FINALLY getting a US theatrical release.
Guardian hears that The Avengers might get a three hour version for theatrical rerelease this fall. Considering Joss Whedon's comments on the deleted material (indulgent, killing the rhythm) and his own feelings about different versions of the same story (no) perhaps this is a very bad idea.
Queerty the red band ass abundant Magic Mike trailer.
filmmaking tips
IndieWire six life saving tips for cinematographers from the great Darius Khondji (Se7en, Evita, Midnight in Paris, and more...)
Movie|Line twenty-two pieces of storytelling advice from a Pixar artist
LA Times offers up awards show tips for the Oscars (hey, that's sorta filmmaking tips) via the Tony Awards though I will continue to hate everyone and especially every writer who suggests very publicly that we don't need to see Costume Designers winning their prizes. A pox on all your craft-hating houses!
casting news we don't have much to say about but we should probably share anyway...
Greer takes over for Buckley in the Carrie remake
- Jean Dujardin is in talks to join Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street
- Amy Ryan and Dane DeHaan may join an upcoming non-documentary take on West Memphis Three currently starring Colin Firth and Allesandro Nivola (my god how many movies will this story inspire by 2020?)
- John Madden's "Exotic Marigold" follow up is a comedy called Murder Mystery and may star Charlize Theron
- Judy Greer (recently interviewed right here) wins the gym teacher role in Carrie, previously played by the great Betty Buckley. I only wish I weren't so dreading the movie.
off cinema
Gawker an alligator eating a croc?
Sound Cloud she may have lost the Tony but Jayne Houdyshell keeps giving it from Follies. She rerecorded "Broadway Baby" as a solo for a compilation. It's wonderful!
Cinema Blend an amusing piece about that George Bush head on spike story from Game of Thrones
Zachary Quinto, Claire Danes, Chris Rock, The Fanning Sisters... and that's just a tiny sample.Finally...
Have you seen the Paramount Pictures celebration? They gathered 116 stars together -- NOT photoshopped, actually there -- for a Centennial Photo.
The photo is so big you have to scroll to get the whole thing on your computer. You can mouse over it to enlarge see who's in the shot but without doing so I spotted George Clooney, Jamie Lee Curtis, George Takei, Julianne Moore, Meryl, Mark & Marty, Jane Fonda and Eddie Murphy straightaway. Watching the video gives you a closer look at the star networking. Watching stars mingle is the best part of starry events... though they never share enough.
It makes you wonder who knows each other and who doesn't. And who really does or doesn't want to be talking to whom. Did the stars who haven't had a good role in decades bee-line to the directors present (Lynch, Fincher, Scorsese, etcetera) or have they given up but for anniversary shindigs to honor their past glories? All I know for sure is that photo events like this make me happy.