Link Out Your Dead

My New Plaid Pants a funny exchange between David Cronenberg and Robert Pattinson regarding Cosmopolis' prostrate exam scene
Pajiba 7 performances that changed our minds about actors this year
Movie|Line hey girl, it's the Ryan Gosling coloring book 
Serious Film chooses his Oscar ballot for Best Actor if the awards were only once an... ever. 

Hollywood Robert Pattinson will play TE Lawrence (of Arabia) in a new movie about Gertrud Bell which will star Naomi Watts. She's really, suddenly, fighting for that Oscar again what with all these biopic roles.
Movies Now A Mary Pickford revival is on the way
Arts Beat Raiders of the Lost Ark gets a week on IMAX screens in September. Yay! That'll be fun.

Sad News About Dead Projects
/Film says that Eastern Promises 2 is probably dead. Ugh. I so needed more Viggo as Nicolai in my life. I really did. 
Empire Henry Selick, who did such an excellent job shepherding Coraline to the screen had been working on another stop motion film for Disney. They've pulled the plug. God, hadn't they seen Coraline or The Nightmare Before X-Mas? This man is an amazing talent.

Happy News About Dead Projects
Finally Fox has turned the rights to Daredevil back over to Marvel (who'd like all their characters back, thank you) after not getting it together for a reboot (Joe Carnahan had been mapping one out). Daredevil was obviously Fox's sacrificial lamb because they didn't want to give anything Fantastic Four related back and (contractual) time was running out on both properties. It's really too bad that Marvel can't get all their characters back because they're better at the superhero movie making than the other studios are. Plus, imagine the crossover possibilities. This might be shortsighted on Fox's behalf though because Daredevil is not a bad franchise concept at all. It was just that Fox did a T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E job translating it to screens, with horrible casting, horrible movie making, horrible visualization of Daredevil's radar (he's a blind superhero, remember) and horrible everything. Worse yet they sullied the property by pissing away its best story arc on a subpar movie. The Daredevil vs. Bullseye vs. Elektra arc was nothing short of classic scary exciting unnerving in Frank Miller's hands in the comic books. On screen not so much... or rather not at all. If I were in charge (lol. I'm *so* not!) I'd give up trying to reboot Daredevil as a movie but relaunch him with a TV series, part legal procedural, part organized crime drama, part superheroics.  You'd only get to Bullseye and Elektra once the series had found its voice and sure footing because you don't wanna be fucking that storyline up; it's gold.

Comments

[thatone]

Except for Avengers, the best of the genre have not been made by Marvel Studios. Spider-man 2 (Sony), X-men 2 (Fox), Watchmen (WB), and the Dark Knight trilogy (WB). Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk...all mediocre. Avengers and the original Iron Man are the only Marvel Studios films that aren't silly, unimaginitive schlockfests.

[Jonny]

I would totally watch that Daredevil series.

[Troy H.]

And in other link news, Sheryl Lee Ralph will play Jennifer Hudson's mother next season on "Smash": http://www.playbill.com/news/article/169102-Tell-Us-Miss-Jones-Dreamgirls-Sheryl-Lee-Ralph-Will-Guest-Star-on-Second-Season-of-Smash

I cannot contain my excitement. For realz.

[Adam]

I hope Watts wins that Oscar. In my opinion, she's been robbed of 3 noms (King Kong, Painted Veil, Mulholland Dr.) 2 of which should have been wins. Dr. would have been a great winning performance any year, Kong only due to the weakness of the field in '05, but still a great movie star turn + probably holds up as the best performance opposite mostly green screen put to film. So I say, get that Oscar girl!

[BVR]

@Adam: Watts was good in King Kong, but nothing in '05 touches Joan Allen in 'The Upside of Anger.' If there was ever a most egregious snub that was it. But agree that Watts was Oscar-worthy for Mulholland Dr., and kudos for mentioning The Painted Veil, an underrated gem of '06

[Volvagia]

thatone: Avengers, very good. Original Iron Man is very good. X-2 is very good. Nolan's Batman trilogy is overall excellent, but the rest of my top ten superhero films (a list of comic book adaptations of any genre would knock off Iron Man, The Dark Knight Rises and X-2 for A History of Violence, Ghost World and Persepolis) would be:

Superman (1978) (It's, ultimately, the originator of the modern superhero film and, though more than a little goofy in today's eyes, it ultimately has a strong charm to it, and understands what Superman means more than...sigh...Superman Returns AND Man of Steel.)
Batman Returns (yes, the plotting is relentlessly scattershot, but that's true of EVERY Burton except Peewee's Big Adventure. To like Burton, you have to be allow that a film can be a masterwork primarily based on aesthetics and performance instead of plot. And here, unlike the original Batman, the movie is a sight to behold.)
The Incredibles
Hellboy

Watchmen isn't horrible (B-), it just isn't particularly creative and I didn't get why they chose Spider-Man the first time if they refused to put a mouth on the guy. In regards to Marvel's stuff being mediocre...yeah, their stuff is mediocre, but they're not as bad as most of the DC superhero fare. Just counting franchise launchers, Warner Bros. has Steel, Supergirl, Jonah Hex, Green Lantern, Catwoman, RED, Superman Returns and LXG under their belt. (I know critics slammed The Spirit hard as well, but that movie was clearly TRYING to be so bad it's good (see also, under other films that succeed at doing that: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Crank 2) and I thought it was actually kind of endearing. History will be kinder to it than critics at the time were. Personal grade: B.) What are the horrible "Marvel" franchise launchers? Daredevil, Fantastic Four and two attempts at Ghost Rider.

Marvel: Twelve franchise launches, four TERRIBLE movies (notice the terrible ones are also produced by other companies), three commercial failures.
DC: Twelve franchise launches, eight TERRIBLE movies (I've seen five, but the other three have reputations as being either dull or unconfused failures), eight commercial failures. (Superman Returns succeeded and The Spirit failed at the box office.)