Linking
Monday, January 20, 2014 at 8:30PM The Stir Laura Linney had a baby despite none of us knowing she was pregnant
The Wire Joe Reid plans to see all 58 Oscar nominated movies from 2013
LA Times George Clooney pretends to be pissed about Tina Fey's Golden Globes joke
Gawker loves the idea of Detroit getting a bronze Robocop statue. It needs a hero!
Film School Rejects as I predicted Margot Robbie is wracking up the roles in the wake of Wolf of Wall St
Interview Magazine Kanye West interviewed by Steve McQueen. Expect quotables
tv
/Film what's going on with Nicolas Winding Refn's Barbarella TV series?
previouslytv "your crotch is not that interesting" on HBO's Looking
Vulture on the new and improved Lady Edith on Downton Abbey
Coming Soon Jason Isaacs is joining the Rosemary's Baby tv miniseries as Roman Castavet (good part!) ... and word is that Zoe Saldana may get the famous pixie cut for it
Looking premiered and I missed it. But more when i catch up with it
a chain reaction
NY Times has a piece about why it might be better for the cinema if there were less movies each year. It's an interesting article that I mostly agree with though I wholeheartedly wish that Manohla hadn't felt the need to diss Iron Man 3 which is hardly the best example of junk blockbusters out there -- at least it was trying something vaguely new, making a Tony Stark movie rather than an Iron Man movie essentially. But let's not get distracted. Her piece was provocative asking for curation over consumption for programmers and money people.
The New Yorker disagrees, arguing that we only get the great discoveries because so many indie films are made. You can't predict which new artists will actually deliver.
The Front Row takes this as an opportunity to talk about what the purpose of film criticism is in the internet era and then
Mark Harris comments, too
...all of which gives us plenty to think about.
Reader Comments (9)
Was hoping you'd highlight the pair of links featuring Amy Adams and Cate Blanchett singing recently! I'm sure you saw Amy at the gay bar crushing "Defying Gravity," but Cate also sang a Beatles tune at the SAG press room Q&A. We need a musical with the two of them!
Really liked Looking's low-key, subtle, chilled opening. It's not what I expect from a pilot which was a pleasant surprise. I feel like Andrew Haigh and Michael Lannan were on a perfect wavelength in introducing who these characters are, the dynamics, and the yearning of all of them in less than 30 minutes. I don't get the link saying it's shallow. Brandon Nowalk's AV Club piece stated it perfectly along with Joe Reid.
God the more I think about it, the better I think it was that George Clooney was not at the Globes during the time of that joke. Because he thinks he can be just as funny.
I know some people think McQueen and Kanye is the height of pretension. Naw, that would be Kanye and Nicolas Winding Refn- and I say that as a Refn fan. Seeing a photo a young McQueen and reading about his life story in an interview, he seems like a character in the Shane Meadows This is England series. I just never found his work pretentious. Visual (it completely clicked when I read he was dyslexic- he never has written any of his films) but not anywhere near who I think of as arthouse. I kinda wanted Shame to **go there** more than it did.
I feel Joe's quest-I do it every year and blog about it-there's always a handful of hard to find films.
Jordan -- i did not know of either of those things. I am very out of pocket right now in Sundance so any tips for links i always appreciate at filmexperience (at) gmail (dot) com
Happy for Laura. She should have been Barbra in August.
Peggy Sue - Laura Linney as Barbara would have been awesome. Julia Roberts did well, but I can already hear Linney saying "Eat the fish, bitch" with such vitriol.
Ah, I can just now see Laura and Jessica Lange in those roles...woulda been grand!
I loved Looking's pilot. Lots of nice looking lads doing cruising and threesomes. Not enough cocks.
I agree that that article choosing, specifically, Iron Man 3 was beyond dumb. Man of Steel? Oz: The Great and Powerful? The Host? Star Trek Into Darkness? Fast & Furious 6? The Hangover Part III? After Earth? The Lone Ranger? R.I.P.D.? Riddick? Carrie? 47 Ronin? The Hobbit 2? ALL of those are better choices to highlight the malaise of the commercial Hollywood than the actual result of Iron Man 3.