How To Get Away With Linking

/Film Keith Stanfield of Short Term 12 fame will play Snoop Dogg in the N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton. He also has a key supporting role in Selma. So glad things are going his way
Buzzfeed Must read list of 17 black women who deserve their own biopic. God, if we could get even half of these projects greenlit there'd finally be roles for our best black actresses to fight over. I'd replace some of the dream names with better actresses though. Where's my Lorraine Toussaint and Kimberly Elise?
In Contention icymi images from Selma have been going around. Can't wait to see this movie 
Playboy interviews the one and only Terry Gilliam on Zero Theorem and his past pictures

Playbill in light of all the 'was it or wasn't it cut from the movie?' discussion around Into the Woods' songbook, here's a list of famous numbers that were cut from their film versions like Cabaret, Dreamgirls and so on
Gawker has an amusing objection to Clive Owen hawking vodka
MI6 the new James Bond film is looking for a memorable assassin called "Hinx" -- muscular and over 6'2" and will have some major fight scenes. 
Bam Smack Pow a twitter account called Josh Trank gave us our first look at what Jamie Bell will look like in Fantastic Four (i.e. not like Jamie Bell at all. Ugh. Why you wanna cast him in a role where we can't see his face. Sigh) but it turned out to be a prank
Moviefone talks with Joseph Gordon-Levitt about Sin City: A Dame To Kill For and tries to ask about that proposed Sandman adaptation, too

Tweet of the Week

View from my car on the way to work....uh....pressure? pic.twitter.com/28iZ4JyyRz

— Viola Davis (@violadavis) August 23, 2014

 Love you Viola! We do. We do. 

Gay Gay Gay
The Guardian MPAA is homophobic. What else is new. If you have gay content you're obviously always R. Even without sex scenes. See: Love is Strange. 
The Advocate explains why there needs to be more gay sex on television. Looking can't do it alone!   

Cinema and Real Life
The Stake on what we can learn from sci-fi movies and TV about the militarization of police forces 
Salon is the medium's obsession with Robin Williams suicide rough on those struggling with depression? That'd be a yes.

Off Cinema But Of Interest
i09  incredible photo tribute to the cats who served in World War I. I had no idea about this. I now feel personally cheated that there's never been a good cat moment in a prestige war movie.
AV Club have you heard there's a transphobic Congressmen messing with Laverne Cox's Wikipedia page. Shameful. (And while we're on the subject of Orange is the New Black stars, I'm thrilled that Lori Petty will be joining Season 3. I guess she'll get transferred to Litchfield or something)
Salon interviews Sinead O'Connor on her new record and why she won't sing some of her early work anymore 

The Best Film of 1989 That Wasn't

Glenn here to discuss a lil something from 1989, but first a divergence to the modern day.

Last night’s MTV Video Music Awards were like stepping into a pop culture gulag. It’s easy to get misty-eyed thinking about VMA ceremonies of years past, when the network actually showed music videos and the form felt truly like art. Despite being aware of last night’s winner, “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus the icky Terry Richardson, I don’t claim to have near enough knowledge of modern music videos to truly complain. It does seem harder to imagine Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, or Pearl Jam winning these days though, doesn’t it? Are there brilliant works that just aren’t being recognized?

It’s been some time since videos were genuine pop culture moments and the internet certainly doesn’t help. Beyoncé appears to be the only one who’s been able to recreate the buzz of sitting around to watch the premiere of a new Michael Jackson or Madonna video. Most importantly, however, formative years are no longer spent watching music videos hoping to find our new favorite song and reveling in visual genius, rather we leave that to YouTube, iTunes and Spotify while we binge-watch sitcoms on Netflix instead.

Which brings me to 1989. If it weren’t for 1989 we wouldn’t have David Fincher. The future Oscar-nominated director had successes before ’89, but his two collaborations with Madonna that year – “Oh Father” and “Express Yourself” – as well as “Vogue” a year later feel like true moments of breakthrough genius. Whenever I tell fans of David Fincher that they should thank Madonna they balk, but isn’t it kind of true?

“Express Yourself” lost the video of the year award to Neil Young’s “This Note’s For You”, but much like a lot of Madonna’s music career, time has proven that she wasn’t just a momentary flash in the pan spurred on by a public wanting what’s new and shiny. Fincher’s video took liberal inspiration from Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent sci-fi classic Metropolis and gave it a slick and sexualized make-over (before blue filters were over-used). For mine, it remains the best thing David Fincher has ever directed – although, ever the contrarian, I don’t quite know if his maturing directorial instincts are for the better. Rather I find myself getting less excited for each new Fincher film and the very insular heterosexual male worlds they appear to inhabit. Will Gone Girl will change that?

Madonna has always been obsessed with cinema, old and new. She and Fincher would prove that again most famously one year later with “Vogue” with its recreations of the Golden Age of Hollywood as well as Isaac Julien's Looking for Langston. Every cent of Express Yourself's then record-breaking $5mil budget is on screen and it’s heightened, boldly stylized aesthetic is the exact kind that Baz Luhrmann was recreating with Moulin Rouge! over a decade later. From the rain-soaked underclass below to the sensual art-deco with modern twist of Madge’s world up top, “Express Yourself” surpasses even some of the work nominated for art direction and cinematography Oscars that year. Who remembers the sets of Driving Miss Daisy, you know? In a neat twist, Tim Burton’s Batman won the former category, itself also inspired by Metropolis. And remember when they went via satellite to present awards in England? Yikes!

The overt homoeroticism. The power of the pussy. The rally cry of the woman. It’s certainly a video that informed my early years a lot, and would go on to inspire my predilection for excessively stylish cinema as well as bold interpretations of eras. The “Express Yourself” video holds up better than most films of 1989, but perhaps works best of all as a beacon not only for Fincher’s career, but as an encapsulation of where cinema could and eventually would go in the following decades from Quentin Tarantino to endless remakes and reboots. By repurposing Metropolis, everything old was new again. Something we still see the effects of today.

Beauty Vs Beast: Double Oh Golden Boys

JA from MNPP here, using this week's round of our "Beauty vs Beast" series to commemorate the occasion of the 84th anniversary of the birth of that paragon of brute debonair charm, Sean Connery. Who even knew "brute" and "debonair" could be a simultaneous thing til he showed us? Rock 'em sock 'em and shake them martinis, it's a Bond off. I waffled between a couple of villains to face him off against - I do love Dr. No and his awesome plastic head bubble - but when it comes to a bigger-than-bad personality I think the odds are in Gold's favor.

poll by twiigs.com

I just flicked the laser's ON switch - you have one week to make your choice before your bits-and-pieces get all crispy-like, so maybe make it timely this week? I mean, I'm only thinking of your privates.

PREVIOUSLY We dove down under da sea to duke it out between Disney's ginger mermaid princess and the big bad brassy sea-hag whos after her pipes... well poor sweet Ariel kinda never stood a chance against so much divine deliciousness; Ursula swam off with a pirate booty's full two-thirds of the vote. Said Alan P:

"Ariel may be the leading lady we all love, but a diva is a diva, and a diva is forever!"

Box Office: An Expensive Lesson in Sequel Production

Amir here, with the weekend’s box office report. Much like last week, the biggest story at the multiplex is the massive failure of a has-been brand. Then, it was the shrinking shoulders of 80s action heroes that could not bear the weight of a changing, modern world. Now, it is Frank Miller’s overly familiar aesthetic and the fading stars of Jessica Alba and crew. This catastrophe is of epic proportions. Budgeted around $70m, Sin City: A Dame To Kill For failed to make even 1/10th of its production costs back and fell behind the aforementioned Expendables 3. Reviews haven’t been kind and any affection for the original film has vanished in the intervening decade. You either have to suffocate the audiences with non-stop sequels and reboots before they know who’s hitting them, or they’ll forget you. That’s the lesson for Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller and one they have had to pay at least $50m dollars to learn.

The best selling wide release was also the weekend’s Film Amir Is Too Old To Watch, a romance starring Chloe Grace Moretz called If I Stay that didn’t have the muscle to take the throne from Guardians or Turtles, making this one of the year’s quieter weekends. 

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
01 GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY $17.6 (cum. $251.8)  Review
02 ...NINJA TURTLES $16.8 (cum. $145.6) remember the animated one?
03 IF I STAY $16.2 *new*
04 LET'S BE COPS $11 (cum. $45.2)
05 WHEN THE GAME STANDS TALL $9 *new*
06 THE GIVER $6.7 (cum. $24.1) Review
07 THE EXPENDABLES 3 $6.6 (cum. $27.5)  recommended read
08 SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR $6.4 *new*
09 THE HUNDRED FOOT JOURNEY $5.5 (cum. $32.7) 
10 INTO THE STORM $3.8 (cum. $38.3)  
11 LUCY $3.5 (cum. $113.7) Podcast
12 BOYHOOD  $1.8 (cum. $16.5)  Review & Podcast
13 MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT $1.3 (cum. $6.8)  
14 DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES $1.1 (cum. $203.9) Podcast & Reviewish
15 GET ON UP  $.9 (cum. $28.7) Review & Viola Davis

On the limited side, brighter news: Ira Sach's Love Is Strange a film The Film Experience adores, did strong business on only 5 screens. Here’s hoping it expands across North America as quickly as possible. The only new release I watched in the past couple of days is Ari Folman’s The Congress, which isn’t actually out until next weekend. Stay tuned for my review! What have you watched this weekend?

Balls

I went to a ball.

I got a trophy.

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