A Year with Kate: Summertime (1955)

Episode 29 of 52: In which David Lean's beautiful romantic classic gives Katharine Hepburn an eye infection and me a headache

I admit it. The spinster movies confuse me. When Nick and Nathaniel invited me on the podcast (Have you listened to the podcast? Go listen to the podcast), I stated outright that I don’t like Summertime. As a fan, I take almost personal offense hearing my idol continuously called “plain” or (at best) “interesting-looking.”

But as a cinephile, David Lean’s 1955 love letter to Venice engages me. I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for a scopophilic travelogue cinematography. And trains. And Technicolor films that overuse the color red. And judging from last year's Hit Me With Your Best Shot submissions for Summertime, many of you share my inner conflict.

Summertime is more a mood piece than a plot-driven story. David Lean exorcised most of the third act from Arthur Laurents’ original play, Time of the Cuckoo, in order to create a sweetly romantic view of Venice, love, and September romance. Kate plays Jane Hudson, a secretary from Akron, Ohio who comes to Venice for… something. Adventure, maybe? Hanging out the window of the train to the city with her 8mm camera rolling, Jane proves herself immediately to be a curious and active observer.

Red goblets be damned; that 8mm camera is most important object in David Lean's movie. [More...]

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These Actresses Are Just One of the Guys

abstew here. This year marks the 25th anniversary of one of the my favorite movies growing up, Troop Beverly Hills. (I mistakenly thought the woman with curly red hair on the VHS cover was my beloved Bette Midler, but when I realized it wasn't, I loved the movie too much to care and made my parents rent it at least once a month.) But all those times I watched those Wilderness Girls singing about the virtues of Cookie Time, I never thought that the actress playing Shelley Long's daughter, Hannah Nefler, would grow up to be my absolute favorite singer/songwriter Jenny Lewis. She writes the songs that make me remember that I have feelings. If you opened my chest it would be in the shape of Jenny Lewis.

KStew, singer Jenny Lewis, Brie Larson, and Annie Hathaway

After a brief stint as a child star (even appearing on an episode of The Golden Girls and, more importantly, in the film that introduced the world to Super Mario Brothers 3), she later became the lead singer of the indie band Rilo Kiley. Even though the band broke up in 2011, she hasn't stopped making music and her new album "The Voyager" comes out on July 29th. For the first single, Just One of the Guys, she even enlisted some famous actresses to appear alongside her in the video, which she also directed.

Kristen Stewart, Anne Hathaway, and Brie Larson appear as themselves as her all-in-white back-up band, but then also hilariously take on the personas of some track suit-sporting bros. Annie plays a sensitive, rat-tailed break dancer. Brie actually kinda looks like a cute boy that every girl in middle school would have a crush on because of his non-threatening, vaguely feminine demeanor. And the MVP of the video has to be KStew who seems to be enjoying herself more here than I think I've ever seen her before. I hope some studio executive is watching this video and already casting her as a young rapper in Michigan living on 8 Mile. Or the Justin Beiber story. Cause I've never seen her so free and loose. It's fun to see.

Question #1 These three ladies in drag: Do, Dump, or Marry?

Lewis probably enlisted Hathaway to appear in the video as she, along with her boyfriend Johnathan Rice (who appeared as Roy Orbison in Walk the Line), composed the music for the indie musical film starring the Oscar-winner, Song One, that debuted at Sundance earlier in the year. Lewis can also be heard at the movies this summer as she wrote the music for the coming-of-age indie Very Good Girls starring Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen, available now on VOD and in limited release later this month.

Question #2: Which 3 actresses would you cast in your own music video (cross-dressing optional)? 

Best Shot: Any Batman Film (1966-2012)

Hit Me With Your Best Shot returns from its June hiatus for a 75th celebration of the masked vigilante with a thing for winged rodents (here's the future schedule - next week is Under the Skin). We asked anyone who wanted to play to pick a theatrically released Batman film (there are 9 of them) and choose its best shot. Here's what the participants saw when they looked at these pictures.

Click on the photos to read the corresponding articles. It's the Same Bat-Time on Same Different Bat Channels. 

BEST SHOTS IN BATMAN FILM FRANCHISE
29 images selected from 9 films by 17 participants

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Tues Top Twenty: Halfway Hotties (Best of 2014)

The power of list compels me! Yes, yes, I need to move on from halfway mark madness (we've previously covered best visuals, best acting, best sounds, and best movies) since they're already out of date and it's been so busy what with chart updates (in progress), Emmy nominations, Smackdown panel announcements, Dawn of the Planet and Apes, Boyhood. We need to be back in THE NOW. But I'm dragging my feet mostly because I really like what 2014's been giving. I'm crushing on it hard and thinking about asking it to go steady. 

This is the final halfway mark list. A shorter version of it was published in my column at Towleroad which happens to be "a site with homosexual tendencies" but I've significantly altered it for you because you are all movie mad and the best moviegoers are polysexual when it comes to lusting after big screen beauty.

Why aren't old favorites in this list?
This list is dedicated to Steve Rogers' impossibly broad shoulders and Natasha Romanoff's awesome cleavage (it was generous of Scarlett to unzip for that helicopter scene, don't you think?) but here's the thing. Doing the same shtick over and over again is not sexy. It's like choosing between missionary style and horizontal with man on top. So I've determined that people are totally ineligible if we've seen them do their character multiple times so no franchise babes that aren't newbies or signifantly altered.

Why isn't Marion Cotillard's Immigrant on this list?
Because we'd feel guilty if we lusted after beautiful Polish immigrants who are tricked into becoming sad whores to provide for their sickly sister.

20 HOTTEST ACTOR/CHARACTERS OF 2014 

20 Tom Hiddleston as “The Great Escapo” in Muppets Most Wanted
Boyfriend Material?: Great sense of humor. Into light bondage to spice things up. Looks fiiiiine in a pair of longjohns. Is, to date, the only performance in the Muppets 35 year franchise that’s likely to cause pervy crotch-focused gifs on the internet.
Dealbreaker: Probably in a Russian gulag for a reason

19 Nick Thurston as “Blue Eyes” in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes 
Boyfriend Material?: "Blue Eyes" is right... so soulful. This one's for the plushies... but not the bears. Blue Eyes hates the bears. Easily manipulated (a plus for you control freaks). Plus scars can make you strong / give you character. 
Dealbreaker: Limited conversationalist. Daddy issues.

18 more AFTER THE JUMP...

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Queen of the Desert Pic and Nicole in the Oscar Race?

Queen of the Desert, Werner Herzog's biopic on Gertrud Bell starring Nicole Kidman wrapped filming in March. Though it's still looking for a distributor it looks like post-production is all done since producers are tweeting about the final cut and calling it "EPIC". Herzog has also expressed real enthusiasm about Nicole's performance in his slightly oddball way of speaking.

"Now, Nicole Kidman,” Herzog said of her lead performance in "Queen Of The Desert." “Wait for that one. Wait for it. I make an ominous prediction: How good she is.”

(You can even hear his voice when you read quotes from him, can't you?)

Nicole shared this photo of the wrap of shooting.first official image. will they keep this aspect ratio? it's so Lawrence of Arabia long

Of course all of this is from people who are involved in the picture so they'd never be anything less than enthusiastic. But I myself have high hopes and I'm not involved. Unless you count my heart which belongs to Nicole.

Though I'd love for Werner Herzog to have a major Oscar success -- imagine how fun he would be on the campaign trail all season? -- the truth is Oscar has resisted him over and over again. Despite a prolific acclaimed filmography his only Oscar success is Encounters at the End of the World (Documentary Nomination, 2007). Nope, they didn't even go for the classic going insane in the jungle epic Aguire, The Wrath of God (1972) or the classic going insane building opera houses movie Fitzcarraldo (1982) or the classic already insane and hanging out with bears in the wilderness doc Grizzly Man (2005) all of which attracted awards heat elsewhere... just not with AMPAS. (Does Nicole Kidman go insane in the desert? I'm sensing a theme here.)

This sudden burst of news about the picture and our love of Nicole Kidman has us hoping she can climb the Oscar charts. But given that last year's Best Actress Shorlist had the most communal previous nominations of all time  I'm sensing this is the kind of year where Oscar is going to want some fresh blood.

UPDATED OSCAR CHARTS
BEST ACTRESS and BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS