Open Thread. Fix Your Face! "Look at My Muscles"

Jim Broadbent fixes Katherine Helmond's face in Brazil (1985)This week's banner is going out to Dusty who won the Kidman focused Say What contest. (Last week's "eye roll" was a hit so why not continue?) Dusty chose facial restoration of any kind. Cheeky! Thus I am obliged to pose thusly (see right hand sidebar) and find celebrity photos to accompany my goopiness up top. Hope you enjoy.

But this leads me to three questions.

01. Is this some sort of hint that I need to fix myself? It's true I have been looking worse for the wear (I don't recommend turning 40+)  as stated in the "weight watching" thread. So I'll take the hint given what I suggested there and set up a weekly offsite email group for encouragement (exercize, self-improvement, whatnot... probably with movies to help us) because it's easier to stay motivated in numbers. If you're interested, let me know. Consider it a sidebar experiment.

02. What's your favorite facial restoration technique or makeover sequence in a movie? 

03. Have you seen this little clip* from Ryan Gosling's Lost River? I'm only displaying it here because I was typing about self-improvement / possible exercize when I first heard its weird in your face mantra... 

Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. Look at my muscles. 

Yes, Matt Smith says it 13 times in this clip.

*I hope at some point there is a great reckoning about the lawlessness of YouTube and claims of "officialness" The account that posted this calls it the "official trailer" which it is clearly not (they are not the production company and there's no title or names or anything so if it's official it's doing a terrible job of making people aware of the movie) and a ton of websites are calling it the "first official teaser". I believe this is what's always been known as a "clip," a little moment (or moments) from the film. Words have meanings. Use them appropriately. 

Curio: Celebrating Sir Ian

Alexa here with some film curios for you. It's a big week for Sir Ian McKellen.  X-Men: Days of Future Past opens with his return as Magneto (along with Fassy playing the younger version of course) and on Sunday he turns 75.  He has much to celebrate, such a long and storied career on stage and screen, but I do wish there'd been an Oscar by now (he was my pick in 1999 for his James Whale in Gods and Monsters).  Maybe his turn as an aged Sherlock Holmes in A Slight Trick of the Mind will bring one? I'm already excited to see his interpretation of the deductive master.

 For now, here are some goodies to wish him a happy three-quarters century.

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RIP: Gordon Willis, cinematography of "The Godfather", "Manhattan", "All the President's Men"...

Here's one of my personal favorite critics, Tim Brayton, with a gracious crossposting of his lovely obituary for one of the greatest cinematographers who ever lived. - Nathaniel

It’s not tragic when an 82-year-old man, who had been happily retired for 17 years, following an incredibly strong and well-regarded career, dies. Any of us would be lucky and blessed to have that kind of live and that kind of death. But the loss of Gordon Willis on May 18 is heartbreaking anyway: it’s always heartbreaking when a true genius, visionary, and leader of his field passes away.

Willis was the most important cinematographer of the last 50 years of cinema. I don't know of any clearer or more concise way of putting it. If he'd only shot The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II, a pair of films that fundamentally altered the way people used lighting and focus and the peculiar film stock of '70s American filmmaking, he would be one of the great masters of his field, and his passing a day of mourning for all cinephiles.

A beauty break featuring some of his greatest achievements after the jump...

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Podcast: Neighbors & Godzilla

On this week's podcast Katey Rich (Vanity Fair) returns from her wedding and Nick Davis (Nick's Flick Picks) moderates a Neighbors discussion with Joe Reid (The Wire) and Nathaniel R, (The Film Experience) while deciding whether or not to see it. Then we all talk Godzilla and Gareth Edwards' rising star in the director's chair with shades of Spielberg & Cameron.

Somehow the Cannes film festival, Grace of Monaco and the ladies of Steel Magnolias invade the manly lizard conversation. 

00:01 Katey's wedding & our weekends
03:00 Neighbors vs. 21 Jump Street (2012)
07:00 "I wish it had more jokes" - Nicholas Stoller and modern comedy
09:45 Zac Efron's "surface area"
15:00 "Assjuice," accents, gay panic
22:45 Godzilla and mass destruction
25:30 Character or Monster Driven - Which Is it?
30:00 Aaron Taylor-Johnson vs. Charisma
35:00 the sheer gorgeousity of Gareth Edwards' filmmaking
44:30 Does anyone under 40 have nostalgia for Godzilla?
49:00 Detours to the South of France and Louisiana

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download the conversation on iTunes. Continue the conversation in the comments... and who would you play in a staged reading of Steel Magnolias?

Further Reading Related to This Podcast
Richard Lawson on Zac Efron's dark side
Peter Knegt on the gay pandering of Neighbors
Nathaniel on The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby

 

Godzilla & Neighbors

Beauty Vs Beast: To Covet A Heart

JA from MNPP here, with perhaps one of the least cut-and-dry editions of our "Beauty Vs Beast" competition yet -- in honor of Cate Blanchett being awesome at Cannes let us compare and contrast the beauties and the beasts (mostly the beasts) within the two wicked school-teachers at the heart of 2006's Notes on a Scandal.

Let's get our moral compromise on...

poll by twiigs.com

Well which is it gonna be, folks? The flighty pederast or the cruel closet-case? Choices, choices, choices. And please let us know what your reasons are for choosing what you choose in the comments. It's an up-hill battle loving either of the ladies.

PREVIOUSLY Last week we we were riding in hot on the back of Zac Efron (full stop) ... and Seth Rogen in the comedy-hit Neighbors - where did your loyalties fall? At 60% of the vote we kept it high and tight and Hollywood pretty with Efron, although Seth definitely put up a good fight - he's got surprising stamina, that one. MeIAmMariahTheElusiveChanteuse (aka Greatest Name Ever) captured the crude center of the conundrum:

"My heart is saying Seth, but my hole is saying Zac. So conflicted."