Yes, No, Maybe So: Jupiter Ascending

For April Fools Day a Yes No Maybe So on a trailer promoting a movie that could well be a folly.

Though I am on record at having loathed Cloud Atlas I appreciate movies that operate from the outer edges of sanity. I'm always curious when the Wachowski Siblings make a movie despite a despairing qualitative free fall: their first was their best (Bound), their second their second best (The Matrix) but it's been a precipitous drop each and every time so at this rate they'll make the worst movie of all time soon. Will it be Jupiter Ascending? 

I realized this trailer arrived a week ago but it's been busy chez moi. I made a wee bit of time today because... well, you'll have to see why in the Yes column after the jump. 

Click to read more ...

Beauty Break: Logan Lerman

When I met Logan Lerman in 2012 to talk Perks of Being a Wallflower and Noah (right here icymi) he was as nice as movie actors can get. We even strayed off topic quite a bit over coffee. I was eager to see what he'd do next but, I must confess, he seemed so young that I wasn't exactly thinking of him as a contender for leading gigs, just as a very promising actor. During my screening of Noah, my best friend (who is not at all into movies and had no idea who Lerman was) was all a-drooling and I felt weirdly protective. He's just a nice boy, put your tongue back in your mouth!

But, uh, I need to rethink. Lerman is now 22. This new spread in Interview magazine, to accompany an interview conducted by one of the young actor's idols Michael Shannon seems determined to update perceptions about his age and his romantic leading man potential in the wake of Noah.

More after the jump...

LERMAN: I'm in New York right now. I came out here for the photo shoot for this piece.
SHANNON: How many outfits did you put on?
LERMAN: Um ... there wasn't a lot of clothing involved.

Click to read more ...

Are You "Divine"? On Recent Divas, Heroes, and Sexpots

A NOTE BEFORE WE BEGIN: I am aware that you're impatiently awaiting 2014's April Foolish Oscar Predictions but please to note: I am aiming for April 13th but they definitely won't be here today and that's no April Fool's Joke.

With 2013's best films all soon to or already arrived on DVD, let's wrap up the Film Bitch Awards which are getting later and later each year, damnit! I'm leading with "the most beautiful woman in the world" to your left, Divine, who also went by the alternate title "filthiest person alive." Can't they both be true? If you haven't caught up with the documentary I Am Divine, you should. It's really fun. I saw it about a year ago at the Nashville Film Festival at a late night screening in which two of our fellow moviegoers, utterly sloshed girls we accidentally befriended at a festival party, got lost in the theater looking for each other and tumbling down stairs in the dark (no one was hurt). It was a memorable midnight screening let's just say.

I'm never sure if I should include documentary figures in our extra special 'character-specific' awards but sometimes you just gotta have it. And by it I mean the mad brilliance of Divine. She famously inspired one of Disney's all time greatest villains (Ursula the Sea Witch) but she's competing for the gold in Best Diva this time with another instantly iconic character: Queen Elsa from Frozen.

On the new Film Bitch Awards chart (We've only one page to go and we're done woo-hoo) you'll also find movies like The Heat, Stoker, Man of Steel, in our choices for Best Hero, Best Villain and Diva and Sexpot of the Year. Scarlett Johansson (Don Jon & Her) and Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and American Hustle) both managed double nominations this year so have a looksie.

And please do comment away - I don't relish solitude like Elsa.

Morning Confession: I've Never Seen an Ali MacGraw Movie

Happy 75th birthday today to Ali MacGraw. "Who?" Some of you might be asking, which is telling.

My first and only significant memory of Ali MacGraw, who was quite famous when I was a child, was seeing her face on the sheet music to the theme from Love Story (1970) that my sister used to play on the piano when I was tiny. I have no idea why I remember this so vividly but I do. I also remember my mom grumbling about the movie's tagline which she said was 'TOTALLY UNTRUE'.

love means never having to say you're sorry

My sister had quite a few movie theme songs on sheet music and the other ones I remember looking at were Ice Castles, Jaws and Star Wars. The only one that I had actually seen was Star Wars. I don't remember seeing it in theaters. My true movie memories don't start until the following year in 1978 with Superman and Return From Witch Mountain. (If you're curious here are two of my earliest movie memories in comic book form)

Ali MacGraw was, in the late 70s / early 80s something of a symbol of flash in the pan movie stardom for complicated but, as I'd come to understand it much later, totally normal celebrity reasons: addictions, tough marriage, unlucky film choices, you name it. But this morning as I went to type this up I made the horrifying realization that I've never seen ANY of her films, no not even Love Story (1970). That's a significant gap in my Oscar viewing since it was nominated for 7 Oscars including Best Picture.

Have you seen Love Story. And have you ever played a movie theme on the piano? 

Beauty vs. Beast - Black Widow vs. The Hulk

I can't tell you how proud I am to be hosting JA's weekly series "Beauty vs. Beast". I feel like a giddy reader each Monday just wondering which amusing sophie's choice he'll pose. But he's in Italy this week so I'm your substitute pollster.

I wanted a poll where I wouldn't know who would win. I caught up with Thor: The Dark World recently (for reasonszzz) and I'm about to leave for a screening of Captain America: Winter Soldier so Loki & Black Widow are both on the brain. Remember that great tense scene in The Avengers where the Hulk is after The Black Widow? Remember how they both stole that whole movie via outsmarting or smashing Loki? It's a literal Beauty vs. Beast this week

poll by twiigs.com

Voting Continues!
Both this poll and the Talented Mr Ripley "Tom vs. Dickie" poll are open until Sunday when JA returns from Italy.