I'm Mad As Hell And I'm Not Going to Link It Anymore

CHUD James Franco to direct a film based on the making of bad movie everyone obsesses over which I haven't seen The Room. You guys, I can't even with Franco's lack of focus. I mean I don't dislike him. I think he's interesting but he is way too scattered. 
In Contention on Santa Barbara's Robert Redford tribute
Guardian Valentino makes a gauche error, pimping the fact that Amy Adams carried a Valentino bag to PSH's funeral stating they didn't know it was a funeral photo. Um, everyone is in black and they look abso-depressed
MNPP who knew that Fran Kranz from Dollhouse had that chest under his clothes and why on earth didn't Joss Whedon exploit it on that oft-horny show?

NY Times Maureen O'Dowd wonders what Network's Paddy Chayefsky would think of today's click-driven world with its total monetization of every editorial decision
Awards Daily a BAFTA members favorites
Coming Soon Gravity becomes only the third film (after Avatar and The Dark Knight Rises) to earn over $100 million from IMAX screenings alone
Variety the ongoing saga of "Alone Yet Not Alone" continues. It's now selling briskly and nominated for the faithbased MovieGuide Awards 
i09 will The Runaways -- if Marvel ever makes it -- be their Godfather?
Salon talks to the director of The Great Beauty on Italy's Oscar dreams. (For those who are not aware Italy has the most Oscars in the Foreign Film category though France has the most nominations.)
Slate "You Still Have Control" Samantha Geimer ("The Girl in the Shadow of Roman Polanski") once again proves herself the smartest most well adjusted and least hysteric person in the room when it comes to the topic of sexual abuse cases - and she lived it! This is a must read for anyone who has struggled to move on from past traumas. 

And the Most Terrifying News of the Week
We're hearing from Coming Soon that John Travolta will be playing Gummy Bear, or Gummibear if you prefer or are European, in an upcoming animated film version of the yummy treat. The character designs look hateful, really and not much like the actual food stuff.

Frankly, I don't see the point in a Gummy Bear movie when the deliciousness was already twice immortalized via Robot Chicken and Hedwig and the Angry Inch...

Luther: You must like candy.
Hansel: I like Gummi Baerchen 

The Best "Let It Go" Covers

HELP ME!!!
I've fallen in a YouTube hole of "Let it Go" covers. And really, I have so many more important things to do and articles to write and encroaching deadlines. There are a lot of terrible off-pitch covers all over YouTube though "The Worst" of the covers is obviously Demi Lovato's. Many covers are kind of good but i'm not quite sure about them and there's even a drag version or two one with very hit and miss jokes (but the "the fears that once controlled me" bit in Dixie Lynn Cartwright's is priceless)

But these six I find impressive.

Elizabeth Saw with just the piano and played by ear... which is so cool because it's not exact but the flourishes feel right

Jun Sung Angh with just a violin

And the best vocals I've heard apart from Idina...

Sonnet Son - no mic, editing, no autotuning but very strong

Caleb Hyles has some impressive control of the vocal shifts between his higher register and normal voice

And the best mega-budgeted version is this Africanized Tribal Cover. Seriously someone spent lots of bank. Sets, a huge choir, costume changes.

And finally the best multi-voiced cover from the always delightful Christina Blanco who we've raved about before.

What was your last YouTube bender about?

ACE Eddie Awards: "Captain Phillips" Surprises

The Ace Eddie Award is given by Hollywood's film editor's guild. It was a very good year for music, since three of the big winners (20 Feet From Stardom, Frozen, and Behind the Candelabra) are musicals or in bed with the genre somehow. But that's not the big story.

The big surprise has to be the win for Captain Phillips which was up against both Gravity and 12 Years A Slave, the two presumed frontrunners for the Best Picture Oscar. What a tight race this year is bringing us and BEST EDITING, when it's announced on Oscar night, will not tell us who's winning Best Picture. It's oft repeated that it's nearly impossible to win Best Picture without an Editing nomination. But it's VERY possible to lose Editing and still win Best Picture. In fact, nearly half of modern Best Pictures do lose that statue...

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Jennifer Lawrence: The Comic Book!

Apologies if you've read about this elsewhere and a full week ago, too, but sometimes my inbox defeats me. So many press releases. Nevertheless, this seemed worth noting: Jennifer Lawrence is now so popular that she warrants her own comic book!

Bluewater productions has released Fame: Jennifer Lawrence.  It's a 32-page comic book about her life and career available in print, digital and as an animated interactive comic book.  Apparently it's not the first time the company has done an actress. They've also given La Liz, Angelina and Cher this type of comic.

But I do have one gripe about an issue so important that the very success of modern civilization hinges upon it. None of us should ever rest until the crime of the misrepresentation of Oscar dresses is wiped out. Here we see Jennifer at the 2010/2011 Oscars when she lost for Winter's Bone:

But Jennifer was not wearing a gray dress! Nor was she wearing a pearl necklace. (In related news: Nicholas Hoult wasn't with her.) This is what she wore to the Oscars, a va-va-voom red number that reminded everyone of Scarlett Johansson before Jennifer Lawrence was famous enough to not remind anyone of anybody but herself.

My work here is done. Never Forget (the Oscar dresses).

Last Words: The Court of Public Opinion

I'm really looking forward to that time later this year and next year and the year after that when the new Woody Allen picture arrives and we have to do this all over again.

I'll be much briefer this time, I promise.  The Farrow/Allen debacle gave us a valuable opportunity to discuss important topics: child abuse, power imbalances, the value and imperfection of the law, family dynamics and mental health, the problems inherent in identifying with and/or revering strangers or celebrities, the art and the artist and where and when they cohabitat and divide, gender politics, etc. Maybe some good could come of this harrowing story? But mostly we wasted the opportunity on misdirected rage, name-calling, witch-hunting, woman-hating. When emotionally difficult topics are brought to the public table we should talk and listen, not insist upon idealogical purity. I don't have statistics but I suspect that no one in the history of civilization has ever had their minds opened by opposing views by being a) shamed into it, b) being out-yelled, or c) forced into declaring absolute allegiance. I said some things I regret this past week or, at the very least, that I wish I had phrased differently. [more...]

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