Curio: Our Annual Hunger Games

Alexa here. With Thanksgiving arriving on the heels of Katniss this year, that cornucopia centerpiece suddenly seems an ominous symbol of turkey slaughter rather than a bountiful symbol of the harvest. So, why not embrace the convergence and have a Hunger-Games-themed celebration?  After all, extended family get-togethers can be pretty torturous. Or maybe that's just in my family. 

In any case, here are some foodie curios after the jump to give you a very Katniss Thanksgiving.

Pass the gravy t-shirt, available here.

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Team FYC: Cameron Diaz for Best Supporting Actress

[Editor's Note: The FYC series brings together all Film Experience contributors to highlight our favorite fringe Oscar contenders. Jose Solis asks you to reconsider Cameron Diaz's supporting performance in The Counselor.]

It’s not only her scenery chewing, her car-fucking skills, her ability to pull off excess jewelry and animal print or the lustful-yet-motherly way in which she looks at her pet cheetahs. It's her commitment to this insanity that makes Cameron Diaz brilliant in The Counselor. Playing the heartless envoy from hell, Malkina, she creates one of the most compelling visions of evil contemporary cinema has given us. Because her evil seems to have roots in a horrifying childhood (her parents were thrown out of a helicopter!) she escapes the burden of just being a universal symbol of cruelty (a la Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men). She even shows us a glimpse of what might be underlying human qualities underneath her faux-bronzed skin when she shows envy and certain disappointment at not being able to love the way her friend Laura (Pé) does. Diaz delivers Cormac McCarthy’s senselessly beautiful lines with such passion and purpose that we can’t help but pretend we know what on Earth she’s going on about or why anything is in this movie.

The film was trashed by both critics and audiences; they failed to see beyond the movie's failure as a thriller and recognize that this is experimental film of the highest order, with references to American literature, Italian excess cinema and one of the most chilling reinterpretations of a Tennessee Williams scene I’ve seen. The Counselor is post-noir cinema. The best way I've found to explain why I loved Diaz was to compare the film to classic noir and suggest that if The Counselor had been made in the 1940’s, Malkina would have been played by Gloria Grahame. Like that Oscar winning actress, Diaz is the kind of “dame” who would make us kill for her and then slit our throats when we came back looking for the reward she promised us.  

previously: World War Z

Why Michelle Pfeiffer Probably Won't and Probably Shouldn't Do "American Horror Story"

I've mentioned this topic in the comments but enough people are interested that I should sound off in a more official capacity. Recently, given that most people know that Jessica Lange plans to depart after Season 4, Ryan Murphy has started dropping casting wishlists for future seasons of American Horror Story. He name-checked both Reese Witherspoon (errr...okay?) and Michelle Pfeiffer (duh!). Pfeiffer is, of course, the most logical choice with which to fill the imposing vacuum that will be Lange's absence as the anthology's resident grande dame guignol. Like Lange, she's a huge respected talent from the 80s (formative years for Murphy) who can really tear it up onscreen but who today's younger TV-watching legions might still feel a certain "discovery" mania about since she hasn't been properly utilized in years.

There's only three problems.

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Cast This: J.R.R. Tolkien Biopic

When I read over at Film School Rejects that JRR Tolkien was getting a biopic, I let out a big ol pipe-smoking sigh. Wouldn't this have been a better use of Peter Jackson's time than what he's been spending the last few years doing? If you're going to gild the lily, find a new way! The only time Jackson did a true story (Heavenly Creatures) it was quite impressive and still made use of his imaginative fantasy aesthetics. A bigger sigh followed when I pictured J.R.R. Tolken in my head from this photo to your left embedded in me brain from childhood.

How long before we hear the casting announcement and then a photo of Anthony Hopkins in full makeup with a pipe, I thought. That's EXACTLY who Hollywood would cast because they never think outside the box.

But - yay! - the biopic will cover the formative younger years in World War I and at university which led to The Hobbit through The Lord of the Rings (so one presumes the biopic ends in the 1950s when Tolkien also reached his fifties)/ CGI de-aging is not yet advanced to subject us to the defacto Hopkins casting of old man biopics (yes he gets them all: Kellogg, Nixon, Lewis, Picasso, Hitchcock...) 

SO LET'S PLAY "CAST THIS!"

Here's two photos of J.R.R. Tolkien which I believe are from his younger years in the service and at university but even in his mid to late 20s / early 30s (?) he already looked like a distinguished older man!

It'd be smartest to cast someone in their 30s or early 40s who can look younger and older. My first thought was Ryan Gosling, solely because the Gos is never far from the mind and I think he popped up because of his similar longish face. But then I have trouble picturing him aging up into that jovial ol' pipe smoker from all the book jackets, so that's not quite right. I think I just had a better idea but I want to hear your suggestions to see if anyone reaches a similar conclusion

So who would you cast? Ready, set... comment!

The Linking Games: Catching Blog

Self Styled Siren has ten rental suggestions for your friends who are haven't yet become true movie fans - 10 classics anyone will love
The Cut Scarlett Johansson's runway looks for her 29th birthday
Vanity Fair Jason Statham on 'poncy actors' and stuntment deserving Oscars 
Variety Emma Thompson is just killing it in these campaign stops for Saving Mr Banks

 Awards Daily on a live performance of the score from All is Lost
The Film Doctor revisits Frances Ha and its French New Wave inspirations
MNPP The Moment I Fell For... Mark Ruffalo
In Contention I'm beginning to realize that Guy Lodge and I have very very different taste in actresses. He thinks Julia Roberts is the MVP of August: Osage County. (I will say this for her: she has the toughest role and she is really going for it.)
Gurus of Gold for this week's chart David Poland had us imagine what would happen if Oscar held a "Best Casting" prize and didn't differentiate between Adapted and Original Screenplay. FTR I love some of the other gurus choices for Casting more than my own picks but I was doing it how I thought Oscar might...
Variety Bunheads after glow... TV giant Amy Sherman Palladino joins other producers to bring Sutton Foster back to Broadway in the new musical Violet. Yes, please.
Variety finally a worthy sounding project for Oscar nominee Catalina Sandino Moreno, the biopic Castro's Daughter

All Hunger. All The Time
The Hairpin Closeted characters from The Hunger Games' Katniss Everdeen to everyone in The Great Gatsby
Monkey See and yet more thinkpieces. On gender types: Is Peeta essentially Katniss's girlfriend?
Atlantic Wire An Open Letter to Jena Malone (who does make a fabulous Johanna) 

Tweet of the Week
By name you've undoubtedly heard that Mia Wasikowska and Johnny Depp are both in for a sequel to Eyesore in Wonderland.

It's Official: Johnny Depp and Mia Wasikowska love money!!!

— Pat Healy (@Pat_Healy) November 23, 2013

 

What else is there to say really?*

*although don't let that stop you from having doing what you do in the comments