Cory Monteith (RIP)

Cory Monteith's twitter profile photoWe've lost another Young Hollywood star too soon, apparently to personal demons though the cause of death is "not immediately apparent" according to news reports. Cory Monteith, aka "Finn" from Glee, died last night in a hotel room in Canada. Our hearts go out to Lea Michele and his family and friends.

He played the befuddled singing jock well, with a sweetness of spirit and refreshing modesty. And you know how The Film Experience treasures singing actors.

I had long since stopped watching Glee which proved to be one of the smartest television decisions I ever made. When I started to hate the show during Season 3 I abruptly quit and now the only memories I really have of it are good ones. So this morning I'm replaying one of my favorite TV experiences ever, the Glee pilot. Like the rest of the world when Rachel & Finn spun around each other as "Don't Stop Believin'" kept building my heart soared and I couldn't wait to fall in love with them and the series, too. Glee was one of the great debuts of television history, full of energy, heart and promise. And that's a feeling to hold on to.

RIP Cory.

Children of the Link

EW lets you zoom in on details of Spidey's new suit from The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Cinema Blend Oscar winning cinematography Wally Pfister's directorial debut Transcendence is already courting the Chinese audience 
Pajiba "the 12 most awesome sexually confident movie lines" Ha. I couldn't pull any of these off (TMI!) but I love the list
Coming Soon You can now watch the opening and closing credit sequences of Pacific Rim online. Though honestly they look fairly generic despite the hype for the film.
Playbill Theresa Rebeck of Smash-creation fame is trying another series. She's developing a "Bleak House" adaptation for Bravo 

Variety Whoa. Hunky Bollywood superstar Hrithink Roshan recently had brain surgery. Get well soon.
Awards Daily Rising writer/director Ava DuVernay, who made the excellent Middle of Nowhere last year, is taking on Selma, a true-life drama about MLK and the Civil Rights Act
In Contention will Philomena be TWC's secret Oscar weapon this year? I don't know how secret it can be after the reception of several minutes at Cannes but yes, it could be.
Final Girl is about to trace the evolution of the entire Children of the Corn series with a marathon blogging effort on Monday. But she's already surveyed the posters.
Natasha VC a perfect one sentence commentary on Mia Farrow and Philip Roth watching Sharknado together

If the original Frankenstein Monster had looked this good...

Aaron Eckhart in I Frankenstein (2014)

...he wouldn't have had to ask for "frieeeennnd?"

... he wouldn't have had so much trouble finding a Bride.

There are Seven Shots of Julianne Moore in the Seventh Son Trailer. Just Saying.

I don't have the heart to do a "yes no maybe so" on the trailer for The Seventh Son, the latest fantasy epic would be franchise (there are more of them each month) because the movie has been moved to January. But it does co-star Julianne Moore as the sorceress Mother Malkin and the trailer does use her voiceover in a very Queen-Ravenna-in-Snow-White-and-Huntsman-trailer kind of way. So there's that.

Coincidentally (?) there are seven shots of our goddess in the trailer.  

THE SEVEN SHOTS

1. "Did you miss me?".... Mother Malkin materialize from the air and slinks towards Jeff Bridges Vocal Affectation. Oh Juli, in theory we always miss you but since you are one of the hardest working women in showbiz we seldom have to.

six more after the jump

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Burning Questions: Fictional Art You Want to Experience?

Michael C. here to share another question for your collective answer. Every film that portrays creative people at work faces the same conundrum. In order to tell the story of an artist at work the movie has to depict the product of their labor and making that convincing can require just as much effort to as making the film itself. If you can make a painting that is believable as the work of a master than maybe you should just do that and skip the film altogether? You know what I mean?

"uh oh... we just lost the family audience"

There are various methods with which films skirt this issue. The simplest solution is to show nothing and simply have the characters talk about the brilliance (or lack thereof) of the work in question. We never do hear a passage from Grady Tripp’s acclaimed "Arsonist's Daughter" in Wonder Boys (2000), just as we never witness any of the actual stage performances from All About Eve (1951). Then there are those films which give just enough of a taste of the work without doing the heavy lifting. In the great All That Jazz (1979), for example, we see enough of Joe Gideon’s erotic work-in-progress to know why it’s an investor’s nightmare without ever learning much more about it.

In rare cases, films do such a good job suggesting a work of art that you leave the theater disappointed that the work doesn’t exist in reality. Here are three examples of fictional works of art from movies that I would happily shell out the cash for should they magically appear at multiplexes, book stores or on the Great White Way… [more]

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