Monday Monologue: Musings from Queen Eleanor

Andrew here to kick off a theme week dedicated to my favourite movie related person of all time – Katharine Hepburn. Next Sunday is the 106th birthday of Oscar’s most fêted Actress and this week The Film Experience is devoting time to her with the centrepiece being Wednesday’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” devoted to Summertime, her lone David Lean collaboration. (Join us, please.)

I’m starting things off this evening with a monologue from Hepburn’s record making turn in The Lion in Winter. She became the first woman to win a third Best Actress Oscar, and then subsequently broke her own record made it a fourth with On Golden Pond in 1981.

Eponymous lion in winter, Henry, is pondering – which of his remaining three sons deserves to succeed him? Meanwhile, young new King Philip of France is visiting and wants a successor chosen, or he wants his sister, Alais, back along with her dowry. Alas, Alais is currently King Henry's mistress. Adding to the tension, it’s Christmastime and Queen Eleanor is being allowed her sojourn from her prison cell in Windsor for some holiday festivities. So, three princes, a King unwilling to abdicate, a scorned wife, a rival King and a mistress. Let the plotting begin.

This “monologue” is more a series of three (varying in length) with interspersed conversation and it begins somewhere at the one hour mark...

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Hot Docs Wrap-Up: Favorites and Oscar Prediction

Amir here, to wrap up my coverage of the Hot Docs international documentary film festival. The festival is regarded as TIFF’s younger, less glitzy sister here in Toronto but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an abundance of great films on display.  The real difference is in the pleasure of discovery, since most of the titles come to Hot Docs with very little advance buzz. Coincidentally, though, my favorite film happened to be one of the most anticipated. I still have a couple interviews and screeners but with the festival now over and about 35 films under my belt, it’s as good a time as any to wrap things up. 

Favorites
The audience prize winner was Muscle Shoals, a documentary about the titular town in Alabama that became the spiritual and creative inspiration for many influential musicians of the 20th century. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the film. It’s quite entertaining but it owes its prize more to the magical music of the artists it features than the film that encases them.

my favorites and the Oscar hopefuls after the jump...

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The Linkover

Vulture whose butts have we seen on Game of Thrones. Funny interactive even if you don't watch the show
LA Times AMPAS just keeps on changing its rule. That board of governors is the fussiest and most bored ever, right? Always tinkering! Members are now no longer required to see foreign film and shorts at Academy screenings in order to vote on them. I personally liked the more restrictive voting in those categories. If I had my way nobody would be able to vote on anything unless they'd seen all the nominees in the category.
Slate wonders where Jay Gatsby's mythical mansion really is/was (The Great Gatsby) 
Pajiba wonders what Marvel Studios could do to make Daredevil work onscreen 
CHUD it's not every day that a movie spoiler comes by way of costume design (The Amazing Spider-Man 2)
MNPP Which is hotter George Clooney retro edition
Ender's Game website has gone live in anticipation of the trailer. Messages from the crew asking us to "stay informed" It seems to be mostly informative backstory journals at this point. Until Viola Davis is schooling me, I ain't learning this!

it's Bradley's world
Awards Daily Bradley Cooper might not be done with Oscar yet. He's now set to star for Steven Spielberg in American Sniper, a true story about a Navy SEAL who fell victim to another soldier's PTSD
In Contention Bradley will also star in Chef for August Osage County director John Wells

pretty pictures
imgur '50 greatest matte paintings from the movies.' a fine tribute to a lost art now that CGI fills in where set-construction leaves off
/film new images from Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind is Rising which we were just talking about in our
Animated Oscar Predictions (in case you missed them)
Hyung86 cute illustrations of Disney characters as college students. My favorites here are actually Hercules and Pocahontas

Happy Gabby Day

JA from MNPP here, wishing a very happy birthday to Gabourey Sidibe, who's turning 30 years old today. In the four years since she popped on the scene, seemingly out of nowhere, in Lee Daniels' film Precious, Sidibe's proven that she's nothing like the sullen abused girl that brought her stardom - every awards show and every red carpet that year didn't come alive until she showed up, a star right out of the box. I don't watch The Big C so I can't speak to what she's done there but I was elated when she got cast in the upcoming third season of American Horror Story - I can't wait to see what Ryan Murphy does with her. What do you hope the future holds for Gabby?

Review: Iron Man Three*

This review was originally posted in my column @ Towleroad

When last we saw Tony Stark he was eating shawarma in New York City with his fellow superheroes in the stinger of Marvel's The Avengers (reviewed). When we last saw Iron Man, minutes before that, he was plummeting from a cosmic wormhole to his near-death having just saved the world from an alien apocalypse. (S.H.I.E.L.D's workman's comp insurance must be pricey.) I mention Tony Stark and Iron Man separately because the franchise's new writer/director Shane Black, who previously worked with Robert Downey Jr on the underappreciated comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, seems more interested in Stark than Iron Man. This is a good sign, especially for a third picture. Time to flip this tin can around.

IRON MAN THREE takes great pains to make a distinction between the impenetrable suit and the man inside it. Tony Stark's first attempt to suit up is a comic misfire since he's engineered an Iron Man suit that comes right to him when he calls. He hasn't quite worked out the speed of his flying wardrobe -imagine a metal codpiece flying 60 mph right at your Andrew Christians. The second time we see Iron Man, if I'm remembering the sequence of events correctly, Tony Stark isn't in the suit at all. He's engaging in some prankster remote control business for girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, wonderful in this role but haters gonna hate). MORE AFTER THE JUMP

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