Saturday, November 17, 2012 at 4:00AM "Robert Todd Lincoln" (by way of Joseph Gordon-Levitt) or Robert Todd Lincoln?
Usually when Hollywood does biopics every actual person gets hotter by way of movie stars. But Robert Todd Lincoln was kind of a looker, yes? Anyway... I know who My Daguerreotype Boyfriend is voting for.
Friday, November 16, 2012 at 9:30PM Slant Kurt interviews the "singular, essential" Parker Posey who is currently starring in Price Check
IndieWire Jared Leto in drag on the set of Dallas Buyer's Club
Vulture ranks all of Steven Spielberg's movies. Huh. We have the same #1!
Bella Calledonia has a different perspective on Ben Affleck's Argo and Iranian representation in film than most
Broadway vote on the sexiest man alive (on Broadway). I voted for Cheyenne Jackson. Duh!
Awards Daily Alexandre Desplat's Argo score. I wish I could get into scores more but I remain an accidental Philistine of this category.
In Contention thinks Cloud Atlas and The Hobbit will lead the makeup & hairstyling race. I'm less sure. That could be an easy get for Lincoln, couldn't it, if they need a place to reward the film?
Unreality "the many faces of Johnny Depp"
Today's Must Watch
Here's a clever new way to promote your upcoming movie -- get your unknown star to do impersonations of very famous stars as the character he'll be playing. So Meta. So Mimiccky Good.
The actor's name is Ross Marquand and if he ever becomes famous he'll obviously win an Oscar since this is AMPAS's favorite party trick. The real test of this trick, if you ask me, is being able to "do" famous people that you wouldn't immediately think for impersonations. Vocal impersonations of Brando, Pacino, Walken, Cher, etcetera are common. But I personally never imagined I'd see/hear Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt mimicry this good.
Friday, November 16, 2012 at 6:29PM With the Cecil B. DeMiller tribute coming at the Golden Globes and her 50th birthday hitting this coming Monday, we're celebrating the one and only Jodie Foster.
Jodie Foster is one of only a tiny handful of full fledged child stars to become even more legendary as an adult movie star. She remains the modern era's gold standard for making the transition but who could've predicted it in 1972 when she made her first feature Napoleon & Samantha. She's not really the star (that'd be Johnny Whitaker as Napoleon) but the film had the foresight to open with her face and that distinctive voice.
She gets the movie's very first shot and line.
Ouch, I bumped my knee!
Auspicious beginnings!
a totally docile animal actor. Johnny & Jodie climb all over this big cat, pull its tail, shove their hands in its mouthNapoleon, tells her to shush with a "who cares about your stupid knee?" Turns out moviegoers around the globe would -- the stupid knee and all the rest of her, too!
Napoleon and Samantha is a really weird watch in 2012. Just about the only recognizable thing about it is its Disney Fixation with orphanhood (that fixation is still with us) but everything is truly foreign, dated or bizarre: a retiring circus performer Napoleon meets in the woods; a lion who only drinks milk and that barely anybody seems freaked out about when they meet; Michael Douglas as a kind-hearted hippie goat farmer with a political science degree (don't ask); a chase scene with Douglas stunt double in a Bad Grandma Michael Douglas wig and porn-ready music scoring; an escaped mental patient in the woods (!); It's a weird weird movie disguised as an innocuous family one.
But the time capsule treats of seeing an intermittently bored baby Jodie trying to remember her lines (this is not her finest hour) and watching Michael Douglas all twenty-something young and hippie sexy...
... not to mention the unintentionally hilarious visual juxtaposition of Jodie's butch gait in little girl dresses with Michael Douglas hippie fey exuberance, made it oh so worthwhile! I meant to just grab an image but I couldn't turn the damn thing off.
Friday, November 16, 2012 at 9:42AM Great moments in iPhone voice dictation comedy: My best friend, a Russophile, just texted me about Anna Karenina.
I totally want to see Joe Wright's Honicutt Enema too! That sounds awesome.
Anna Karenina, texting Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 10:34PM Monty, the web's original feline Oscar pundit, has been known to ruthlessly ignore Oscar contenders, yawn in their general direction or use them as sedatives. But -- BREAKING!!! -- he has taken an immediate unmistakable liking to Hitchcock.
Swag or screeners have arrived recently for Rise of the Guardians (completely ignored but for the box it came in) Amour (ignored) and various indie contenders (ignored x 3). The second Hitchcock's silver cannister was opened he literally came running.
He circled the container. He smelled everything. He wanted to snuggle with the t-shirt. He was all about Hitchcock. (But then, he is also prone to hang outside shower curtains all silhouetted and staring and it's not hard to imagine Bernard Hermann's ♩ reeeee ♩reeeee ♩reeeeee accompanying every claw swipe when he gets feisty.)
Will Oscar voters feel as instantaneously curious about and attached to the movie? I'm thinking yes.... at least with the former but can Fox Searchlight turn the curiousity into attachment? (I recently heard from an acting branch member who is totally in for Helen, Anthony and the movie on their ballot.) Will Monty prove prescient again? What's your guess?
Hitchcock, Oscars (12), cats 
