"Hell Broke Luce"

Tom Waits still amazing after all these year.

We don't see Tom Waits in the movies as much as we did in the 90s but I did like his turn as the devil in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. His next onscreen appearance is in Seven Psychopaths from the writer/director of In Bruges and co-stars Colin Farrel, Woody Harrelson, and Christopher Walken. (Pssst. I'm hearing good things about it, particularly Walken)

This gorgeous video is by the enduring illustrator/director/photographer Matt Mahurin. He's directed two full length features from what I can see (Feel in 2006 and Mugshot from 1996) neither of which I've ever heard of or received a release so perhaps his talents don't transfer to full length features? Still, I sometimes wish that other visual "visionaries" (like, oh say Tarsem Singh or Julie Taymor) were this focused. It's one amazing image after another in this video but the images are piggybacking and/or in communication with one another as they should be. It's all one cohesive ball of amazement instead of a series of "look what I can do!". If you're a young visionary watching, take notes!

Yes, No, Maybe So: "The Trouble With the Curve"

Longtime Clint Eastwood collaborator Robert Lorenz (producer or first assistant director on many Clint features) rousted Clint out of the director's chair and in front of the cameras for a father/daughter baseball scouting drama The Trouble With the Curve. Or is it a comedy? Let's break down the trailer with our usual system.

YES

• Always up for a father/daughter drama... and Eastwood gave that relationship all sorts of interesting edges and nuances and softspots in Million Dollar Baby. Plus in the interest of selling Gran Torino 2 with all those shots of Clint "Get Off My Lawn!" Eastwood maybe we're not seeing some of the meat of the central relationship in the trailer.
• Amy! Just saw her in Into the Woods in Central Park. She got majorly swallowed up in her wig (so big that from my bad seat I could barely notice her face) but I like that even if she might not have limitless range she is able to adapt her screen persona for drama, comedy, and musicals. That's a type of range -- the movie star type of range which is nothing to scoff at.
• Hei John Goodman!

NO and maybe so after the jump...

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The Way We Link

Yahoo Movies President Obama is a fan of Anne Hathaway as Catwoman
NPR details about Marilyn Monroe as a very profitable posthumous industry. Who gets the money?
CHUD Joss Whedon signs for Avengers 2. But he'll have enough time to do other projects first.
Unreality Indiana Jones is teeny tiny in these amazing posters for the Raiders of the Lost Ark trilogy

Los Angeles Times The Great Gatsby is delayed, and The Master rises. A shifting Oscar race (yes, we'll talk about all this in a couple of days with updated charts!)
Movie|Line the Hitchcock Birds making-of movie The Girl previews for television critics
My New Plaid Pants Paul Verhoeven 'quote of the day' on the original Total Recall's three titties moment. I have to say that the remake's nod to this made no sense whatsoever given the change in planetary setting.
/Film Brave co-director Brenda Chapman leaves Pixar after what one assumes was a troubled relationship and lands at Lucasfilms
Monkey See on the responsibilities of being "the greatest film of all time". 

At the top, you have to be able to play two cultural roles at once: punching bag and celebrated ideal.

Good luck, Vertigo!

Yay, Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln. First official photo.

poll by twiigs.com

 

More goodbyes
Hollywood Elsewhere RIP film critic Judith Christ
New York Times brilliant composer, EGOT winner and Pulitzer Prize recipient Marvin Hamlisch of A Chorus Line fame died at 68. Hamlisch was a frequent Oscar presence with 12 nominations over the course of his career but his 3 wins all came during the ceremony in 1974 for adapted score The Sting (1973) and song and score for The Way We Were. (1973). His last film score for The Informant (2009) won him lots of fresh praise and one assumes very nearly a 13th Oscar nomination since it scored other awards season kudos.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - An Appreciation

[Editor's Note: Last winter when Michelle Williams was in theaters cooing as "Marilyn", I had planned on a Marilyn week. It didn't happen but I wanted to share this piece by our once in a blue moon contributor Ester Bloom because I, too, adore this movie. - Nathaniel]

'Say, they told me you were stupid!'

'I can be smart when it’s important, but most men don’t like it.' "

Marilyn Monroe is not so different from Lorelei Lee, the part she plays in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Both are entertainers from small towns who started out poor but are determined to transcend their origins; both turn themselves into sexy cartoons; both play dumb when necessary; and both perform under alliterative pseudonyms that are as girly as all get out. (Compare the name “Lorelei Lee” with that of her friend “Dorothy Shaw.” The difference tells you almost everything you need to know about their characters.)

Maybe Monroe recognized a kindred spirit in Lorelei Lee...

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Curio: Glinda the Good Witch

Alexa here.  Today is Billie Burke's birthday.  Billie was a Broadway star, a Ziegfeld girl (literally: she was married to Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. until his death), and a silent movie actress who made a successful move to the talkies.  But she is most remembered for her embodiment of Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz. I was thrilled at the casting of Michelle Williams as the prequel version of the sorceress; of anyone out there I think she would project the same angelic charm Billie did. (That trailer was great, but where was Glinda's bubble? She'd better have a bubble.)

Here are some artsy creations to celebrate Billie's canonic version of Glinda.

Diorama of Dorothy and Glinda in Munchkinland, by Natasha Burns.

Typographical illustration of Glinda's words by ChattyNora.

cookies & dolls & artwork oh my... after the jump

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