Link on a Hot Tin Roof

Movie|Line Posters for Jean Dujardin's latest film, the sex comedy Les Infidels, have been deemed too racy for France. For France? Really? This surprises me.
Guardian has a funny piece on blaming Twilight for everything but particularly the explosion of supernatural characters. Saturation point!
Coming Soon I am really scared of this new photo of Emma Stone from The Amazing Spider-Man. Emma Stone is gorgeous and only 23 years old. She doesn't need photoshopping and definitely not photoshopping that makes her look like a CGI creation! 

In Contention wonders if it might be Brad Pitt's year after all. STOP TRYING TO GET MY HOPES UP.
IndieWire sexually explicit Serbian drama Klip wins big in Rotterdam
Awards Daily When Jessica Chastain met Meryl Streep. 
Washington Blade has a good piece on Madonna reemerging in the Lady Gaga era and what it all means. I love that Matthew Rettemund calls it "homosexual civil war" but Matt and I both agree it's silly. There's no rule that says you can only enjoy one pop diva at a time. I certainly have never been monogamous with my actressexuality and I never will be. Boring!

Finally, RIP to Ben Gazzara, the original "Brick" from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Paul Newman took over his part for the movie version but Gazzara had an enduring career in all three Actors Playgrounds: film, stage and television. On the movie side he was part of the winning cast of Anatomy of a Murder (pictured right) but he'll most likely be rememberd as a key star in John Cassavettes repertory of actors. I always love reading Sheila O' Malley's pieces on stars who have passed on. Here's a small taste...

He was in his 40s when he found himself on the cutting edge of the independent film scene in America. He wasn’t a young, hungry guy. He was middle-aged. Married. With a kid. They all were married, with kids. It wasn’t a hipster sensibility, or a Bohemian type of “let’s make a movie with my friends” kind of thing. They were artists. Who understood compromise, they all had had extensive careers, but nothing compared to the roles that Cassavetes gave them. Gazzara had already been around forever. He had worked with Hitchcock, for God’s sake. And Kazan. So to take that risk … to sit in the theatre watching Cassavetes’ Faces and admitting that he felt jealousy. Jealousy of Cassavetes’ talent, and also – an ambition: I must work with that guy."

And as always the Daily Notebook has a collection of quotes and obits.

I Met Madonna. And Other "W.E." Stories

As some of you may recall from a couple of breathless tweets, I met Madonna two months ago at a W.E. press event though we weren't allowed to publish the pieces until this week. I was invited by way of my columnist gig at Towleroad so I wrote that up now that W.E. in in theaters, well past its Oscar-qualifying run (which netted it a nomination for Most Costumes). Here's a snippet:

She repeats all of our names back to us. Madonna saying your name back to you is a strangely surreal experience, both utterly mundane and impossible. 

She has entered 'The (Mostly) Gay Room' as its been dubbed to discuss her new film W.E., since most of the journalists are with gay publications. "Cool." is her monosyllabic response. She's promised we'll put her in a good mood for the rest of the day. "Let's start with levity," she says though it sounds more hopeful than bossy.  We're all squished round a table with recorders on. 

[read the full article]

In regards to those recording devices. If you had yours on before Madonna entered the room, you could hypothetically listen to Madonna saying your name over and over again on loop once you got home. HYPOTHETICALLY. I mean, who would do that? [ahem]

More including W.E. thoughts and Madge's new video...

Click to read more ...

Technical Difficulties

Apologies but it seems the link function has stopped working and stopped working retroactively replacing links with odd coding. Many of the links are malfunctioning on older posts as well as the new link roundup which I have now removed. Currently investigating. Posting delayed until solved. Bear with us. 

Oscar Symposium Day 3: Farewells and Futures

On Day 1 of the symposium we partied with the Best Picture field and considered Star Vehicles. On Day 2 we discussed movies that are hopelessly in love with themselves (to good and bad effect), the forever contentious Lead vs Support debate, the invisible arts of editing and screenwriting. We pick up there. Nathaniel was admitting he wasn't entirely comfortable falling for Margaret.... 

Nader & Simin: A SeparationNATHANIEL:  I've scraped my knees up on cold hard pavement. I too was caught up in #TeamMargaret excitement. I love it when critics remember that part of their job is to advocate for buried treasure rather than merely rubber stamping the critical darlings over and over again (Did Michelle Williams really need to hog the majority of critics awards for My Week With Marilyn, which is straight down the middle awards bait? They didn't see anything off the golden path that was worthy of praise?). But when I finally saw Margaret, I left somewhat dejected. There's a lot to love. But there is also just an awful lot. It plays, to me, like a series of brilliant pieces that haven't quite been shaped to fit the genius-level mosaic they're intended for. Or maybe I was just thrown by the length and those phone calls to daddy. Lonergan is a brilliant writer but a brilliant actor not so much.

And maybe I was still just high on A Separation (my choice for Best of the Year) which illuminates a bit of the same ground in terms of personal actions creating ripples that we can't possibly grasp the full reach of. And they both show us how flawed people (i.e. all of us) can get tangled up in very difficult moral, social, religious, political and ethical webs they probably helped spin.

KURT: I'm glad you brought up that comparison between A Separation and Margaret, because it's definitely something I was thinking about while watching the latter (in between all the reveling in how Lisa initiates an allegorical, post-9/11 war that's ultimately futile and only reaps money for people who don't deserve it). Though vastly different in structure (one drum-tight, one manic and sprawling), these two scripts hold a lot of similarities, and are, in my opinion, at the tip-top of the year's best.

I'm also glad that Mark brought up Margin Call and Tinker Tailor in the same thought bubble because I found myself linking those two in my head a lot as well. Both films are essentially corporate dramas with power players coping with crisis, and both teem with a kind of impenetrable language you really have to crack. I hail from the team that doesn't really buy all the "Speak to Me Like a Golden Retriever" crap, because A) I don't believe those folks would actually expositionally coddle each other, or need coddling, in that way, and B), as mentioned, the movie keeps promising through dialogue that it's clearing things up, when it's really just thickening its fog of jargon. I do believe Chandor took a highly commendable crack at presenting this world, and I don't know if I've seen anyone do it better in terms of writing (Oliver Stone certainly didn't), but there's a lot of pretense about those scenes that irks me. (I prefer his small details, like the gross arrogance the company shows by firing Tucci's head risk manager, and little shots like the one of Demi and Simon Baker in the elevator with the cleaning lady.)

...and we've reentered MI6 where we began!

As for Tinker Tailor, there isn't a lick of coddling, just a glimpse into a radically rarefied world, filled with so much code talk, names and lingo it's like Tolkien does MI6.

Symposium Wraps with Bridesmaids, eye candy and film futures after the jump.

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Randomness: Who Will Cher Vote For at the Oscars?

I'm working on a Madonna piece at the moment but couldn't resist popping in to share tweets from another legendary pop diva we adore who dabbles in the movies: the Oscar winning Cher. She regularly responds to fan tweets and this very random question about eating at McDonalds with Britney Spears 'would she?' gets a funny response. 

She recently answered a question of who she loved with working with "Meryl,Stanly,Kurty,My darling little girls CR&Nonie !!!" Yes, Meryl, who we've just been discussing, was name-checked twice this week. But then there's this...

Cher *just* saw The Help, one presumes at an AMPAS screening, and it sounds like for the first time.  She tweeted that she came out of the theater crying. But if she only just saw The Help one has to wonder whose names she scribbled down on the nomination ballots weeks ago. She must be way behind on her screeners.

Silly Comment Game of the Day: Tell us who you think Cher nominated and who she is going to vote for? She loves The Help "you brought joy to my heart!" but her dear friend Mary Louise Streep is also in the running. Predicament.