Happy Birthday Sandra Bullock, I guess...

Paolo here.

Back in 2009 I stumbled into what looked like Bullock's CAA page, and seeing a certain factoid, I posted this question on my Facebook. "What do Stanley Kubrick and Sandra Bullock have in common?" "Well neither of them have an Oscar," a friend of mine said. He spoke too soon. [Correction: Kubrick has an Oscar but not for directing. Shake fist]

Then it was time to watch the live feed of the Oscars on campus. The fedora-wearing cinema studies students were passing around this hipster German beer and I took a sip and put it down. I swore that if Bullock won the Oscar, I'd throw my beer at the screen - I didn't, no one should. The sound of angry young men and some women collectively screaming against her victory is one of the ten greatest experiences I've ever had in a movie theatre. How the powers that be hustled such a seemingly mediocre film into a Best Picture nod and a Best Actress win was like watching steel beams bend by themselves.

Anyway, to commemorate Bullock's birthday, I watched neither the movies that I remember her being good at (A Time to Kill, Crash) nor the ones I saw in high school nor college that did not age well (28 Days) or even the fun ones (Practical Magic). Instead I saw John Lee Hancock's The Blind Side, the movie that won her the said Oscar and made her, on paper, better than Kubrick. To be honest, I had two tall glasses of beer, ruining some brain cells and I was afraid that this film would do more damage.

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Curio: Crafty Kubrick

Alexa here. Today would have been Stanley Kubrick's 83rd birthday.  Of course the myth of the man is alive and well; stories of David Fincher's filming 99 takes of Rooney Mara still seem to pale in comparison to the master of meticulous craftsmanship. (I wonder if Fincher will leave behind boxes as painstakingly catalogued as Kubrick's.) So in the spirit of craft, here are a few handiworks you can buy in celebration of Kubrick's wonderful madness.

First, for play: an Alex DeLarge as a sock monkey, available here.

And though I've blogged them before, I still can't resist Sébastien Lepitre's Grady sister dolls.

Click for wearables, including party masks and necklaces...

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Yes, No, Maybe So: Haywire

Jose here with a new edition of Yes, No, Maybe So. Just a few days ago we brought you the trailer for Steven Soderbergh's Contagion and now here's the trailer for Haywire, a movie he will release a mere four months later. Apparently the whole retirement thing just helped to crank the creative juices inside him...

YES. Once again, that cast!

How did he handle two casts with these people? Can you imagine working with Fassy, Ewan, Gwynnie, Kate, Marion and Channing in the same year? Maybe they are the ones who are more like "can you imagine working with Soderbergh?".

Keep on reading for more awesome Soderbergh-ness...

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Nina who?

Yes, No, Maybe So: Drive

Robert (of Distant Relatives) here with the lastest Yes, No, Maybe So. Even those well versed in the films of Nicolas Winding Refn may have been surprised when his latest film Drive, starring Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stunt driver by day/getaway car driver for hire by night and Carey Mulligan as his love interest, was announced as part of the lineup for Cannes 2011. It premiered as one of the break out hits of the festival, and Refn took home the Best Director prize. Since then it's been hype, excitement, anticipation and endless tals of Refn/Gosling man-love. For those of us who didn't catch it on The Croisette, we're finally getting our first look.

I admit, I count myself among those who'll see just about anything with Gosling in it. But the supporing cast is equally intriguing, Mulligan, Christina Hendricks, Brian Cranston, and Albert Brooks whose buzzy villainous turn isn't even played up here. In fact there's something refereshingly sincere about this trailer, in a world where action movies are either for kids (or at least made to appeal to the widest possible PG-13 demographic) or ironically self-aware in a Machete, Shoot 'em Up kind of way that loves winking at you over their intentional B-picture status. No one here is mugging or pandering. At least not that I can tell.
 
Of course, I'm not sure that the Gosling fanbase and the gritty action movie fanbase are one in the same. I admit that I have mixed feelings about the genre and aren't even sure if I'm looking foward to this as a lark or with the excitement of something that could really be among the best films of the year. If the film didn't star Gosling, or the rest of that cast, or didn't have all the Cannes hype behind it, would I be as excited? Then again toss in enough hypotheticals and you're left with "if this film didn't have the elements that made it this film, i'm not sure I'd want to see this film," no kidding.
 
Really though, any personal reservations I can muster up are minor. I find myself squarely in the "yes" category for this. The trailer does a good job of solidifying it as a tough-as-nails action film with some staple archetypes and high cinematic style while maintaining plenty of mystery. It's a good tease. And then there's Gosling. Has anyone perfected the good boy charm/bad boy intensity like he has? Can we declare this "The Year of the Goz?" Maybe not yet, but he certainly seems at home as an action character.

Have you been anticipating this since Cannes? How important is the presence of Gosling? How much has the trailer affected the hype? Are you up for a good thriller?