All Male Revue: Brad, Andy and Ryan (who is just too Ryan).

The Film Experience is known the world over for its actressy devotions but for this quickie link-list, we've gone Men Only for some reason. Must be all that Best Actor talk in the air... or rather in the internetz. On that front I would like to note that my Best Actor chart is HAUNTING ME. It went the way of the dinosaur once Moneyball hit... rendering past speculations moot and the html coding is suddenly acting up, too. Yes, Brad Pitt vaults up when the charts are all redone on Friday. Weekly updates, however minor, follow from then on. Aren't you excited?

Okay okay. Enough screams and tears of joy for weekly charts. Settle.

Hello Giggles a must-read letter to Ryan Gosling. "You have to stop. Just stop. It’s getting to be too much."
Oscar Metrics Mark Harris in the lonely outfield, doubting Brad Pitt's nominatability for Moneyball.  
In Contention surveys the crowded Best Actor field and talks Michael Fassbender and Michael Shannon.
Cinema Blend  Justin Timberlake has already played one man who rocked the rock world (Napster founder in The Social Network.)  Next he'll play Neil Bogart who introduced 70s acts like KISS and The Village People to the world in Spinning Gold.

Towleroad Actor Sean Maher (of Firefly and The Playboy Club) comes out of the closet.
Movie|Line talks to Corey Stoll of Midnight in Paris career-boosting.

Oh and only because I know I'll forget. A very happy 50th birthday to Andy Lau tomorrow. He's been super busy lately what with festival appearances, multiple new films and headlining the Hong Kong Oscar submission A Simple Life which stars Deannie Yip (Best Actress Venice) as his life long nanny who suddenly needs him to caretake. Please to remember that Lau was Matt Damon before Matt Damon was Matt Damon in The Departed by way of the original film Infernal Affairs. Have you ever seen that one?  

Here's the subtitled trailer to his Oscar entry A Simple Life.

NYFF: "The Loneliest Planet" With Gael García Bernal

The first of the senses that writer/director Julia Loktev hits us with over the opening black screen is sound. We heara  rhythmic pounding/creaking/breathing that's hard to place (sex scene? construction work?). When the fade-up happens, you'd never guess what image is waiting for you. It's something both utterly mundane and alien and strange. This is only the first of the surprises that await you as you journey across the Georgian wilderness with Nica (Hani Furstenberg) and Alex (Gael García Bernal) in The Loneliest Planet. 

Hani Furstenberg could eat Gael García Bernal right up in "The Loneliest Planet"

Nica and Alex are madly in love both with each other and their mutual wanderlust. They're seeking an authentic travel experience beyond touristy paths before they marry. English is their common tongue (though neither of their native languages) and the film makes the very smart decision of subtitling nothing, as they attempt to communicate with the locales and teach each other a bit of their native tongues. They sign up with a local guide Dato (Bidzina Gujabidze), the only other major character in the film, and they're off.

The Loneliest Planet ostensibly belongs to the arthouse school of contemplative "slow" films but there's actually quite a lot happening, as we observe Nica and Alex making love, absorbing nature alone or together and alternately building bonds with their guide and ignoring him. The space between each character is more geographically interesting than the landscape surrounding them. (Whether there's enough happening to justify its 113 minute running time is a separate question.)

The movies construction is such that you're climbing its mountain of details to the peak at Act One's curtain where "The Incident" takes place. And then you're climbing back down again in Act Two, with so much new to process in stunned silence.  "The Incident" (which is all I'll call it and what the director herself calls it) is a frightening and confusing moment that's also utterly believable and gorgeously acted. It's rendered all the more potent by the lack of constant cutting that mars so many pictures in the editing stage. The Incident is the movie's guaranteed conversation centerpiece which I fear most reviews with their lazy insistence on plot-plot-plot will give away. Loktev's mode throughout is observational and her refusal to offer up any commentary or (non visual) point-of-view on the matter will surely be counted as a detriment for some and a plus for others. Put another way she's masterfully collecting details but whether or not she has something to say about her treasured collection remains an open question to be answered by future films.

All movies engage your eyes and your ears by their very nature, but seize your visual and aural imagination only with skill. Loktev gently forces a third and dominant sense into the equation. Right from the very first startling image Loktev shows an extraordinary gift for the tactile. How many movies can you feel on your skin? Cold water, the brush of fingertips, a stone in one's shoe, hair violently tossing about in the wind and so many more sensations are beautifully captured. Most tellingly in The Loneliest Planet you can absolutely feel the warmth of a lover's touch and the unavoidable sudden chill whenever bodies separate.  B+ 

Previously @ NYFF
Melancholia - Michael gazes upon the end of the world with von Trier

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Joyful Noise"

Warning: I am kind of unfairly in hate with this movie through no fault of its own. I accidentally deleted this entire post after it was all written, photo'ed and scheduled to publish. Argh. In the process of rewriting and reconstructing the likely disposability of it all became aggravating. But I sally dolly forth! 

When i hear the rare words "new musical" I immediately perk up. But, given the difficulties of making a good one, the perking-up is chased by a flurry of "who? when? what kind? how so?"  panic. Have you even heard of this new film from Todd Graff starring Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah? It's called Joyful Noise. If it's as fun as Burlesque -- which it will inevitably be compared -- than we're in for a treat.

Don't let that screencap fool you. Though this appears to be a jukebox musical in which only already famous songs are sung (argh! the sub genre has replaced its parent genre entirely) Dolly will not be singing the Ultimate Gay Showtune "I Am What I Am" from La Cage Aux Folles even though I could totally see Queen Latifah as George and Dolly would make a great "Zaza".

In fact, I misheard the line. She actually says "I am who I am" to which Queen Latifah mouths back.

Maybe you were five procedures ago."

Um. Ha ha?

Let's watch the trailer and break it down with our Yes No Maybe So™ system after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Secret Messages: "Soused Logic"

secret messages from the movies... 1st season!

Darling, ----

Just because you got me soused last night doesn't alter the logic of the situation.

Good bye Good luck."

Can you guess the movie? Check your answer after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Link Basket

La Daily Musto turns out Lourdes is in her mamma's movie W.E.
Deadline does a post-mortem on Drive's box office failure. Young men didn't show up. Can we all agree that I'm a genius for my sure to be prophetic "people will love it ten years from now" post? Get back to me in 2021. 
Movie|Line talks to director Jose Padilha about his Brazilian Oscar entry Elite Squad 2 and the rumors of Michael Fassbender becoming Robocop

⇚ HF Magazine talks to Miles Teller (Footloose). Kidman & John Cameron Mitchell have high praise from Rabbit Hole.
Tom Shone Ten great things about Moneyball
Frankly My Dear Jamie Foxx sending Will Smith a fruit basket for pulling out of Django Unchained
Hark! a Vagrant, my favorite web comic, begins a Wuthering Heights adaptation just in time for the revival of Brontë Sisters fever in the film world. P.S. what's that about exactly? The renewed fever I mean. I know what Wuthering Heights is about ;)

Bizarre Caption Alert!
I'd seen the new Anne Hathaway as Catwoman photo a few times around the net and didn't think to share it (you've already seen it no doubt) but for whatever reason I actually read the caption at Daily Mail...

Um... Catwoman was famous before most of us were alive and before La Pfeiffer was even a tween. Just sayin'. (Don't think Julie Newmar or the ghost of Eartha Kitt would be pleased.)