I Vant To Link Your Blooooog

Frankly My Dear what's behind the Dreamworks Paramount animation split? It is all the panda's fault?
Playbill God help us all. Suri Cruise is making her first movie appearance in the musical Rock of Ages (2012). 
Daily Beast Were Waiting For Guffman's Corky St. Clair and Marcus Bachmann "Separated at Birth". oh lol, good hearty life-affirming lol. 

Cinema Blend OMG first images from Amy Heckerling's Vamps with Alicia Silverstone, Krysten Ritter and Sigourney Weaver, though no one has fangs! Remember when we thought that movie might get Michelle Pfeiffer? Sigh. Good times. So glad SigWeavie got it if we couldn't have La Pfeiff. Speaking of vampires, if you haven't checked out the latest True Blood episode review, please do.

Old Hollywood Notable moments in pre code history: The Sign of the Cross
IndieWire wonders if James Marsh (Project Nim) is the new Werner Herzog, equally at home in documentary and narrative worlds.
Towleroad P.S. I really liked that film, the Nim documentary (and more links if you just can't get enough.)

Finally... thanks to Super Punch for pointing out this old proposal for a Batgirl costume (in the Alicia Silverstone days). The illustrator Miles Teves was proud of this.

I regret that my idea of the cut-out Bat symbol window on the chest, showing a little skin and cleavage, didn't survive into the final suit. I thought it was kind of clever, and added just the right amount of wholesome flirtiness to the character.

But he knew it wouldn't work for Silverstone's proportions. More at his website.

'Hit Me', Rocco!

Boxing BrothersOnly 3 episodes of Hit Me With Your Best Shot left and here's one of the three! Please join us with your own "best shot" choices for Aliens (July 13th) and Rebel Without a Cause (July 20th) as we close out the second season in the next two weeks.

Those films will be easier tasks than Luchino Visconti's ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS (1960), mostly because they're more familiar properties. Visconti offers up so much to ponder in his novelistic film that one viewing might not suffice.

Rocco and His Brothers, which charts the sad aspirational lives of the Pardoni family -- they're country boys who move to the big city (Milan) -- is structured loosely by chapters named after and focusing on each brother from eldest to youngest: Vincenzo (Spiros Focás), Simone (Renato Salvatori), Rocco (Alain Deloin), Ciro (Max Cartier) and Luca (Rocco Vidolazzi). But this family is so codependent that that shifting narrative focus wouldn't be all that obvious without the title cards.

In fact, the brothers are rarely separated physically. They sleep in the same rooms, chase the same dreams (boxing), train and shower together, and even share women (albeit tragically). Visconti often films them in clumps, particularly in the first chapter, as the entire Pardoni family moves to Milan on the night of the engagement party of the eldest son.

They're never separated emotionally, as in this late shot in the film, when Rocco struggles to make a toast and the weight of his entire family hangs over him -- quite literally given the set decoration!

Rocco is a fascinating lead character because he's held up as an ideal in some respects being loyal, hard-working, and unencumbered by greed... but his tragic flaw is his own saintly martyrdom. The patriarch of the Pardoni clan is dead before the film begins (the matriarch is still wearing black) but he left five sons behind. You'd never know it from Rocco's savior complex. Does he fancy himself "the only begotten" what with the way he continually lays down his own blood, body, spirit and dreams for his wayward brother? 

But Rocco is no Christ. His love for his fellow man, or at least this one brother Simone, is so great that it's actually sinful. And it's not his own life he is willing to sacrifice but his woman's, Nadia's (a terrific Annie Girardot who you'll remember as Isabelle Huppert's crazy mother in The Piano Teacher).

Which is why the following two shots moved me the most.

Midway through the film Rocco dumps Nadia for love of his brother Simone (if Rocco and His Brothers weren't already considered a classic film, it'd have to be considered at least a classic soap opera) but his tears are impotent and this generosity of spirit hugely conditional since Nadia isn't exactly getting a good deal. In the end, it's Nadia who has to be crucified and she's not the one with the savior complex. 

"If I wanted a sermon, I'd go to mass."

Nathaniel and His Blog Brothers...  
Thanks to the following who also watched the movie for this Hit Me episode. Go read this great posts.

• My New Plaid Pants Hot Bros Before Hos
• Movies Kick Ass Iconic Roles
• Film Actually The Seductress
• Awww The Movies loved the movie, too

Clutch The Pearls! "The Iron Lady" Teases

What timing!

Oscar nominations are exactly 200 days away. Immediately after hearing that Glenn Close's Albert Nobbs now has a distributor, her ostensible "overdue" Best Actress competition -- that'd be Meryl Streep -- starts teasing us with this one minute teaser clip, the first from The Iron Lady.

We'll save the "Yes, No, Maybe So" for a full trailer. But you are immediately forgiven if every line reads as an Oscar tease as well.

You've got it in you to go the whole distance!"

Consider eyebrows raised, but why can't I shake the vocal / aural image of Streep as Julia Child on first glimpse of Streep as Margaret Thatcher? Is it just the Oscar proximity? (Can you?)

P.S. Oscar Prediction Pages updates have begun starting with Best Actress

Secret Messages: "Brain Says Strange Things Now"

secret messages from the movies.

CANT WAIT   CANT THINK EASY SINCE MORNING
BRAIN SAYS STRANGE THINGS NOW

FEEL MY WILL GOING     ALREADY

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

Click to read more ...

"Rocco and His Brothers"

Hit Me With Your Best Shot is a series in which we capture what we think of as the best shot -- and best is in the eye of the beholder whether that be for reasons thematic, aesthetic, intellectual or personal. Next Wednesday night for the multi-blog celebration of the 25th anniversary of James Cameron's Aliens (1986). This week's topic is... Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers.

Our Blog Brothers...  Go read them. Yay, blog brothers!

• My New Plaid Pants Hot Bros Before Hos
• Movies Kick Ass Iconic Roles
• Film Actually The Seductress
• Awww The Movies loved the movie, too

My piece will be up tomorrow. Why the delay? True story: I had a very unexpected visit just as I sat down to write today and they just left! Craziness.