Curio: Sir Anthony Hopkins, Painter

Alexa here. I was lucky enough to vacation in Hawaii a few weeks ago. While walking down a particularly touristy street, a video projected in one of the shops caught my eye: there was Anthony Hopkins, standing in an artist's studio, talking about painting. Suddenly I was thinking of Surviving Picasso and how frustrating I found it that Picasso's paintings were only partially visible. Yet here was Hopkins, standing in front of a full canvas. Of course, this wasn't Guernica, but one of the actor's own alternately brooding and peaceful works. 

Hopkins has said that looking at his paintings, "what you're observing is my state of mind." He has also attributed himself a Van Gogh-type personality, especially during his drinking days.  Certainly something about his artwork mirrors his acting roles: alternating the garish (Instinct, Freejack) with the understated (84 Charing Cross Road, Howard's End). Here's a sampling. You can see more here.

More samples follow.

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First and Last, "Moooo"

Can you guess the movie from these two audio clues?

(the answer is in the comment chain if you want to see if your guess is correct.) 

First and Last: Mooooo

Face Huggers Forever!

Today is the actual 25th anniversary of James Cameron's Aliens (1986) which we happen to have been celebrating all week. (Theme Weeks! Do you love or do you love?)

We meant to do a little more about the actual series surrounding this one film but our Netflix queue was beset by weird problems --  "game over, man, game over!" -- The Alien Quadrilogy is arguably the most fascinating big money franchise that Hollywood ever threw money at, functioning such as it does as Auteur Training Wheels; each film was given to a different major director near what the world presumed was the beginning of their huge career: Ridley Scott (2nd narrative feature of 19), James Cameron (3rd of 8), David Fincher (1st of 9) and Jean Pierre-Jeunet (3rd of 6)

Instead we just focused on our favorite of the Quad. Just in case you missed any, here are the four bloggy monsters we hatched for this historic day.

• Hit Me With Your Best Shot
  In which 10 blogs select what they think of as this epic's best shot.
• My Magnificent Aliens Obsession
  In which Kurt shares a surprising childhood memoir.
• Take Three: Michael Biehn
  In which Craig celebrates Cameron's go-to wrecked hero. 
• Podcast: 1986 Highlights, Oscar & Cannes 
  In which Nick and I sing the movie's praises and revisit other favorites from the year.

I'll let the paid subscribers and donors (see sidebar) choose the next theme week. If you've contributed this past month to keep the site with something approaching a shoestring operating budget (i.e. roof over head) expect soon.

Did you enjoy the Ripley action this week?

True Blood 4.4 "I'm Alive and On Fire"

What we have here is what I like to call a soft tissue episode. It's no mere place holder filler episode but it's not the real muscle of the season either. We are moving along at a nice clip though, advancing all of the plots and raising the stakes.

Marnie watches a witch being burned alive. So that's why her eyes go alight?

I'm Alive and On Fire
In this episode we learn that fairy blood is no joke. If a vamp drains the whole fairy (see last week), he gets drunk and he can spend hours in the sun. Turns out that Alexxander Skarsgård's drunk Eric is just as much fun as his childlike Eric. He flirts shamelessly with Sookie, and he goes skinny dipping in the sunlight (in an episode that's veritably bursting with beefcake). Speaking of which, most of the skin show is far less icky than the past two episodes of Jason Stackhouse's rape at the hands of the werepanther women. Jason finally gets vertical again (thank God) and escapes, though it's probably safe to say that trouble will follow him. In other storylines that evil baby gets a writing on the walll moment "BABY NOT YOURS" and there's more potential trouble for the Merlotte boys as the people they turn to emotionally are less than safe havens.

Something smells fishy. Well, yeah, he's been to the lake.

The strongest element of the episode was its fluid reflectiveness as scenes from disconnected storylines seems to comment on each other. The reveal that Bill's latest conquest is actually his great great great great great granddaughter bounces off all of that sick "brotherhusband" talk in Jason's storyline. And then there's the crazy girlfriends. Take, for instance, Alcides's relationship with his girlfriend Debbie.

Surprisingly it's not his rock-hard body that's made her nuts...

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Links: Voldemort, Mineo, Britton, Lynch, Cruise

Slate a lovely positive post-mortem of the Harry Potter series with a well reasoned argument for the indispensability of one Alfonso Cuarón and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as the lynchpin of the series's enviable franchise longevity. 
Movie|Line "nine milestones in the evolution of Ralph Fiennes." Damnit. Why no Strange Days (1995)?

Boy Culture first behind the scenes stills from Sal, that James Franco directed Sal Mineo biopic starring Val Lauren
Boy Culture also discovers that the actor Frederick Weller (remember him? I always liked him) has the world's greatest memory.
The Other Paper a fascinating history of that "You and Me" song in Blue Valentine (hat tip) 
Natasha VC "so much hope" or... (my title) What can happen when the Oscars all go to still-young performers who you think you'll love forever. Oops! 
Awards Daily lists their reader determined first half of the year nominations 
Pajiba is way angry about the film adaptation of the novel One Shot. I don't know the source material but apparently the lead is supposed to be a towering figure, like 6'5" towering; so naturally, 5'7" Tom Cruise is your man! 
Scott Feinberg falls for "blank slate" French girls Melanie Laurent (Beginners) and Marion Cotillard (Midnight in Paris)
The Wrap picks the MVP actors of the summer 

Boing Boing contributor Rob Beschizza decided to reedit and abbreviate David Lynch's much-derided Dune without its problematic script. It's much shorter and the imagery takes over. Interesting. Here's a sample. 

Finally, in my ongoing tiny and useless campaign to win Connie Britton a Best Actress Emmy for Friday Night Lights, I present Grantland's  fine Oral History of Friday Night Lights. The section on the casting of Connie Britton as Tami Taylor is A-MAZ-ING because it makes clear everything I'm always saying about how lame the "supportive spouse" role always is and how much more capable the nation's actresses are than the lame sleepwalking shit they're always given to do in these roles. Here's a sample.

Berg: [In the original Friday Night Lights movie], Connie Britton's role was sort of Pretty Wife Clapping in the Stands, which is about the shittiest job an actress can have...

Connie Britton (Tami Taylor): ... I was like, "No way!" The only thing worse than playing a nothing part in a movie is [playing it] for years and years on TV.

Berg: She said, "Are you fucking kidding me? You think I'm going to spend 10 years sitting on a hard-wood bleacher getting splinters in my ass and cheering on Kyle Chandler? You're out of your mind." I said, "I promise. We'll create a character. We'll give you a job. We'll give you dimension. We'll give you a real voice."

Britton: It really was a leap of faith, initially, because I only had three scenes in the pilot script. So I remember even going into the pilot and saying, "OK, Pete, just so we're clear: What's here on the page in the pilot, that's not what we're talking about, right?"

Heh. Television needs more Tami Taylors. And so, too, does the cinema.