Monday, July 11, 2011 at 10:00AM the first and last images from a motion picture.
and the first and last lines (both in voiceover) for another clue.
first: look at yourselves...
last: It appears, at least for now, that we are on our own.
Can you guess the movie? Check your work after the jump
first and last Sunday, July 10, 2011 at 10:15PM 
My New Plaid Pants Meet Brienne, who'll be very important on Game of Thrones. Eventually.
Critical Condition asks what it will take to get Ewan McGregor an Oscar nomination? We've been asking this for years. He ought to have at least two by now (Moulin Rouge! and Trainspotting)
Tom Shone makes a sound ExPat confession about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Heh.
Frankly My Dear remembers Richard Linklater's Slacker for its 20th.
Pajiba Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) will play Hervé "the plane! the plane!" Villechaize in the biographical My Dinner With Hervé. Like Pajiba I don't see a resemblance at all but Dinklage is a great actor so we wish him all the best in the role.
Sunset Gun recommends Over the Edge with Matt Dillon as a great time capsule and timeless rebellion teen film. I haven't seen this one but I'm now intrigued.
PopMatters I'm not going anywhere near Zookeeper but I'm finding the reviews somewhat interesting in a staring through thick glass kind of way. This one wonders which voice actor has the worst job in the film. That's a good question!
Several blogs have been noting the revision of the Straw Dogs poster -- the original version is to your right where Alexander Skarsgård is mysteriously inside of or ramming into James Marsden's eye (ouch!) rather than reflected in his glasses. Poster design is so half-assed these days, right? It looks much better (to your left) now all black and white and reflected. BUT while they were revising shouldn't they have come up with their own design rather than just recreating the original poster from the 70s Dustin Hoffman film?
Poster design is just so frustrating in Hollywood. The internet reminds us every single day -- and usually several times an hour -- that there are abundant graphic artists out there with the talent to make this another golden age of movie poster design and it just never quite happens. Hollywood, which runs on images, doesn't trust the visual literacy of its clients.
Maybe they shouldn't. I mean I'm sure you've all heard someone look at the rare illustrated movie poster and say "is that a cartoon?" but it's still sad-making.
Sunday, July 10, 2011 at 7:55PM 
It's been three years since we last saw Bond, James Bond but his licence to kill never expires. Neither financial difficulties --such as those experienced by his parent studio -- nor frequent cosmetic surgery (Connery to Lazenby to Moore to Dalton to Brosnan to Craig) can retire 007. His licence will be renewed all over again on November 9th, 2012 or thereabouts. That's the tentative release date for the as yet untitled Bond 23.
Thankfully everyone's favorite secret agent will still look like Daniel Craig when he returns (and presumably Judi Dench will still be giving him orders). Javier Bardem will be the new supervillain. Ralph Fiennes and Naomie Harris are also supposedly joining the cast in roles both new and familiar (Yay "Moneypenny"!).
No word yet on the number of or identity of the new Bond Girls but they'd better be sensational if they're hoping to pull any attention from that very formidable quintet.
Sam Mendes (Revolutionary Road) will direct and though he isn't a director that's known for using the same cast frequently, he has worked with his Bond before. Oscar-philes will note that Mendes was one of the earliest directors to give Craig a mainstream attention-grabbing part in Road to Perdition (2002).
It's all so fucking hysterical.
-Daniel Craig as Connor Rooney in Road to Perdition
It must have been hard to cast for Paul Newman's son given the legendary blue eyes. Craig's are crueler than Newman's but good call nonetheless, don't you think?
Are you excited for that the new Bond is back on track? What's your favorite of the 22 films? I've always been partial to Dr. No (1962), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997 but mostly for Michelle Yeoh) and Casino Royale (2006).
Sunday, July 10, 2011 at 2:13PM Aladdin is the latest Disney animated musical to get a stage version [hat tip]. It just opened in Seattle. Testing the waters sands for a Broadway run? We'd love to hear opinions from any Seattle TFE readers who see it. (This is the sort of reason we wish we had a huge operating budget here at TFE. Imagine the sudden coverage of such things.)
Adam Jacob as Aladdin and Courtney Reed as Jasmine
Adam previously played "Simba" in The Lion King and Courtney was in "In the Heights"
That's Aladdin (Adam Jacobs) and Jasmine (Courtney Reed) in rehearsal and in previous shows. The royal couple get one original song in addition to the big famous ballad "A Whole New World". After the jump Anything Goes and two Aladdin-centric videos. One, is a history of stage and screen versions of this Arabian Night's Tale and the other is a fleshy festive Fourth of July video with the cast in a Seattle park. I guess sex sells... even when it comes to Disney musicals!
Sunday, July 10, 2011 at 9:00AM Craig from Dark Eye Socket here with Take Three. Today: Melissa McCarthy
Take One: The Nines (2007)
The three things that struck me most about the twisty-turny Ryan Reynolds sci-fi drama were Melissa McCarthy. (Reynolds’ much-bared torso came a close fourth). In the film’s three loose-linked segments she plays: Margaret, a perky PR handler; Melissa, a TV actress version of ‘Melissa McCarthy’; and Mary, a housewife. There’s plenty of mystical musings about 9s being everywhere and meaning everything – though thankfully not as much number mumbling as there was in The Number 23 – but it sort of makes its own kind of brain-beaten logic by the end.
The second and third sections give McCarthy lengthy scenes opposite Reynolds: She aces “Melissa”'s cringe inducing pissed off moment where she’s told she’s being dropped from a TV show by this narrative’s version of Reynolds, and in the is-it-a-show-or-is-it-reality? final segment "Mary" gets an emotional scene which nicely shows off McCarthy's vulnerable side; in both segments she’s quietly phenomenal, often showing Reynolds, and everybody else, up.
But the actress really excels in the first section, as the troublingly bubbly PR keeping Reynolds’ fire-starting actor under house arrest with knowingly witty pleasantries.
I didn’t mean to eat my way into a ten-year shame spiral, but I did!
There’s an unsettling Truman Show-esque weirdness to this Melissa incarnation that the giggly sarcasm she uses can’t hide. With three roles, McCarthy gets to display triple the versatile character work in one decent movie.
Take Two: The Back-Up Plan (2010)
There’s only one good reason to watch The Back-Up Plan and it’s McCarthy.
