Links: Tim Hetherington (RIP), Batman Year One, Gaga Saga

Tribeca Film RIP Tim Hetherington. This is so sad.The just Oscar nominated co-director of the fine documentary Restrepo and an amazing war photographer has been killed in Libya. He had just recently released a book of photography called Infidel which had a section called "Sleeping Soldiers" --not your typical war photography.

You can listen to a lengthy talk by him about his work at "Foto 8" The site also has an accompanying gallery to watch while listening.

Movie|Line 3-D reboot of softcore Chinese movie Sex & Zen (I don't know whether or not to admit that I've seen the original. Whoops) breaks records in Hong Kong. American produced 3-D porn is also on the way. Ruh-roh.
Hollywood Reporter Batman Year One, an animated film igoing straight to DVD, casts Eliza Dushku as Catwoman. That works, her being a frisky kitty and all.
TOH Anne Thompson thinks Jennifer Lawrence looks terrible as Mystique in X-Men: First Class. I'd agree. I don't understand why they had to give her that abnormal forehead thing again. Shake up the look a little.

Weird Al explains what happened with Lady Gaga. She's disrupted his album release plans by rejecting his "Born This Way" parody "Perform This Way"
Playbill Been missing the awesome of Jonathan Groff or the bliss of Kristin Chenoweth on Glee? They return very very soon.

Antonio Banderas in The Skin I Live In (2011)

Vulture Margaret Lyons has a very astute article on what's right and wrong with NBC's "Parenthood". (I met one of its stars and I'll tell you about that tomorrow morning.)
Very Small Array has a horrifying chart about the quality slide in box office hits. Thanks to Awards Daily for pointing it out.
In Contention starts a series on the Cannes offering beginning with Almodóvar's The Skin I Live In.
Cinema Blend Jacki Weaver joins the Judd Apatow comedy Five Year Engagement. Go get those post-Oscar roles, Jacki! 

Ryan O'Neal 70th's Birthday

Alex aka BBats here. It’s Ryan O’Neal’s 70^th birthday today! He’s always been one of my favorite actors. In a few great movies, he showed incredible range and unbelieveable charisma.  After a few years of doing guest roles on television, O’Neal became a bankable star after Peyton Place's popular run. The Big Bounce (1969) was his first starring role in a film, but he’ll be remembered as bursting through to superstardom for Love Story (1970). 

Everyone’s seen Paper Moon (1973) and everyone should watch it again. (Its streaming on Instant Netflix, so no excuses!)  His collaborations with Peter Bogdonavich coincide with the peak of his career.  Look at his filmography in the 1970’s. It is an amazing assembly of films!  

I must confess that I still haven’t seen Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975).  I have a firm belief that one day some repertoire movie theater will screen it in 70mm (a man can dream, can’t he?). 

poll by twiigs.com

Go watch The Big Bounce, The Driver, What’s up Doc?, Nickelodeon, Wild Rovers, or any of his films. 

Nashville Awards: Andrew Haigh's "Weekend" and More...

Jury Deliberations. Most festivals have separate jurors for each of the major sections. Cannes is the one people are most familiar with it being the festival of festivals. The competition slate is the main focus but they don't actually decide each of the awards you hear about. There are other juries gathered to decide things like the Camera D'Or (best first film) and the short film prizes. Nashville has five juries and they're also an AMPAS qualifying festival so if, for instance, a short film wins "best" in category here it becomes eligible for Oscar consideration. I was on the Narrative Competition jury this year. The running joke at the table became "this doesn't leave the table..." so...end of story!

Let it suffice to say that it's always usually enjoyable to discuss movies with other creative types and in this case it was extra enjoyable as my fellow jurors Dan Butler (previous discussed) and Joe Leydon (a Texas based film critic who also writes for Variety) were both fun passionate movie-loving guys.

After we decided our prizes, I scampered over to the Music Film jury when I saw them wrapping up to thank the gorgeous Kimberly Reed for her Prodigal Sons film the one I kept raving about to y'all a couple of years back. She told me about a new percolating project of hers but she's actually still trekking around the country with her breakthrough film years later. Oprah's interest in her story really made a huge impact -- Oprah really does control the world, doesn't she? -- but that kind of sustained interest couldn't have happened to a better documentary or to a more articulate champion for the transgendered community.

BEST OF THE 2011 NASHVILLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Read on to find out which films each jury loved as well as a few notes on the films.

Click to read more ...

First and Last, Statue

Dave here with another game of First and Last.

The first and last images from a motion picture:

Can you guess the movie?

Check the answer after the jump.

Click to read more ...

April Showers: Bill Murray's Bad Day

waterworks weeknights at 11

Robert (writer of Distant Relatives) here, sitting in for Nathaniel, with an April Showers entry. Every have a really terrible day you just want to end? Turns out Bill Murray's legendary curmudgeon Phil Connors is having one of those days. So what to do?

Retreat.

Take a hot shower.

very hot.

too hot!

It's a seemingly throw-away gag, but actually epitomizes why I think I love Groundhog Day more each time I watch it (and I've watched it many times now).

Yes, even Phil Connors' attempt to relax goes wrong. His day sucks. You don't blame him for blowing off the Groundhog Dinner just a scene earlier (though you do blame him for being a jerk about it). And you don't realize yet that going to the dinner-engaging with life rather than avoiding it, was the right thing for him to do.

Dang, if only he had it to do over again.