Game Off

Three stories of how I'm off my game.

1. In the podcast post about "Midnight in Paris", I was all "you should read these articles" and then I didn't link to them. D'oh. We briefly mentioned Fandor's "TOP TEN FILMS ABOUT FILMMAKING" which you should definitely look at (I did the Sunset Blvd honors therein and I shared a personal ballot) and we talked about Mark and Joe's series on Oscar nominated Original Songs which has covered 1980 "Fame", 1981 "Arthur", 1982 "Up Where We Belong", 1983 "Flashdance", 1984 "I Just Called To Say (I Love You)", 1985 "Say You Say Me" and 1986 "Take My Breath Away" thus far. It's great fun to read.

2. Today is the 50th anniversary of THE PARENT TRAP (1961) only one of my favorite movies of all time. I think I was born loving it. Maybe I was meant to be twins? And I forgot to write it up. *sniffle* Forgive me Hayley & Hayley!

Yes, it is amazing!

3. You have to be chosen! With each passing day my own Green Lantern review fades in my own estimation (and I was so happy with it when writing it) whilst my hatred for the movie grows.

First Christopher Orr at The Atlantic provided the funniest traditional review, absolutely skewering the movie's hateful messages. I had tried to do the same with that "thinking is bad for you!" anti-intellectualism angle but the Tyranny of Beauty complaint is just as valid when it comes to the movie's deplorable subtext. Now Topless Robot has an incredibly funny but, more importantly, entirely accurate synopsis of its "best" scenes. It's hilariously precise and a great reprimand to all future movies that would like to have their screenplays written by committees and portray"heroes" as assholes whilst demanding that you root for them.

Remember how juvenile and bratty that movie Jumper was wherein the "hero" basically called everyone watching it "schmucks" in the opening scene and then we were supposed to root for him and his enormous and undeserved powers anyway? Green Lantern is totally like that... but it gets away with it a bit more on account of cocky Ryan Reynolds winning the sweepstakes of "who would you rather stare at you in 'puny human'* contempt mode?" sweepstakes handily over whiny Hayden Christensen whose ass you could probably kick anyway.

*I realize I just mixed up superhero tropes. Shut up! My ego has already taken a beating.

I will diminish and go into the East and remain Nathaniel.

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Dangerous Method"

In the series Yes No Maybe So we parse out movie trailers to determine just how excited we are about an upcoming movie. Today... David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method in which two very infamous doctors of psychiatry (Freud and Jung) find a perfect guinea pig in unstable Russian woman Sabina Spielrein;  Psychoanalysis is born, though it hasn't quite worked out its doctor/patient boundaries just yet.

YES
Viggo Mortensen, David Cronenberg's chief muse these days, plays Sigmund Freud and their second reunion after the masterpiece A History of Violence (followed by the compelling Eastern Promises) would be enough for a sober grunted "yes" on its own. Stir the Crazy of Freud/Jung into the mix with justifiably Most-Wanted Michael Fassbender in the lead role of Carl Jung and the yes becomes as hysteric as Jung's patient Sabina played by Keira Knightley (who is obviously out to raise her game as an actress lately).

NO
On the other hand, sexual repression and experimental psychiatry aren't the easiest topics to portray without the possibility of unintentional laughs or hindsight ridicule in these arguably more enlightened times. The trailer does have a weird fallback mode in which someone says something we're to register as Shocking or Telling and... cut to: Fassbender immediately shifting his intense glance to the side.

MAYBE SO..
Though Cronenberg is one of the world's most fascinating auteurs and Viggo and Fassy two of its most genius actors, the trailer gives off the distinct aroma of Keira...

As in... this will all live or die or, rather, doze off with boredom or leap off the psychiatrists couch with abandon if she's up to her central role. I worry that they refer to her as Russian and Keira doesn't sound Russian at all in the trailer? And given that her role is extreme with the theatrics, will she be Oscar beloved or sliced up with the critics knives?

Keira The MadwomanKeira Oscar-Clipping It.Keira the Masochist "PUNISH ME!"

Will this feel like a stage play with the all the talking and observing in offices and bedrooms?
Will the trio of famous faces invest the heady mind games with heart, body and soul?
Will Cronenberg finally have an Oscar hit on his hands what with the true story, biographical figures and period detailing?

So many questions... so much worth analyzing.

Watch the trailer at the film's official site!

Are you a Yes, No or a Maybe So...?

True Blood in Five Minutes

When I polled y'all about whether or not we should review True Blood Season 4 as it airs, and though the response was tepid in terms of button clicking it was "yay" in terms of coverage so we'll try it out. If response is good we'll keep going. If not, we dump. Every other film site seems to cover more and more TV [TANGENT: the worlds continue to converge though not, I should add, as they should: put the franchises on TV where no beginnings, middle and ends are appropriate and not in the cinema where you're supposed to tell a full story, damnit! [/TANGENT] and we gotta keep up or lose market share.

So before Season 4 begins next week, a quick recap of the first three seasons courtesy of HBO

For those who care about existing predispositions my favorite human is Jason (Ryan Kwanten being the show's acting MVP... and the least likely to ever be nominated for it), my favorite vampire is Pam (Kristin Bauer), my favorite eye candy is Eric (Alexander Skarsgård) and my favorite CGI creation is Joe Manganiello (as "Alcides) who cannot possibly be a real human actor considering that superhero body that makes Ryan Reynolds look like a gym slacker. I go back and forth on the quality of virtually everyone and everything in this show but I find it addictive and admire its looney commitment to all caps acting and total trashiness.

"Character" Poll - 1991-2000

Saturday I asked you to vote on Best Actress Character Polls. This is not about the performances per se but the movie characters themselves.

It's to help me with brainstorming a secret project or two -- plus to get a general consensus on which characters you wonderful people out there in the dark obsess over most. So while we're discussing it, let's make the poll an even two decades.

Here's part 3 & 4 1991-1995 | 1996-2000. VOTE ON BOTH. Please choose up to but no more than 5 characters. Be honest about which characters you think of the most (which is not the same as who you think deserved to win.)

poll by twiigs.com

Here's part 4. 1991-1995. Same thing.

poll by twiigs.com

Thanks for voting.

And make sure to hit the other two polls if you haven't already. Thanks!

Baby Magneto and Other Links

Flickr the set of Tim Burton's Dark Shadows is growing.
IndieWire seems there are two Jeff Buckley biopics in the works and the Penn Badgley version is not the one with the Buckley estate blessing.
Austin Translation "The Iron Grill" funny illustration to celebrate yesterday's finale of Game of Thrones (did you watch?)
I Need My Fix new Jason Statham movie The Killer Elite looks like every other Jason Statham movie.
Awards Daily just days after we covered that Dick Tracy event, in which Beatty said a sequel is in the works, comes news that the legend has another film nearly ready to start production. I'll believe these two films when I see them. But I loooooove my Beatty so I'm hoping both pan out.
vitorugo "Erik's first..." HAHA!

Illustration by Victor Hugo

Classic! (There's too much iron in his diaper.). Don't you now wish that Pixar had made X-Men First Class Mutant Babies instead of Matthew Vaughn?

OffCinema
Diesel Sweeties "The Herald of Deliciousness" one for you cat owners out there.
AV Club Meredith Blake is reviewing the first season of The Real World. you know back when it was trailblazing, experimental and "real" feeling ...and kind of awesome. MTV immediately fucked it up the following season but there's always season 1. It's kind of random that this review is happening but also awesome.
Raja "Diamond Crowned Queen" for you RuPaul's Drag Race fans