Links: Penélope & Javier, Guy & Kate, Mavericks & Vampires

 Penélope & Javi
EW Penélope Cruz to headline Woody Allen's upcoming untitled Rome picture.
US Weekly First photos of the Blessed Babe of Penélope and Javi. His name is Leo. Awwww. Love the photo of Penélope with the pacifier in her mouth.
The Wrap Javier Bardem in final talks for Stephen King adaptation The Dark Tower.

Awwww. Look at Baby Leo.

More News
Awards Daily Boon Jong-Ho (of Mother and The Host fame) will head the Camera D'Or at Cannes this year (they're the ones that pick the "Best First Film")
Gold Derby the Grammys are shedding 31 awards in a streamlining effort. The weirdest switch is dumping the gender specificity. I would die if the Oscars did this. Actresses would never get nominated for everything.
Movie|Line attempts to keep track of the competing Snow White projects, currently scheduled to open within six months of each other next year.

Anton Yelchin and Colin Farrell in the FRIGHT NIGHT remake

80s Mania
Cinema Blend Top Gun is returning to theaters for its 25th anniversary. Ride into the Danger Zone!
NY Post shares new photos from the remake of Fright Night.

Finally...
Cinephilia & Sass names his 5 favorite Guy Pearce performances. Agreed fully on #s 1 & 2. Last weekend while watching Part 3 of Mildred Pierce a rather funny R-rated conversation from both straights and gays in the room erupted (It was awesome. As is his ass in Mildred Pierce. Unfortunately I can't share it, the conversation; I've been told by a girlfriend that the convo is strictly off-blog limits. Damn her!). The Guy/Kate scenes are the best ones in Mildred Pierce because they have more life pulsing through them, and not just because half of them erupt into tetchy sex scenes. The series is best when Mildred is angry and Monty & Vida (soon to become Evan Rachel Wood) are the only ones who significantly raise her temperature.

Doesn't it always feel like Guy is going to have a breakthrough that never quite comes? He has these big seminal movies and then... Shouldn't he be as famous as, like, oh Russell Crowe? Well, maybe not that famous. But it does seem like Hollywood has been inattentive? Or hasn't Chris Nolan been inattentive? For someone who reuses actors why not throw Pearce another plum role?

Not that he isn't busy post-King's Speech.

After piercing Pierce (sorry) he'll co-star in the Nicolas Cage thriller The Hungry Rabbit Jumps, headline the Australian drama 33 Postcards, appear in the sci-fi film Lockout with Maggie Grace and then reunite with John Hillcoat (who obviously loves him: The Road, The Proposition) for The Wettest Country in the World.

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Crazy Stupid Love"

The tradition here at The Film Experience is to break down new movie trailers under Yes, No and Maybe So reactions. It's a way to measure expectations rather than allow good (or bad) marketing to totally control us. But watching the trailer for the new comedy Crazy Stupid Love defeated my critical sensibilities entirely. It left me giddy and "Can I see this today. Please!???"

This single image best sums it up.

It's more for the two thumbs up than for the Tomei, though our thumbs are always up for Marisa, too. But this is one of those rare trailers wherein every new star that appears just ups the pleasure ante.

I guess we should play the game anyway. For consistency's sake.

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Supporting Actress Predix & Jessica Chastain

I don't have the patience or the time to research this but what do you suppose was the tipping point moment when Hollywood decided that they MUST have Jessica Chastain in every single movie in production? She's like Michael Fassbender's twin sister in terms of output. This happens fairly regularly with actors that Hollywood suspects you'll go crazy for. The most recent examples: Mia Wasikowska and Chloe Moretz. Sometimes the audience complies fawning all over the actor, other times they get all excited about the person as a celebrity but not as an actor (Colin Farrell's weird initial trajectory some years back), and other times they barely notice and don't care and Hollywood starts scrambling for another next big thing. [Editors note: Actually they're always scrambling for that even if you do embrace the one before.]

What will happen in 2011 with Jessica Ubiquity Chastain? Hollywood has gifted her with a potentially huge year. Will her work return that investment? Here's what her year is like...

Jessica Chastain in THE TREE OF LIFE

• JAN - She co-starred with Michael Shannon in Sundance hit "TAKE SHELTER"
• FEB - She started filming "THE WETTEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD" with an all star ensemble that includes Shia Labeouf, Tom Hardy, Mia Wasikowska and Gary Oldman.
• MAR - She turned the big 3-0.
• MAY - She stars as Brad Pitt's wife in Terrence Malick's long awaited drama "THE TREE OF LIFE"
• JUL - She co-stars with Chloe Moretz and Sam Worthington in the thriller "THE FIELDS"
• AUG - She plays the young version of Helen Mirren in 'THE DEBT" and is part of the Southern ensemble in "THE HELP" with Emma Stone.
• NOV - She co-stars with acclaimed thesps Ralph Fiennes & Vanessa Redgrave in the Shakespearean adaptation "CORIOLANUS"
• TBA -- She's supposedly completed work on Terrence Malick's Tree of Life follow up picture which stars Rachel McAdams. She's also Salome in "WILDE SALOME" which is Al Pacino's documentary about Oscar Wilde's play. It might come out this year.  If you've ever seen his Looking for Richard, we imagine it'll be like that - totally worth seeing if you're into the theater, the playwright in question and don't mind listening to actors indulgently talk about their craft (I don't just not mind this. I love this) but otherwise you probably won't care.

My god. Does she ever sleep?

I realize that Terrence Malick's films have never resulted in an acting Oscar nomination but there's a first time for everything and one has to assume she'll be in the 2011 conversation in some way even if it's just "oh my god there she is again!" I've included her in the predicted five because honestly, this is the hardest time I've ever had predicting Best Supporting Actress a Year in Advance. None of the roles/film/star matchups are screaming ME!

I am totally anxious to hear your thoughts on this entirely foggy category. This category requires psychic powers and perhaps mine are on the fritz.

First and Last. "put the whole thing in your mouth"

Presenting the first and last images and dialogue from feature films.

first: Is that good or is that good? Why don't you put the whole thing in your mouth?
last: Here. Let me try, sweetheart.

Can you guess the movie?

give up? the answer is after the jump.

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Best Shot: "HEAVENLY CREATURES"

Hit Me With Your Best Shot. Each week we assign a movie. Participants are asked to select its best shot and post it to their own webspace by Wednesday evening. Everyone is welcome to join in. Next week's topic is Beauty & The Beast (1991) and there had better be a big crowd. Who doesn't love that movie?

Today we're gazing at...

HEAVENLY CREATURES (1994)

With last year's mania for the dehumanizing Kick-Ass, this Spring's death-skilled Hanna and the internet's current casting obsessions with Hunger Games, in which a young girl Katniss (to be played by Jennifer Lawrence) becomes a killer to stay alive in a future that loves murder games, you'd think just about every other violent act in the world nowadays was committed by teenage girls. This type of violence can still shock onscreen -- and I hope it always will -- but it almost never arrives with both bludgeon force and emotional acuity the way it does in Peter Jackson's hysteric and hysterically imaginative Heavenly Creatures.

The problem that Heavenly Creatures poses with a "best shot" blogging experiment is not that it doesn't have these images, but that the images are rarely static and eager to be captured with your typical screen capturing devices. Only full on film clips would suffice. Peter Jackson loves the motion in his motion pictures and Juliet ("Introducing... Kate Winslet") and Pauline ("And Introducing... Melanie Lynskey") are about the most spastic female characters of the past couple of decades outside of maybe Molly Shannon's "Superstar!" They're constantly flinging themselves about. (read the full post.)

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