Link Link Link Went the Bloggie

A veritable cavalcade? avalanche? orgy? of links this morning from news stories we haven't covered through interesting film tidbits and showbiz articles we wanted to point out for various reasons.

bigscreen
Vanity Fair looks back at the making of now 20 year old Pulp Fiction
Fox Searchlight Birdman gets an incredible series of city-specific movie posters. Hopefully various movie theaters around the country will latch on to this. Such a fun idea.
The Spy in the Sandwich looks at Oscar's resistance to Asian cinema in the Foreign Language Film category and The Phillipines in particular
Variety Jason Reitman doing another "Live Read" of American Beauty on Thursday in LA, this time with his Men Women and Children cast 

The Wire on where Jason Reitman (Labor Day, Men Women and Children) went wrong
Awards Daily Meryl Streep on the set of Ricky and the Flash
NonFics 10 essential documentaries on sex and sexuality. I've only seen one of these, the experimental and memorable Zoo (2007) but it's not for the sensitive but it's brilliant
In Contention can Paramount toss a lifeboat to Noah for awards traction?
MNPP manages the internet's only 100% appropriate response to news that Javier Bardem might do the next Pirates of the Caribbean movies with Johnny Depp
Boy Culture 'Nick the Gardener' is going to be in Magic Mike XXL
The Wrap Benedict Cumberbatch gets political on tour for The Imitation Game. He's had it with religious fundamentalism. (Haven't we all?)
Variety looks at the new efficient micro-targeting for ethnic audiences from this past weekend's Addicted through last year's Hispanic hit Instructions Not Included

Why am I not linking to any Marvel Universe news that has been dominating the web for the past 48 hours (yet more Doctor Strange and Avengers rumors)? It's like this: Avengers: The Age of Ultron isn't out for another seven months and we haven't even seen a trailer and people are already speculating endlessly about the sequel after its next sequel. This madness has to stop. The balance is way way off and I wish other far more powerful movie sites would realize this. It's fun to speculate and look ahead, sure. But Jesus. Can we stick to the next year's worth of stuff? Rather than the stuff the unseen still unknown content of that stuff might lead to?

smallscreen & other randomness
Salon smart fascinating piece on Twin Peaks' influence over the television landscape spurred on by the announcement that the show will return. I'm confused why I didn't post about that as it's easily among my four immortal TV loves (if you must know the others are: Buffy, Mad Men, and My So Called Life)
AV Club Agents of SHIELD finally gets a near-great episode with double the Ming-Na Wen. She's so good on this show and it's just now realizing it in the second season.
THR Awesome director Steve McQueen is ALSO going to TV (argh) with a series about a gifted young African American testing the limits of social mobility for HBO called Codes of Conduct. 
Popwatch a beautiful piece on the mother/daughter relationship at the heart of Gilmore Girls and how revolutionary it was for television. A truth: I had never seen this show before, apart from I think one random episode, so I've been watching it on Netflix and it is adorable and everyone was right about it all along and why didn't I watch at the time?
Dangerous Minds just how beautiful was Karen Carpenter's voice?  
Empire First reveals of Netflix Daredevil series poster and stills 
Sound on Sight Closure is important on television
The Daily Beast the great animated series Archer drops the name of their spy org "ISIS" - now what to do with all that merchandise from a name that was once funny and is no longer 

It's All GONE GIRL All The Time round the web
On the post-production...

New Yorker "What Gone Girl is really about"
New Yorker "Marriage is an abduction"
iTunes you can now buy the "Amazing Amy" books as featured in the film/book 
Antagony & Ecstasy Tim Brayton's review...  

And for all that it's perfect, I find that Gone Girl suffers from that most amorphous and indescribable and subjective of artistic flaws: I just didn't like it. 

The Sweeney SistersBELATED RIP 
I am terribly sorry that I forgot to acknowledge the passing of Jan Hooks, who died way too young at 57, this past Thursday. But please know that she was easily among my favorite SNL players of all time - definite top 10 material of their 141ish cast members to date were I ever to make a list. I adored the Sweeney Sisters (her lounge lizard duets with Nora Dunn) and of course her off-SNL stint as a tour guide at the Alamo in Pee Wee's Big Adventure is immortal. It may well be the single movie scene I've seen more than any other as people I hung out with in high school and then a different set of friends I lived with during college all loved that movie and had that scene memorized and somehow it was frequently thrown in the VHS or DVD players for insta-laughs. What's your favorite Jan Hooks contribution to TV or film? Saturday Night Live honored her with a clip reel tribute.

HTGAWM: "Smile, Or Go To Jail"

We're three episodes in to How To Get Away With Murder and three episodes is where I draw the line if a show isn't working for me. Time is too precious: one season of a network series is time enough for ten or eleven movies, you know? You could basically catch up with the entire Best Picture lineup from 1939 in that time, something surely all of America is eager to do if someone would only suggest it to them as an alternative to watching another season of CSI: Wherever*. For love of Viola Davis I'm giving this series one more episode to win me over instead. Also because ABC has promised that my jaw will drop with "the last nine words" from Viola's mouth on episode 4. If their prophesy is true, we'll see. But I shall state it simply: after three episodes I can safely say that I think the show is bad. Trashy fun? Eh, Kind of. But more like Trash that thinks it Hot Shit.

On episode three we begin again with that hyper-caffeinated bonfire / murder coverup in the future so basically you never know which episode you're watching until like 5 minutes in. But even after that opening five, deja vu prevails since the show is so formulaic: 1. Annalise takes a case; 2. Her students help solve it with interstitials of them doing sneaky things; 3. The legalese is explained with cutaways to Viola's lectures in class; 4. We learn the client is guilty; 5. Viola wins, or, minor derivation in episode three: Viola doesn't lose; 6. Roll Promo for next episode!

Biggest Pet Peeve Runner Up: Professor Annalise Keating only ever calls on the 5 students who have series regular gigs despite hundreds of hands going up in her lecture hall. Come on showrunners, be good samaritans - give one of those extras their SAG card with a line, you know? This is highly unrealistic classroom behavior. I absolutely cannot buy that her classrooms arebig draws (we hear that she brings in the students for the university big time) when she doesn't remotely seem interested in teaching or involving her students unless they work for her for free when they leave the classroom like indentured servants and drop all their other coursework and abstain from social lives except when it comes to sex scenes which can be used to prevent people from grabbing remotes and switching channels.

Biggest Pet Peeve Winner (by which I mean we all lose)
For a show aiming to showcase Viola Davis she's often crowded out what with all the subplots and her students doing basically everything for her.

Gay Guy vs. Prom Queen shared a penis: pass it on.

This particular episode? If I must. Viola defends Ugly Betty's sister who went politically radical decades ago and bombed a building. Ugly Betty's sister skips bail so Viola's courtroom time abruptly ends. Meanwhile: Wes convinces Annalise to defend his neighbor across the hall instead of the quarterback that the university has asked her to defend in the murder mystery that the first season is built on. Who Killed Lila WhatsHerFace? Who cares! On the sex scene front, Viola is again rebuffed by her muscle stud cop boyfriend (who lies to her about her husband's alibi bur dor what reason? Surely to cause unmotivated hysterical drama later in the season) so Prom Queen gets this episode's big sex scene with her heretofore unseen fiancee who, as it turns out, once slept with Gay Guy Not Matt Not Wes when he was 16 at boarding school. Prom Queen absolutely freaks out because no straight guy in the history of the universe has ever fooled around with another student at an all male boarding school when he was a horny teenager. Say it with me: "SCANDAL!"

* Please do not tell me this is not true in the comments, he says weeping.

AHS: Freakshow "Monsters Among Us"

The shadows that had sheltered me were banished by the blinding light of scrutiny. I knew I was about to enter the gates of hell but like the inescapable pull of gravity there was nothing I could do about it.

Sarah Paulson's opening monologue to the fourth season of American Horror Story: Freakshow is rather how I feel about AHS itself. It's hellish, purposefully, and I feel a gravitational pull to watch even though I never love it. Grande Dame Guignol (also known as Hag Horror), a wonderfully stylized actressy subgenre of horror, was dead until Ryan Murphy revived it but his take on it is way too fused with the Slasher, the grossest and most obvious subgenre of horror that refuses to die. 

This first episode of Season 4 begins promisingly enough with a patient average shot length and plentiful mood, though did we have to lift the Under the Skin score wholesale for what appears to be Elsa's (Jessica Lange) actual theme music this season? (I know the world is in love with Jessica Lange right now but Scarlett's ___ might well devour her whole.) Elsa recruits Siamese Sisters (Sarah Paulson as Dot & Bette) who murdered their mother. Meanwhile a scary clown with Leatherface like add-ons to his face (g-ross) in what appears to be a costume that hasn't been washed in years starts stabbing people gruesomely. He doesn't seem to belong to the actual Freakshow. We meet a wide cast of characters but Angela Bassett and her three breasts, Michael Chiklis as the Strong Man and Denis O'Hare as someone are as yet unseen. [More...]

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How To Get Away With Murder - Two Episodes

How to Procrastinate Film Blogging? Live-blog a tv show.

Since The Film Experience has been in Viola Davis's corner for a dozen years now -- I gave her one of her first film prizes even if she didn't know it: a gold medal for best cameo in Antwone Fisher (2002) -- I felt obligated to watch her new headlining gig for at least a couple of episodes. I'm not remotely a procedural kind of person or a Shondaland person. Grey's Anatomy, her career-maker, had too much whining and Scandal is too hysterical and (worse) wildly uneven in its acting. Nevertheless I thought I'd live blog the first two episodes and see if it's fun enough to stay with (?) and largely to see if you are watching, too.

How To Express Your Feelings? Comment on said blog.

1.1 Pilot
00.01 Opening sequence is like those 'we're changing scenes and denoting the passage of time!' interstitials on Scandal but for like a whole interminable two minutes. Average Shot Length of .0001 seconds is not my speed. Some college kids are shouting about what to do with a dead body. Is it mine? Having died from seizures from the editing.

01.48 Tall cute black guy (who has the longest neck I've ever seen on TV) says that "tossing a coin" is OUR ONLY CHOICE. Thank god for coins because decision making, man. Tall cute black guy looks super familiar but I can't figure out why*.

03.03 MATT MCGORRY! (love him on Orange is the New Black. And his sense of humor as a celebrity)

03.33 Giggling that Wes (that's the tall guy's name) is told there's a seating chart in his class. He looks at it for less than .002 seconds while simultaneously swivelling his head around with that crazy neck of his to talk to all the other main characters (everyone with a line will surely be important)...and yet he knows EXACTLY where to sit. Psychic. 

03.39 VIOLA ENTERS... 

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Advice on Life and Movies - The Best of RuPaul's Reddit AMA

RuPaul Charles, Supermodel of the World and the mad genius behind the reality TV phenomenon RuPaul's Drag Race, took some time away from myriad hosting/singing/writing/producing commitments to host an AMA ("Ask Me Anything") on Reddit, with predictably delightful results. 

Along with discussing his career and favorite works of art, RuPaul also dispensed words of advice on fashion, confidence, and battling personal demons. Here are some of the best parts:

Why did you decide to go by your real name, RuPaul, instead of taking on a drag name?

Because I was stupid. It's important to use a stage name so that your real name doesn't appear on public records.

What's the fondest childhood memory you have?

The time my sister Renetta took me to the Canyon with a paper bag of cookies and a blanket, and told me "Ru-ru- this is a pic-nic." I was 5 years old. That's when I first learned about magic. Because to anyone else, it would be a paper bag and a blanket. But Renetta turned it into a magical event by calling it a pic-nic.

What makes a gay icon?

What makes a gay icon is someone who possesses both masculine and feminine qualities simultaneously. Someone with the power of Judy Garland and the vulnerability of Judy Garland is a shoe-in. The world we live in is made up of polar opposites, black/white, male/female, night/day, and a human being who possesses both masculine and feminine - vulnerability and strength - is intriguing to us, whether they be a singer or actor or dancer, intrigues us, because THAT Is who we really are. We are this world, all of it, and when we recognize it in other people - that person gets our attention. That person becomes the representation of your own potential.

If you had to pick one movie for the whole world to watch, what would it be?

The Wizard of Oz. It says everything you need to know about what we are doing on this planet.

Who is your favorite author and what is your favorite book?

I love A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. And I love a Return to Love by Marianne Williamson. I also love the Tom Perrotta books The Leftovers, and my all-time favorite book is Animal Farm by George Orwell.

Who is your comedy icon?

Joan Rivers!

I loved you in But I'm A Cheerleader. What was your favorite part of working on that film?

It would be watching Eddie Cibrian's booty in those cutoff jeans.

Dealing with anxiety I have repeated many of your quotes to myself, to keep going, to stop judging myself, etc. But sometimes the saboteur seems to be screaming so loud that I can't avoid it. When the saboteur gets too loud, how do you deal with it?

You have to nurture another voice that counteracts the saboteur. And you have to also ask yourself - are you willing to give up the payoff you get from succumbing to the saboteur?

What would you say is your most important piece of fashion advice?

Be yourself. Know your proportions. And have a good tailor.

I've got an artesian well on my property and the water pressure is lousy. Any suggestions?

HAHAHA. Sissy that water!