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Old Hollywood loves Federico Fellini. Isn't that an amazing sketch (left)? It's Fellini's first rendering of Gelsomina from La Strada. 
The Sheila Variations a beautiful birthday piece about crushing on Ralph Macchio before The Karate Kid (!) and the transformational power of getting hooked on the storytelling arts and the actors who make us dream.
Thelma Adams corrals some friends to discuss the annual topic: does nudity equal bravery for actresses?
Your Movie Buddy (and ours) interviews Kirsten Dunst on Melancholia.
ioncinema Fox Searchlight signs the Borderline Film trio (Antonio Campos, Sean Durkin, and Josh Mond) to a first look deal. That filmmaking collective operates in such a cool way, alternating in the director's chair but sticking together and supporting each other. Their latest venture being the fab Martha Marcy May Marlene (my review if you missed it).
Little White Lies interviews our current favorite Norwegian director Joachim Trier on his new film Olso, August 31st

Coming Soon Gallery of on set images from Terrence Malick's Lawless starring The Driver and That Girl With the Tattoo. Now that Malick is making movies as fast as say, Martin Scorsese (Allen & Eastwood's clip will thankfully remain out of reach... that speed doesn't do many people favors), that 20 year gap between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line is looking ever more perplexing.
Tom Shone thoughts on Leonardo DiCaprio and a top ten. It's odd that I disagreed so much with the content of the article but apart from the weird preferencing of Blood Diamond, I totally get the top ten choices.
MNPP Jake Gyllenhaal on the subway. Stars... they're just like us!
Flickr awesome gallery of "the end" onscreen 
In Contention will be there for a Vanessa Redgrave AMPAS tribute in London next week 
Oh No They Didn't 13 Movie Poster trends from the legs spread stance, to floating heads in clouds threw sexy backs holding weaponry. 

Finally...

That's the Hunger Games cast doing one of those Vanity Fair shoots that make everyone look All American Rising Star Sun Dappled Models in the Great Outdoors. Doesn't it bother anyone that the movie is all about these people killing each other and yet it's like "yay, the cool kids. you could be their friend, too!"

The Linkers Grimm

MUBI James Benning is experimenting with John Cassavetes Faces (1968) for a "remake" installation.
Antenna has valid thoughtful concerns about both of the new fantasy series on TV, Grimm and Once Upon a Time. Many good points are raised but I can't take them completely seriously since Once Upon a Time is one of the single gawdiest and most ham-fisted things mine eyes have ever witnessed whereas Grimm was surprisingly rich in potential and beautifully made (yummy production design) and they imply that Once has more potential? Yikes.

"greens greens and nothing but greens..." Grimm's are alive. Once but dead props.

Towleroad cutest thing Zac Efron has ever done? He did Halloween as a Reno 911 officer
Go Fug Yourself Heidi Klum went as a cadaver! Heidi Klum is the most awesome Halloween party ever. Every single year she turns it out.

Dark Eye Socket this is really cool: 5 Scary Movie Masks in Non-Scary Movies
Ultra Culture the shortest review you will ever read of Tower Heist and also probably the best one; it's a Venn Diagram!
Movie|Line Naomi Watts to star in the most depressing movie indie ever. I guess she didn't read our Red Carpet Convo with Guy Lodge when we worried for the perpetual worry lines of her career.

‪Nathaniel: Naomi most certainly needs to shake off all the dour miserabilism. People have been filming her with grimy 'THIS IS DEPRESSING!' lighting for so long that I have no idea what she'd look like if she was having fun‬!
‪Guy: Well, at least Watts is coming up in J. Edgar. A Clint Eastwood movie is just the kind of fun frisky change of pace she needs.

Socialite Life Leonardo DiCaprio looking dapper on the set of The Great Gatsby. This will possibly be just what he needs after all the aging prosthetics of J. Edgar.
Hollywood Reporter interviews Michael Fassbender about his very sexual year with Cronenberg and McQueen
Cinema Blend Hilary Swank has fired most of her management team over the scandal that erupted when she attended (paid) that birthday party for the Chechnyan President.
South Asian Film Festival, about to kick off here in New York, will open with the  Oscar submission Abu, Son of Adam.
Broadway World Julie Andrews honored tonight in NYC
Threadless "one cookie to rule them all" [see pic below] LOL. I had to share since we were just talking about The Lord of the Rings here.

"cookie ringwraith" © rnlynam

Oscar in Brief
Today is the due date for all Animated Feature contenders to submit their paperwork for the Academy. So soon we'll know just how many nominees we'll get in this category which can range anywhere from 2 to 5 nominees depending on the number of submission. Meanwhile, The Wrap and In Contention both have new pieces up on the Academy's Best Foreign Language Film category. More from us here soon as we screen more entries ourselves.

Finally...  This commerical for The Immortals which I've never seen --and I've seen plenty of advertising for it -- it can't be real can it?

If so, hats off. Tellin' it like it is. I agree with everything Rich at FourFour says "Fucking Poetry"
 

TV @ The Movies: "Supernatural" ♥ Nicole Kidman?

Don't misunderstand . I don't actually watch Supernatural but you know how some nights you're bone-tired and whatever is on is what you end up half-watching. (I think my TV must have been on the CW due to Ringer). I always perk up when TV shows reference movies and wonder what possessed the writers. 

Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) discussing witches

In the episode the supernatural hunting brothers are investigating mysterious murders connected to this guy Don (played by James Marsters) and his wife (played by another Buffy alum Charisma Carpenter... so it's like Spike & Cordelia got married. Ewwww!)

Dean: So the scorned wife is into the dark stuff.
Sam: And Don's just in the dark.
Dean: Hmmm. it's kind of like Bewitched. You know Don is Darren and doesn't even know it. Lot of laughs 'till you cheat on your wife.

Sam: A Bewitched reference? Really?
Dean: [Lustfully] Dude. Nicole Kidman was in the remake. Redhead. Hellooooo.

This is the first time I've ever heard the BEWITCHED (2005) referenced in a positive way anywhere in my life !!! 

RIP "The Playboy Club" (Sept 2011- Oct 2011)

The peacock network brings us the TV season's first cancellation. And whaddya know? It's their new show with the brightest plumage, "The Playboy Club". I've been soaking up the general response to this show and "Pan Am" with some interest since they're the two shows that Mad Men spawned, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery and the most flattering form of theft.

It's unkind to speak ill of the dead so I want to thank The Playboy Club for shining such a bright spotlight on Broadway babe Laura Benanti as she sang onstage and bitched backstage. She was the show's indisputable MVP for its very short run so some other series would be smart to snatch her up. I normally don't wish "series regular" status on Broadway's headlining musical stars because it makes them vanish from the stage but my friends and I have held a comic grudge against Benanti for years since it took us four times of paying for her shows to actually see her perform. Maybe we had terrible luck but... well, let's just say it seems like her understudies go on... A LOT.

[Updated Editor's Note: There's a reasonable explanation in reader comments as to why Benanti was absent from shows so much in the Aughts. Terrible injury.]

Though Pan Am is appreciably better as reviews suggested, the emphatically polarized 'two thumbs up/all thumbs down' greeting is something I couldn't really get behind as they have/had some of the same strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths: Great, sexy, and showy choice of milieu in that it's a potentially fine breeding ground for multiple stories and visual pizazz, a sassy leading brunette that's fun to watch (Laura Benanti / Christina Ricci), and super attractive men in suits.
Weaknesses: Period setting plays all cosmetic with no soul, depth, or nuance (don't get me started on the dialogue in either show... way too modern), beautiful leading blonde who is dull to watch (Amber Heard / Margot Robbie ... is the actress just not bringing it or are these characters too blank) and uneven acting.

So what's the decisive factor in one show winning instant fans and the other a speedy cancellation? I'm thinking confidence, both behind-the-scenes (who knows what executives are thinking) and onscreen. Pan Am struts through its airport like it owns the world and that dead bunny had something of a nervous twitching tail. Confidence in your own voice, even if you're still finding it, goes a long long way towards being heard.

Small Screen: Prime and Suspect Pilots

I promised a bit more TV talk this year and though I haven't seen any show that would inspire me to cover it weekly (Mad Men and True Blood are rare beasts, as interesting to write about as they are to watch) here's a quick overview of first impressions of new series. 

PRIME SUSPECT
A bit strange to watch this one in the receding shadow of last weekend's Emmy Awards. The whole time I kept thinking "Oh... here's one to shake up the Best Drama Series field next year if it can be shook. And Best Actress, too!"

But then, immediately after it ended, I felt ashamed of this inner golden-winged monologue. Great acting is no promise of statues after all. I must must must remember my own mantra -- difficult as it is to remember whilst enthusiastically prepping for Oscar season -- Great Work Is Its Own Reward. And Maria Bello is her own reward (and so rewarding, too).  Which is as it has to be given the cold shoulder from Oscar in the past (The Cooler, A History of Violence).

Prime Suspect, her new show (adapted from the now 20 year old Helen Mirren series) details the murder investigations of the smart abrasive Jane Timoney, the only woman in her homicide department. The first hour had a few script and performance beats with the zing of those 'Clarice Starling surrounded by tall men' visuals in The Silence of the Lambs but Bello just refuses to shrink. Though procedurals never really capture my imagination, character studies do and Bello demands that I keep watching. Her detective is funny without feeling scripted-quippy and unusually capable without seeming infallible (such a danger for protagonist roles in TV and film). Best of all she shades all of Timoney's more typically admirable qualities like confidence, cleverness, intelligence, and femaleness in such a way that they throw shade; her confidence curdles into arrogance, her cleverness veers towards the reckless, her intelligence has zero warmth and her vagina is both interference and scapegoat. Yes, her department is sexist but isn't her cold arrogance and lack of sympathy for co-workers (who have justifiably open wounds in this episode)  more than half of the problem in being welcomed into their club?

Click for more on Prime Suspect plus Revenge, Charlie's Angels and two more newbies.

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