The Tree of Link

Nicks Flick Picks looks at the cinematography of Todd Haynes masterwork Safe (1995).
Scene Stealers chooses the ten best cinematography jobs of the past decade, with The Tree of Life the only current film to place.
In Contention on Fox News freakout over The Muppets liberal agenda. 
Paper Mag has an enjoyable profile of Kristen Wiig and her superstar-making year 
Karine Vanasse ...will we see her again after Pan Am flies away? I find TV news difficult to follow so I'll admit total confusion when shows randomly show up on my DVR or move networks or whatnot but apparently this charming French Canadian actress says Pan Am has been cancelled and the network says it's just on hiatus? My point is that I watch the show and am totally in l'amour with her.

The Hollywood Reporter worries that the AMPAS demographic (which skews very male) may hurt The Help. Of course this argument supposes that only women would like The Help.
The Wrap though it's a rather unusual decision, given its history, this year's Vanguard Award at the Santa Barbara Film Festival is not going to a well known acting legend but to the two stars of The Artist Bérénice Bejo and Jean Dujardin. That's a major get for the Weinstein Co moving into the Oscars.
Forbes did one of those "return on investment" things to rank actors. Kristen Stewart is named the best deal with $55.83 earned for every $1 spent on her. Anne Hathaway comes in at #2 with $45.67 for every $1. Most of the list is composed of people in franchises so the numbers are quite skewed; Harry Potter is the star of Harry Potter and Twilight is the star of Twilight if you get me. Meryl Streep, who isn't exactly known for franchise appears, does make the list though with $13.54 earned for every $1 she's paid.

on embargos, social media and film critics in general
Carpet Bagger David Fincher on embargo breaking. He doesn't want any advance screenings and thinks the best film critics are moviegoers who text their friends (oy! the self-serving pomposity of some people. And I love Fincher)
AV Club Sign of the Apocalypse. Twitter-friendly seats in theaters as trend? Thousands of little glowing screens to distract you from the big one. Ugh.
Telegraph Kevin Spacey isn't having any of it. This is our favorite Kevin Spacey anything in like 12 years.

Top Ten o' the Day -David Denby
Speaking of embargos and film critics... Fast on the heels of the Dragon Tattoo ruckus, we have Denby's top ten list on which it does not appear. It's a mixture of lazy fandom (J Edgar? Ugh... seriously. I'm going to have to assume that critics who label this a top ten'er only saw 30 or 40 movies this year and even then, you'll have to make concessions.) and the highbrow like Certified Copy and the Tree of Life about which he begins, affectionately, this way...

Yes, I know, Terrence Malick’s movie is unbearably high-minded and humorless. But still! 

All in all an interesting list and suggests that for Denby, two types of entertainments are generally favored: intellectual puzzlers and popcorn entertainment for the masses (Source Code, Contagion and Rise of the Planet of the Apes all appear). 

Q&A: Small Screens & Sex Workers

Since there were so many television centric questions in last week's "Ask Nathaniel" insert, I figured we'd have to give them their own Q&A post. We'll get to the movie questions on Tuesday. But for now let's handle all these questions involving smaller screens than we usually go for.

BENSUNCE: Like George Clooney, which current television actors would you see having a successful career on the big screen?

Expecting anyone to have Clooney-sized silver screen success after switching from the small screen is, well, a recipe for disappointment if not disaster. He's a 1%er. Most of the people I enjoy on TV now already had their movie shot and have gone small screen for better / bigger roles than they were getting at the movies. But the current small screen actors I think absolutely deserve and would ace major big screen opportunities are Christina Hendricks and Jon Hamm (Mad Men). On a riskier pipe dream note I hope Harry Shum Jr (Glee) gets at least one romantic comedy opportunity both because he's adorable and because Hollywood really needs to end their strange delusion that Asian men can't be romantic leads... or leads at all. 

SEAN D: If you were in charge of the Emmy awards how many nominations/wins would Buffy the Vampire Slayer have received?

I knew talking about Buffy earlier this month would get send us all spinning back in time to Sunnydale. It's always difficult to answer questions like this because so much of what should have been nominated and won in any given year in any given artform is contingent upon the competition that year. But I will say that I think Buffy's second, third and sixth seasons had no business whatsoever not being nominated for Best Drama Series and I think they should have won the Best Series Emmy at least once for Season 3. I'd probably have nominated the show itself for seasons 2 through 6 consecutively though I get why people have issues with seasons 4 through 6. But the standard lines of complaining about those seasons are wrongheaded ("it should have stayed in High School") and short sighted ("it got too depressing!"). In the first short season Buffy The Vampire Slayer was merely finding its footing and establishing its identity and the last season was a badly paced mess with a couple of wonderful moments but the rest is gold. As for writing Emmys, it's inexcusable that "The Body" and "Once More With Feeling" didn't have writing and directing nominations and in both cases you could make strong arguments for actual winged statues, too.

Shouldn't "Doppelgangland" have secured Alyson Hannigan an Emmy nod?For acting the show deserved the following nominations at least (Season #)

Actress, Drama
Sarah Michelle Gellar (2, 4, 6)
Supporting Actor, Drama
James Marsters (2), Anthony Stewart Head (6) 
Supporting Actress, Drama  
Allyson Hannigan (3,4), Emma Caulfield (5, 6)
Guest Actress, Drama 
Juliet Landau (2), Eliza Dushku (3)  
Guest Actor, Drama
Harry Groener (3) 

TOM M: Which recent film would make the leap to television and prove a MASH-ing success? And which television series has the bones to make a great film?

Crazy difficult question. The mediums are so different despite all the crossover these days. I don't know about M*A*S*H* level success ratios for anything but I would love love love or should I say I would ♥ a series based on I ♥ Huckabees that focused on the existential detectives Vivian (Lily Tomlin) and Bernard (Dustin Hoffman). I would fill my DVR with that nonsense and delete every other show taking up too much room. I could see a series based on Inception working fairly well and I think Scott Pilgrim vs. The World should have been a TV series to begin with.

Nathaniel's dream television series

MORE AFTER THE JUMP...

Click to read more ...

10th Anniversary Top Ten: "Once More With Feeling"

One of the all time best episodes of anything ever turned ten just a week(ish) ago... but I wanted to celebrate on a Tuesday.

Dawn's in trouble? Must be Tuesday."

That means for the past week and for many weeks after circa 2001 I had the songs from Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "Once More With Feeling" in heavy rotation in my head and or ipod. 

One of my favorite moments of any awards season, obscure though it be, is the moment during the AFI's one and only televised award ceremony in January 2002 (anyone remember that? They combined TV and film like the Globes do) when Buffy the Vampire Slayer was nominated for best drama series. When they announced the category a clip from this very episode played proudly alongside clips from its three fellow nominees, all traditional awards heavyweights: The West Wing, The Sopranos and Six Feet Under. This is the sort of company Buffy should have been keeping during its run though Emmy voters just couldn't see it*.

For today's top ten, because I can never find a good excuse to talk about my #1 favorite TV series of all time, here's a top ten of that historic episode, in chronological order because the episode is so beautifully constructed.

TEN BEST MOMENTS IN "ONCE MORE WITH FEELING"

• Intro Once More With Feeling proclaims itself 'a very special episode' immediately, dispatching the usual credits for an overture style opening credits with each cast member smiling inside the (spot)light of the moon. It then surprises by 'going through the motions' of a typical day without dialogue before getting to its first number "Going Through the Motions", instantly recalling the gold standardepisode Hush. It's a ballsy confident move and, as it turns out, telling: Aren't those two episodes essentially fraternal twin classics, each riffing imaginatively on the difficulty of truly communicating with the people we love most?

• "Going Through The Motions" manages to answer all the complaints about Season 6's Sad Sloggy Buffy Summers and respond with a knowing and compelling cry for help. And it performs this dramatic spell with hilarious little sung asides (Demon Just Realizing He's Been Killed: "She's not even half the girl she --owwww!" | Hot Guy Rescued: "How can I repay... " Buffy: "Whatever...")

♫ I don't want to be... going through the motions
Losing all my drive
I can't even see, if this is really me
And I just want to be
Aliiiiiiiiivvve ♪" 

The best part is the ending which reworks a now excessively familiar sight, a vampire being dusted, into something newly magical; Buffy emerges from the cloud singing beautifully, like it's fairy dust not ashes. 

8 other 'best' moments & grudge-holding Emmy bitching

Click to read more ...

God of Linkage

A Socialite Life This is not Kate Winslet (to your left). This is Kate Winslet's new wax figure at Madame Tussauds. They went so recent what with the choice of that Emmy dress.
Vulture Stephen Dorff always gives great interview. He's mouthing off about chest hair and nipples on the set of Immortals. He said no to man-breasts for his workout regimen.
IMP Awards as predicted Carnage couldn't keep that brilliantly loud and colorful French poster look. Instead it had to go completely generic and dullsville for American audiences. Do NOT let your movie look like a unique experience; no one will buy tickets! 

The Wrap Colin Farrell, Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, and Woody Harrelson and Tom Fucking Waits (!) will star in Martin McDonagh's new action comedy Seven Psychopaths. Eeep, love the cast, love McDonagh (Six Shooter, In Bruges). Make it be good! Please make it be good.
Deadline Jake Abel may be the male lead opposite Saoirse Ronan in The Host. They both appeared in The Lovely Bones.
The Playlist Elizabeth Olsen and Glenn Close to team up for Therese Raquin. Wasn't Kate Winslet supposed to do that once onscreen? The first time helmer is Charlie Stratton who will also write the screenplay.
MNPP [NSFW] doubles up on love for Dominic Cooper in The Devil's Double

and Ugh. How cute are these new We Bought a Zoo posters?

They make me want to love the movie muchly even though I pretty much hated the trailer.

small screen
Vulture Glee's Sue Sylvester Problem. Good piece. It's still a wildly inconsistent show three seasons in. 
Tyler Shields shoots the cast of the best new drama on television, Revenge.

I'm so addicted to this show. Are you watching? But I'm mostly addicted for the magnificent throwback performance from Madeleine Stowe (not pictured) rather than the hottish men so don't let this shot fool you. That said I ♥  Gabriel Mann, far left, who I've always liked as an actor but never to quite this extent. Speaking of... I did not see his recent plot twist coming at all.

P.S. I can't get over how Ashton Holmes (not pictured) looks nothing like he did as Viggo's son in A History of Violence. I barely recognize him six years later.

Link On Link Off

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!"