Wednesday, August 5, 2015 at 10:00PM From the "We Nearly Forgot To Mention It And What Is Wrong With Us" Folder:
Alexander Skarsgård, currently untethered to a particular role/screen persona post-True Blood, came to the premiere of The Diary of a Teenage Girl (opening tomorrow) in drag. For reasons we know not...
Sunday, January 25, 2015 at 10:58AM Sundance is keeping me mighty occupied though I promise that more reviews are coming. Yesterday I caught Glassland (reviewed), and two gay films, one of which I loved (Tangerine - not to be confused with the Estonian picture nominated for an Oscar right now) and the other that I'm trying to parse my feelings for still (I Am Michael) but both reviews are in the queue.
Inbetween every movie I keep hearing people enthusing about The End of the Tour starring Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Segel (the latter winning dream reviews). If it wasn't that it was people bitching about being shut out of additional screenings added to keep up with demand for The Witch. The two of those seem to be the fest's buzziest title (thus far) so of course I didn't schedule either! It's always a crapshoot when you work out a schedule... or don't work one out early enough which tends to be my problem. There was no warning on the success of The Witch at all as it's a period piece (set before the Salem witch trials) from a first time director without any stars in the cast. Fresh voices as festival breakouts? Yes please. Sundance always hopes to be about that, actually, but quite often the buzziest titles are less unfamiliar.
My final film yesterday was one of Sundance's other hot titles, The Diary of a Teenage Girl. The film stars a very young looking 22 year old British actress named Bel Powley as a precocious 15 year old who is experimenting with and embracing her burgeoning sexuality in 1970s San Francisco. The film opens with a line that goes something like 'Today I had sex for the first time. Holy shit!' Her bohemian mother (Kristen Wiig, excellent again) is rather oblivious to her daughter's horniness and doesn't realize that her own boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard) is sleeping with Minnie. Writer/director Marielle Heller (as well as, presumably, the novelist Phoebe Gloekner who provided the source material) daringly shows Minnie initiating the sex in Lolita-esque fashion....
Wednesday, August 28, 2013 at 8:02AM Awards Daily early twitter reactions to Gravity
Gold Derby uncovers a beautiful piece of trivia I totally didn't know (that happens less often than I'd like with awardage). If Homeland's stars both win Emmy again it will be the first time ever for a dual lead consecutive win!
Film Doctor 12 unanswered questions about The World's End. I haven't spoken much about the movie but I thought it was the weakest of its trilogy, funny in parts and especially strong in its middle but I thought the opening and closing acts were weak.
Pajiba on Mandy Patinkin (Holla!) coming to grips with his past bad behavior. True little known story: I am a huge Mandy Patinkin fan so this renaissance has been wondrous for me.
Deadline the HFPA have made the wisest of decisions and have asked Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to host the Golden Globes again. Let's all pray they say yes because the alternatives (*cough* Ricky Gervais) have been ghastly!
Forbes Madonna tops the biggest earners list in Hollywood this year with Steven Spielberg in runner up position
CHUD the Pompeii teaser, skewered in two sentences.
Pop Bytes Alexander Skarsgård is an awesome drunk cheerleader. På Svensk!
Guardian President Obama joins the plus column for Lee Daniels' The Butler
Cinema Blend wonders who Joss Whedon will kill off in The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Finally...
I don't normally post straight up advertisements as news as most movie sites do (it feels shameless and also "abuse-me!" crazy since the studios aren't paying you but you're still airing their commercial!) but I hope this week's double feature from Paramount is really successful so I'm sharing it!
click on the pic to investigate this 2 for 1 offer
(Is this their sneaky way of getting WWZ over the $200 million mark which its been inching towards for weeks)
Double Features, which you almost always have to program yourself as Unofficial pairings, are one of the great joys of moviegoing. It's one reason we use to twin them up in that Best Pictures series. It would be so perfect if they became a thing again in theaters. Two movies for the price of one! I missed Star Trek Into Darkness (not that I felt its absence) but I liked World War Z far more than my review indicates. I must have been so crabby when I wrote that because it's one of the stickiest movies from summer 2013 with many strong sequences that more than make up for its wobbly seams and the rather blank protagonist... at least he's got the face of Brad Pitt!
And while I'm providing free adspace please know that Short Term 12 (my pet cause of the summer) expands in or to all of these 12 cities on Friday...
Click on the pic for the official site
So do the right thing, make me proud, and round up 12 friends and go see it.
for entertainment purposes only
while we're on the subject of 12, here's an, uh, 13th link, for a 12 year old vine genius. The cat licking vine is the best thing evah.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013 at 9:40PM I couldn't make out the book Eric Northman was reading on the season finale of True Blood so I just decided it was a book by someone I know. I couldn't resist the GIFing...
Congratulations to all my published author friends and frienquaintances! Not all of them are just-published but lately it seems like there's been a wave of such happenings and I am so happy and proud for them. Writing a book is no easy task. It's like scaling a Swedish mountain in the snow. Naked.
Speaking of -- back to Alexander Skarsgård. It's nice for him to finally bring his penis to work with him but that final "cliffhanger" was DUMB in all caps. Everyone knows they're not going to kill off Eric. The showrunners have already said they didn't because they're terrified of change and constantly fandering. I'd say that that's the whole problem with True Blood except that implying it only has one is even dumber.
Saturday, June 22, 2013 at 7:00AM Please allow me to catch up. The following double feature is "old" news by internet standards but since I am valiantly trying to say at least something about everything I see, it won't always be instantaneous. I know that in my role as a well known film blogger of Oscar leanings, I'm supposed to embrace my role as Opinion Maker rather than point out the fluid mutating nature of opinions. But, here's a little secret about me (and I suspect most critics): I don't always have a clearcut opinion. Which is where you come in to today. Here are two blondes I've been staring at intensely lately: Alexander Skarsgård & Brit Marling. They are also busy staring intensely at each other in the eco-terrorism thriller The East.
Help me solidify my vague opinion of them after the jump!
