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Big Screen
Comics Alliance reviews the new mutant twinkies inspired by X-Men Days of Future Past. No, really
Self Styled Siren Farran's first novel "The Missing Reel" is coming out this year. If you've ever read her site you know this is a big deal since she's a wonderful writer. She promises lots of film references in this romantic comedy set in the 1980s at a NYC revival house. 
The Dissolve Ridley Scott might direct The Martian starring Matt Damon. Mars movies always flop but Hollywood is eternally optimistic 

Why So Sad, Batman makes the only smart use of the first photo of Ben Affleck as Batman 
Out director Bryan Singer profiled, he declines to comment on the legal battles involving sexual assault claims but there's quite a lot of commenting on perceptions of his sexuality
AV Club Wolverine Remixed. 'Snikt' with a dance beat 
The Film Stage See a short film from Godzilla director Gareth Edwards 
Cinema Blend first look at Tom Hanks in another novel adaptation. This one is A Hologram for the King from Tom Tykwer 
Film School Rejects I was going to do a "posterized" on Godzilla but they beat me to it 

Small Screen
Variety love love love these motion posters for Orange is the New Black
My New Plaid Pants 'tell me how to feel about...' the latest development in the Greta Gerwig sitcom story
Vulture ABC Upfronts. Viola Davis's new show has a pretty awesome teaser but I'm still not happy the movie star thing didn't happen. *sniffle* 
Vulture NBC Upfronts. Nothing looks interesting to me here and Jesus that Katharine Heigl show looks derivative - like someone created it with a computer program that randomly mixed up elements of Homeland and Scandal scripts.
Vulture Fox Upfronts.  I'm sorry but this Gotham show looks so dumb. We just don't need this much Batman in the world. Also: Last Man on Earth. Intriguing ballsy teaser but how do you sustain that?

RIP
Reuters brilliant artist H.R. Giger, who gave us Ripley's acid-blooded enemies in the Aliens franchise, has passed away.
The Guardian tragic news. Documentarian Malik Benjelloul has apparently taken his own life, less than two years after winning an Oscar for Searching For Sugar Man (2012) 

Off Screen
Because sometimes you need to take a breather and read about regular life...
The New Yorker "The Woman Who Coined The Term White Privilege." Fascinating interview.
Outsports comments from Michael Sam's NFL-draft  ESPN kiss attached to photos of NFL players on camera with their lady friends. There have been so many fascinating and funny and ridiculous articles and TV talk meltdowns about this. All from a quick closed-lip kiss with a hug. Haha. Which is so... nothing. Standard business when someone hears great news. It never ceases to amaze me how many people can't see double standards from the fog of their hysteria. It is interesting, though, isn't it that very few people seem upset that it's a bi-racial relationship we're looking at? You'd think while people were trotting out their homophobia they'd toss in a little racism, too. Progress!
Time "30 Incorrectly Used Words That Can Make You Look Horrible"  I know better but I still make some of these mistakes. (sigh)
The New Yorker Lynda Barry, my all time favorite cartoonist, sells all her art in the show "Everything: Part One." 

Whither Cannes Reporting?
As previously noted I've been super ill. There was a moment an hour ago where I felt vaguely human again so tomorrow I will hopefully be back to the mad blogger routine of frequent posting. Until then please enjoy this appropos sand carving on the beach in the south of France...

In Blog No One Can Hear You Link

MNPP "Do Dump or Marry" with the cast of Neighbors 
Shadowplay "everything that's wrong with Stanley Kramer..." (Judgment at Nuremberg) 
Cooper wishes a happy birthday to silent god Rudolph Valentino with beauteous gifs
Pajiba a righteous rebuttal to Shailene Woodley's ignorant anti-feminist comments
In Contention I should have linked this on my Star Wars day post but Kris did a history of Oscar and George Lucas' galaxy far far away

HuffPo Emma Stone and Gabourey Sidibe on their own body image and ignoring the haters ("too skinny" / "too fat")
Kenneth in the (212) loves Desperately Seeking Susan (as do I). You can visit the locations as they exist now in NYC 

small screen
Variety the rumors were true. Lisa Kudrow's brilliant biting showbiz satire The Comeback is returning to television. Albeit for a tiny six-episode run
Kevin P. O'Keefe terrific retrospective on the brilliant pilot episode of Glee all those long long years ago...

On a whim, I rewatched the pilot episode of Glee – first aired five years ago this month – just to see if it was as good as I remembered it. If anything, it’s better. In fact, it’s great. Yet watching Lea Michele, Cory Monteith and co. fresh-faced, unaffected by the ills that would befall them and the show over the next five years, is strangely heartbreaking. It’s a bit like watching a horror film backward.

I am so confident that show would have a gorgeous place in history if they had only wrapped it up with Season 2. 
AV Club Ancient Egypt is hot right now in Hollywood what with Ridley Scott's Exodus in production and new series from HBO and Fox going there, too. Spike TV joins the parade with a new series Tut. 
Comics Alliance how did I never hear that cheesy Electro Woman and Dyna Girl from Saturday Mornings in the 70s got its own unaired TV pilot in the Aughts? 

Today's Must Read
The Daily Beast looks back at Battlestar Galactica and charts what ineffable fanservice quality it had at the time that helped reshape pop culture. Really good piece which touches on a lot of genre films and tv that pop culture currently or still worships.

must see
I somehow missed this recent BuzzFeed gallery on movie posters improved with animation. Some are annoying with all the choppy looping reset feel that comes with most gifs. I like the subtler ones like the tense Sigweavie breathing of Alien or the elegant rippling Atonement but my favorite is probably this one for Fight Club. Pointedly cinematic... literally.

Moving posters for motion pictures are the future. Learn to love them.

Curio: Clay Creations

Alexa here. With Frozen being the only thing on my young daughter's mind these days, I've been searching for some non-Disney-manufactured goodies to please her. (Yes, I'm stubborn that way. If we saw the film why not just buy the related merchandise, you ask? Because I'm a curmudgeon.) In my search for the perfect handmade Olaf I fell down an etsy rabbit hole of clay creations.

Some selections from my excursions...

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ADG Nominees: Period, Fantasy, and (Our Favorite) Contemporary

The Guilds Have Spoken! Or rather, they're beginning to speak. We've just heard from the producers and now the art directors. This time AMPAS will cut the guilds off mid-sentence since Oscar nominations are but a week away. But here are the nominations from the Art Directors Guild which includes production designers, art directors and set decorators. Production Designers are the bosses of this field and when it comes to Oscar only the production designers and set decorators and not the art directors share the Oscar nominations which is why it's a bit odd that it's always called "Art Direction" but AMPAS has finally changed the name of the category so it'll now be 'Production Design'

Anna Karenina may be dressed for grief but her bedroom sure is lusty.

Expect that the five nominated films for Oscar will be (mostly) culled from these three groups. And obviously, given that Oscar is Oscar and "Best" =  "Most" the bulk of the eventual Oscar shortlist will come from Period & Fantasy. TFE's favorite thing about the guild awards is that you can see what the craftsmen and women like best in contemporary work... which sadly rarely goes on to Oscar glory despite being difficult and creatively challenging in its own right.

Some notes on their nominees... and their nominee's past filmography glories after the jump

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Oscar Horrors: Bringing the Aliens to Life

Here lies... the alien queen, expelled into space using strings, pulleys and dummies. 

Amir here to look at the Oscar-winning Visual Effects of James Cameron’s Aliens (1986). Cameron’s films have an extraordinary record with the Academy when it comes to this category. His first two features were unrecognized – and let’s be honest, anyone who’s seen Piranha II: The Spawning will surely side with the voters – but he’s enjoyed five nominations and four wins from his next five attempts. The public has come to accept him as a revolutionary director too, a man whose every work will “change the language of cinema.” Cameron’s built his career on these visual spectacles and his upped the ante with every new film, but it all started back in 1986 when Aliens was released.

Long before he became a powerhouse Hollywood director, Cameron began learning his craft on the sets of the legendary Roger Corman. For the production of Aliens, Cameron brought in the Skotak brothers, visual effects supervisors and collaborators from his Corman era, to create a whole new world surrounding Ridley Scott’s Alien mythology; a world that was wilder, gorier and more expansive than Scott’s...

More after the jump...

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