Lone Surviving Open Thread

What's on your cinematic mind? What movie are you thinking about? Do share!

What's on mine? Well, I just got back from Peter Berg's Lone Survivor which I had to watch through my fingers it was so violent. Proud wuss in the movie house! If you want to see Mark Wahlberg, Ben Foster (mvp), and Emile Hirsch just totally brutalized with makeup effects - burns, bruises, bullet holes, broken bones -- have I got a movie for you. Also if you share my fear of monster trapeziuses, please be warned that Taylor Kitsch's totally wants to grow up to be Tom Hardy's. 

LFF: Kill Your Darlings

Dave is at the London Film Festival, plotting how best to avoid the hoardes of Daniel Radcliffe fans who'll be coming for him soon.

In writing you must kill all your darlings."

The dilemma of how to literally take William Faulkner’s melancholy quote is the central crisis point of John Krokidas’ debut feature Kill Your Darlings. The film is a playful, confident but messy tale of Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) and his obsessive friendship with Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), a fellow student at Columbia University. Krokidas makes this relationship the heart of his film, aesthetics and narrative bound up in their complex bond, relying heavily on the two young leads who have reached this point in their careers by markedly different paths. Despite the presence of some more seasoned hands in the cast - Ben Foster, Jennifer Jason Leigh, David Cross - this is a strikingly youthful film, effectively matching the burgeoning talents it explores.

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Top Ten Awesome People, 1980 Vintage

I suspect many of you weren't alive in 1980 but do you think of it fondly? To give you a little context, since we're discussing it in the Supporting Actress Smackdown: Jimmy Carter was having a rough last year as POTUS with the ongoing Iran Hostage Crisis and America was about to enter a neo-conservative phase; John Lennon was murdered; "Call Me" by Blondie spent the most weeks as the number one single; "Who Shot J.R.?" was insanely popular via Dallas, DC debuted the awesome 80s comic "New Teen Titans" to compete with Marvel's huge hit "Uncanny X-Men", while Marvel kept it young by adding Kitty Pryde and the disco-leftover superhero Dazzler; Sweeney Todd closed on Broadway and Evita debuted illustrating the shift in the musical theater landscape from the awesome challenging prolific 70s Stephen Sondheim era to the sing-along bombast of British mega musicals of the 80s epitomized by Andrew Lloyd Webber

a tiny sampling of popular 1980 things

But here's why we're here --  Let's savor 1980's cinematic crop for a moment. Are these movies (and people) and things aging well? Is there much left to savor? 

1980, the debut year of Yoda it wasBest Movies According To...
Oscar: Ordinary People*, Coal Miner's Daughter, Raging Bull, The Elephant Man and Tess were the best pictures nominees but they also really dug Fame (6 noms, 2 wins), The Stunt Man (3 noms) and Melvin and Howard (3 noms, 2 wins)
Golden Globe: Raging Bull*, Ordinary People, Tribute, The Stunt Man and The Elephant Man (drama) Coal Miner's Daughter*, Fame, Private Benjamin, Divine Madness, Nine to Five (comedy/musical)
Cannes: [tie] All That Jazz (USA) and Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior (Japan)
Box Office: 1) The Empire Strikes Back 2) Nine to Five 3) Stir Crazy 4) Airplane! 5) Any Which Way You Can
Nathaniel: At the time I was obsesed with only Xanadu and The Empire Strikes Back... so I haven't matured much since then because I still am.

Adorable 1980 Babies after the jump

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Stage Door: Tom Sturridge Oscar's it Up in "Orphans"

Jose here. From its start, the new production of Lyle Kessler's famous Orphans, has been plagued with controversy and an aura of pure chaos. First, Shia LaBeouf infamously quit the play during the first week of rehearsals leading members of the press to wonder exactly what had gone wrong. While some blamed Alec Baldwin for his notorious bad temper, others wondered if there was indeed more than met the eye. LaBeouf was handily replaced by Ben Foster in the midst of a Broadway scandal that combined leaked emails, unexpected theater appearances and juicier drama than anyone in Smash could ever come up with.

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It's National Bird Day ~ Best Birds on Film!

It totally is! Every 5th of January as it so happens.

There's no reason to post about it other than that I actually threw on this Finding Nemo seagull t-shirt this morning "MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE" ... before I knew! [insert eery music]

It's a sign that silly list-making is required of me. 

Though this year in cinema was definitely the Year of the Dog, we did get at least one memorable bird in Lord Shen, the villain of Kung Fu Panda 2. There were also feathers flying everywhere in Rio but I can't seem to bring myself to watch the screener because it never shows up in "Best Animated Film" nominations. Not that you should trust those when Cars 2 does ferchrissakes.

Favorite Feathered Film Things!

18 Ben Foster as Angel in Let Us Not Speak of That Movie or that guy from Barbarella I forget his name.
17 Kevin in Up (2009)
16 Lord Shen in Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)
15 Camilla from The Muppets 
14 Those ostrich costumes in Priscilla Queen of the Desert
13 The vultures from The Jungle Book

12 Maleficent's crow in Sleeping Beauty
11 The Crow (1994)
10 The mariachi owls from Rango
09 those seagulls "mine mine mine mine mine mine"
08 Natalie's final pirouette transformation in Black Swan
07 Matthew Barney's flock in Cremaster 5 (1997)

Cremaster 5

06 Björk at the Oscars
05 Babs in Chicken Run (2000). Remember her?
04 The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
03 Pixar's For the Birds
02 The Birds (1963)
01 Michelle Pfeiffer as Ladyhawke (1985)

P.S. Tweety-bird and Road Runner are assholes.

P.P. S. images that came up this morning when I searched for "Ben Foster Angel Screencaps"

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