Link Me Like You Mean It

Scanners Alien (1979) in just one frame. On Ridley Scott's compositional skill.
Fug Girls well played, Elizabeth Banks 
My New Plaid Pants Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter in 150 words or less 
The Wrap Metropolis is the world's most valuable film poster. How much will it fetch at auction?
Indie Wire a ten wide Emmy nomination wishlist from Kathryn Hahn in Parks and Recreation (great choice) to Laura Dern in Enlightened "the most burrowing television performance since Tony Soprano" 

Guardian smart piece, neither fully pro nor con on Brave and the evolution of the action princess...

the studio whose most iconic heroes include a toy cowboy, a rat, a fish, a boy scout, and a lonely trash compactor (all male-identified, of course), couldn't figure out how to tell a story about a human girl without making her a princess. That's the problem in a nutshell: if the sparkling minds at Pixar can't imagine their way out of the princess paradigm, how can we expect girls to?

Flavorwire "actors with the worst onscreen love lives" - a fun (?) rundown of heartbreak for Michelle Williams, Leo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Ryan Gosling and more
Huffington Post Mike Ryan took a male stripper to Magic Mike and wrote about their "date". I had this idea too and even lined up TWO of them, former Chippendale's guys that a girlfriend of mine once worked with. But then they both cancelled on account of  'conflicted feelings'. Argh. From conflicted feelings are beautiful movie conversations born.
Coming Soon Angelina Jolie on the very green screen set of Maleficent 
Cinema Blend Viggo Mortensen may smuggle vampires in intriguiging sounding The Last Voyage of the Demeter 

Let's end with two random nifty visuals. THE FIRST ONE IS UNFORTUNATELY A HOAX.

1. It's supposedly a Back to the Future screenshot but I started hearing it was a hoax and I looked it up on The Movie Timeline and it is. The future they were going to was... NOT today :(  I apologize for tweeting and sharing.

2. The second was a birthday gif a reader "Mark the First" made me. xoxoxo Mark.

Isn't it cute?! It totally made my week. At the risk of sounding hopelessly narcissistic ["What else is new?" - all of Nathaniel's friends] I accept birthday gifts all June long  be they handmade and heartfelt blogging fuel like so, generously monetary (see sidebar -- it's only 10¢ a day to make my life way easier) or bartery for those of you with special skill sets in Manhattan; as always I need a photographer, stylist, publicist, massage therapist, yogi, etcetera... I know that you can't always get what you want ♪ but I'm a firm believer that you should try to get it anyway.

If you can... link it here ♪ you'll link it... ♫ anywhere

Moviefone looks back at the troubled release of Martin Scorsese's New York New York for its 35th anniversary
Awards Daily someday my prince will come... or not. On Brave and more in 2012
Serious Film gets into spoilers to revel in the whiteboard of terrors in Cabin in the Woods 
Movie|Line Magic Mike already making Broadway transfer plans. Huh. 
The Incredible Suit happy third birthday to this fun blog 

Rope of Silicon applies Pixar storytelling rules to Brave to see where it went wrong... um. If you think it went wrong. It's not a perfect movie but I'm surprised by how much some people don't like it.
Vulture first look at Shirley Maclaine in Downton Abbey. Yes! 
How Are You I'm Fine Thanks illustrates the Scooby Doo gaga at the beach. Great stuff. 
GQ interviews Elisabeth Moss on Peggy's Journey in Season 5 of Mad Men... and Season 6 
Empire spreads the rumor that three Avatar sequels will shoot back to back. I can think of better things for Sigourney Weaver to do with her time and I loved Avatar.
TMZ more old footage of Channing Tatum's stripper days

Box Office: Princess Merida, Bear Hunter

Princess Merida's aim was true, hitting the Pixar bullseye this weekend. $60 million plus means BRAVE can stand proudly with the studio's most successful opening weekends. Some worried that Pixar's first female lead might not prove nearly as big of an immediate draw as cars, toys and boy robots... forgetting that Princesses have never exactly hurt parent co's Disney's box office tallies. Abraham Lincoln's box office aim was messier but then axes can miss their mark and still do bloody damage.

TOP TEN PRIDE WEEKEND
01 BRAVE new $66.7
02 MADAGASCAR 3  $20.2 (cum. $157.5)
03 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, VAMPIRE HUNTER  new $16.5 
04 PROMETHEUS  $10 (cum. $108.5) Oscar Chances?
05 ROCK OF AGES $8 (cum. $28.7) Review
06 SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN $8 (cum $137.1) Review 
07 THAT'S MY BOY $7.9  (cum $28.1)
08 THE AVENGERS  $7 (cum $598.3) Review
09 MIB 3 $5.6 (cum. $163.3)
10 SEEKING A FRIEND AT THE END OF THE WORLD  new $3.8 

Talking Points: To Rome With Love was strangely timid about its opening weekend given the renewed Woody Allen love post Midnight in Paris but had a strong per screen average anyway. Had it opened wider it surely would have outperformed Seeking a Friend... which couldn't find an audience; Moonrise Kingdom continues to be a strong performer in limited release just outside the top ten; Two months into its run The Avengers is finally losing screens but should cross the astounding $600 million mark by Tuesday, only the third film in history to do so (when not adjusted for inflation). 

Regarding The Avengers. Given the screen loss it'll be tough to pass Titanic to claim the all time #2 spot -- another $60 million is required. I was just at brunch at Harlem's Red Rooster and a little tiny barely verbal boy at the next table was veritably surrounded by superheroes -- Thor lunch box to the left of him, Spider-Man backpack to the right of him, as he excitedly pointed at an ancient comic book in glass behind him in the restaurant's wall of historic memorabilia. They indoctrinate them young into Marvel Mania. When he's a teenager he'll be buying opening weekend tickets to The Avengers holographic reboot (2025)

What did you see this weekend?

Or is your weekend still raging? If so, Happy Pride!

Thoughts I Had... About 5 Recent Movie Dads

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all the readers celebrating their dad today whether or not he's a movie-lover. Especially big props go out to the proud papa readers out there raising their own movie-mad tots. (Please tell me you're starting them young! If so, I approve.) 

Today is my first father's day without my own dad so to distract me from this distressing realization which ruined an otherwise wonderful morning chez moi, I wrote this impromptu brain vomit list. Feel free to share your own in the comments...

The royal clan in BRAVE (2012)

Thoughts I Had on the Six Most Recent Movie Dads Screened

"King Fergus" (Billy Connolly) in BRAVE
I don't want to give too much away about Pixar's first "princess" movie, but let it suffice to say that I was very surprised that the Queen and not just the princess is so major in the narrative. It really is their first GIRL movie (...though not quite bent or rocking enough to be their first GURL or GRRRL movie). The movie's soul and heroism are female-centered but Brave also features a large collection of proud papas starting with the formidable King Fergus his leg legendary eaten by a fierce black bear. He may be a warrior but he is a big softie when it comes to the women in his life. The other proud dads on display -- each suggesting that their first born son deserves Princess Merida's hand -- are mostly comic relief and the animators clearly had great fun detailing  the similarities, differences and delusions in the father/son dynamics.

Ancient ancient Guy Pearce in "Prometheus""Peter Weyland" (Guy Pearce) in PROMETHEUS
SPOILER ALERT. The Evil* Weyland Corporation's ancient dead figurehead is seen only in holograms and flashbacks until he isn't. Ta da! He's still alive. Cyrogenically frozen just like Walt Disney and other Empire Builders and Iconic World Changers are always rumored to be at one point or another. You didn't see saw that coming, I take it. What I didn't see coming was that "David" (Michael Fassbender) and "Meredith Vickers" (Charlize Theron) were essentially siblings. This is completely and wonderfully "duh!" obvious in retrospect given their mutual Aryan iceiness, stiff gaits and weirdly intimate vibe of 'we avoid each other.' Perhaps I was too blinded by involuntary fantasies of a robotic blonde horizontal mambo to realize the fantasy was incestuous.

Of all the scripted and unscripted mysteries of Prometheus the one that bothers me most is Why the Hell Did You Hire 44 Year Old Guy Pearce to play this character when Max von Sydow, Christopher Lee, Peter O'Toole, Sir Ian McKellen and any number of other tall, thin, great elderly actors wouldn't have required an extensive make up prosthetics team to help them act the role. True they're more expensive than make up artists but so is Guy Pearce! 

*The "Evil" is silent in Evil Weyland Corporation. It's the Corporation and Aliens so everyone understands this.

"Darryl Van Horne" (Jack Nicholson) in THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK
Jack's horny devil is very interested in impregnating the beautiful lonely big-haired movie star goddesses in this supernatural 80s comedy but he doesn't get to share custody. Who should play his sons in the imaginary sequel I long for?

Gay Son and Ignorant Dad in "Loose Cannons""Vincenzo Cantone" (Ennio Fantastichini) in LOOSE CANNONS
I had never seen this gay comedy from Turkish/Italian director Ferzan Ozpeteck and I think it might be the best of his films. It's the story of the gay son of a traditional family who run a pasta empire. The son fears coming out because his dad Vincenzo is a TOTAL drama queen about the gays. He just can't deal. It's rare to see a coming out comedy with this much gentle needling of homophobia that doesn't feel the need to demonize the people who suffer from it holding on to it (like Vincenzo). Loose Cannon just accepts that some people, some dads, have issues. You gotta be your own man anyway.

Loose Cannons is currently playing on iTunes as part of Focus Features Gay Pride Celebration this month

"Wink" (Dwight Henry) in BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
I'm still processing this movie but the father / daughter relationship at its center is heartbreakingly intimate without actual physical intimacy. "Hushpuppy," Wink's daughter, longs for more affection but Wink insists that his six year old live in her own house and fend (mostly) for herself. Tenderness is weakness in The Bathtub...

P.S. It's best to know very little about this movie before seeing it so ignore the clips, the trailers, the reviews and just go see it when it comes out. It's a true original and how often do movie theaters play those?! Treasure them.

"Mark" (Kyle MacLachlan) in PEACE, LOVE & MISUNDERSTANDING
Why does Kyle Maclachlan always dick dads / philandering husbands? He used to play so square they're hip guys in stiff suits. When David Lynch abandoned him it all went down hill!

What movie dads have you been watching?
 

"Don't you dare loose another arrow..."

I forbid it!"

Psssst. How great is the new Brave trailer? I wish all movies were confident enough to lead with an early scene instead of the traditional 'here are all the story beats' trailer. It was just the thing I needed this week to get me excited about moving on to 2012 once we wrap up with Oscar and Oscar post mortem this week.

Will this be a Pixar bullseye at the 85th Oscars on February...?

                               No, Nathaniel, No. I forbid it. No Oscar 2012/13 talk until April Fool's Day!