Uh Huh Link Her

Erik Lundegaard on lipsyching w/ talent via Joseph Gordon-Levitt on Jimmy Fallon
Guardian Kevin Smith talks about Ben Affleck's Bat Cave. errrrrr....
Empire The Help reunion! Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer will co-star in a James Brown biopic for Tate Taylor. Unfortunately neither won of them is playing James Brown (This aint no I'm Not There)
THR Hugh Jackman will play a supporting role in Chappie, the next sci-fi epic from Neil Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium)

Towleroad James Franco's Sal Mineo biopic Sal which seems like it was completed many years ago finally gets a trailer
Deadline good grief. They put up and then removed a Diana poster from the Princess's crash site in Paris?
NY Times Magazine talks to director Kimberly Peirce about her stop and start career, from Boys Don't Cry to Carrie 

Today's Must Read
Interview Magazine is featuring a conversation between Darren Aronofsky and Scarlett Johansson about Her (which Aronofsky loves and which she vocally stars in) and the funny but serious banter reminds us of why we love both of them.

"I've got Patrick"... Scarlett photographed by Patrick Demarchelier for Interview

Scarlett even indirectly adresses what we were talking about on the last podcast, how she's totally become a more nuanced dimensional actress in the past couple of years:

JOHANSSON: I like doing voice work, and I've also become increasingly interested in pushing different parts of performance, whether it's a physical thing or a kind of vocal nuance, so this seemed like it would be an interesting thing to at least talk about...

ARONOFSKY: Did you think about what you were going to do with your voice in terms of what artificial intelligence might sound like? Or was the goal always just to be as present and natural with the performance as possible?

JOHANSSON: Well, one thing that Spike really emphasized was the fact that the character, Samantha, is really experiencing everything in the moment because she's developing, so she doesn't have any preconceived ideas of anything. Even her programming is not really preconceived—she has no opinion on anything until she forms it right then, in the moment. So Spike just wanted it to have a real levity and, I think, a curiosity. He also wanted that level of depth. So more than just the tone of the voice, which was ultimately sort of unimportant. With her, it was about finding the shape of things and building this character that's almost a babe—but just fresh out of the package in every way.

Fresh out of the package in every way, eh? That's how she feels as an actress of late. The change is 100 proof intoxicating.

"Give Carrie a call?"

Sometimes I receive an e-mail from a reader that is so spot on I don't even know what to add. So thanks to Dave for pointing out this absurdity on Facebook. 

He writes:

Are they honestly trying to make "Carrie" sexy? Do they think that evoking old 1-900 hotlines is... relevant to kids today? 

Good questions both and lol on the 1-900. On the other hand, if Margaret White rings (or sings), I'm totally picking up. 

Sexy 'Scary Carrie' hits theaters one month from now. With remakes of lesser known titles you sometimes have to worry that studios will bury the original to clear the way for new profits. Thankfully the original Carrie is too well known and too widely disseminated for that. The new Carrie will surely self-immolate (literally and figuratively) but the original will haunt forever. 

Juli's Big October

147 days from now Julianne Moore will have not one, not two, but three movies opening in theaters. How exhausted is she going to be 148 days from now!? That's a lot of promo duties and red carpets in the first half of October.

poll by twiigs.com

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Carrie 2013"

If you remake Carrie they're all going to laugh at you!

the Mean Girls of Thomas Ewen Consolidated High School.

Or, if not laugh, than shake their heads in annoyance that you've dared to keep company with a 70s classic. I've never disguised or hedged my opinion here. I think Carrie (1976) is a GREAT motion picture. Not just a good one. Since it can't really be improved upon (specifically in the performance arena since Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie both did risky revelatory Oscar worthy work) there's no reason to remake it. Unless of course you have a fresh take on it, which is the only reason to ever remake anything that's great to begin with.

The teaser which featured merely voiceover about the telekinetic PMSing high school misfit over a zoom in on Chloe Grace Moretz as Carrie White as Firestarter was a hit as teasers often are (leave them wanting more!) but the new trailer basically says "hey, I'm just the same as the old Carrie only with actors you kids know. Look, it's all the famous scenes including the climax. Come see me in October!"

Pray for forgiveness Julianne! You're risking ANOTHER iconic do over?!

Having clearly stated my bias -- I'm a "no" ahead of time on principle -- let's break it down anyway after the jump with as much of an open mind as I can muster on this one.

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Burning Questions: Are Jump Scares Ever Not Awful?

Michael C here. I recently caught up with Andres Muschietti’s Mama and found it to be a decent little chiller with one particularly irksome habit. It is packed end-to-end with cheap jump scares. It’s as if the studio insisted the director include a quota of brainless “Boo!” moments amid all the creepy suspense stuff that takes actual filmmaking skill. 

Savvy filmgoers understand that jump scares are the worst. Apart from the fact that it requires roughly the same level of craft to startle someone with a loud noise as it does to zap them with a seat buzzer, they have the added drawback of creating distance between the audience and the film. They release tension, rather than build it. This explains their popularity among teenagers who see horror movies as a carnival ride, doling out empty “scares” with mechanical timing.

So finding a minefield of these cheap shots in another otherwise capable spook story like Mama got me thinking. Are there any defensible examples of the jump scare? Or is it an artistic sin every time it’s trotted out?

jump scares after, um, the jump.

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