Mad Men @ The Movies: Born Free, Feeling Trapped

In this series we explore the connections between Mad Men and the cinema. Season five has, thus far, not used the movies as much as they have in previous seasons. Though it's also possible that blogging concurrently with airings could result in missed references. Needless to say, I am behind so let's discuss the past couple of weeks of Mad Men.

Driving lessons for sad Pete Campbell

5.5 "Signal 30"
This episode focused on Pete, one of the show's least likeable characters who has, over the course of five years, grown more sympathetic and even more admirable while not really becoming more likeable per se. It's a nifty balancing act that actor Vincent Kartheiser performs tremendously well. Other than fame and fortune, this has been a thankless character for him as his fellow cast members have reaped abundant nominations (if strangely no wins) and increased big screen traction. If they have any sense this will be Kartheiser's Emmy submission episode for Season Five. A repeating motif in which Pete had to watch those old scare-tactic car crash documentaries they used to show in Drivers Ed courses was also stealthily employed. (Now that he's a suburban husband, he has to learn to drive.) Even though Pete was foolishly attempting to cheat on his wife Trudy (so charming even Don Draper is a fan!) with a teenager, and even though he got a well deserved beat down (literally) from Lane, the episode managed the miraculous feat of making you feel altogether bad for him as he struggles to grow up; Pete still looks like a little boy but he no longer feels like one.

Mrs Ken Cosgrove, Mrs Pete Campbell, Mrs Don DraperAging has been a theme of this season, from fatigue to illness to a widening gap between the younger and older characters mindsets. Great, great episode that even managed to thread in a B plot for the oft underused Ken Crosgrove (Aaron Staton) and also a key one for Janie Bryant's always thrilling costume design. (Fact: Janie Bryant never winning the Emmy for Mad Men should be a true embarassment to the entire television industry.) A 

 5.6 "Far Away Places"
Movie Theater Scene Alert! It's always a delight when Mad Men takes us inside a movie theater. Don Draper used to play hooky there in the early seasons and last year he and Lane got drunk and went to a monster movie together. Strangely the very next movie theater scene within the series also involves a character behaving badly. The cinema corrupts them!

The episode begins with Peggy fighting with her boyfriend who wants to see a movie that night. 

poll by twiigs.com

PUBLIC INDECENCY AFTER THE JUMP ... The Naked Prey indeed.

Click to read more ...

Lifeboat of Pi

Despite having not read "Life of Pi" in its previsual form -- I know I know --  I found myself unduly excited this morning seeing this image from the Ang Lee adaptation. Is it because I love cats? Unfilmable books? Ang Lee? All about the above? ☑

24 Frames has an article about it involving a Scorsese/Lee conversation about Lee's 3D learning curve. Here's the image.

Despite his belief in the format, Lee was open about his struggle to adapt to the technology. While filming "Life of Pi," he said, the 3-D cameras were cumbersome, and he compared working with them to "operating a refrigerator." 

I gotta be honest with you. I love Marty Scorsese almost as much as any random film buff but his current incarnation as "Mr. 3D" may lead to divorce. Irreconciliable Differences. I preferred Marty when his cause was film preservation. 3D just takes me out of movies, ironically flattening their visual interest for me. It feels like a straight jacket to me or rather, a toothpick propping my eyes open, forcing me to see things I don't want to see. Maybe I need to use my own imagination to add the depth, I don't know. I just hate it. I keep trying to love it because powerful and great filmmakers like Scorsese and James Cameron (a hero of young me and I still love his movies) will never give up till all movies require glasses.

But 3D just makes the movies less magical for me. Sniffle. I adore Titanic and seeing it in 3D just made it... smaller. It no longer felt like THE MOVIEST OF MOVIES but just "a movie".

I'm only tolerating 3D because I have to. 

Someone toss me a Lifeboat. Life of Pi needs less 3D and more Tallulah! Can I get an amen?

Alfred Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT OF PI

Have any of you read the book? I understand that young "Pi", an Indian boy, finds himself on a boat after a shipwrech with only a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a Bengal tiger. Since only Pi and Shere Khan are in the official image I'm assuming the tiger ate the other animals already?

If I were to be shipwrecked on a boat with four animals those maybe aren't the four animals I'd choose. I'd think I'd go straight herbivore across the board. Not that you can choose in a shipwreck.

But if I had to go with famous movie animals...

Life of NathanielR

Someone to entertain, someone to protect, and someone who might rescue me and look great doing it.

And there's no way it'd be anything but a 2-D picture.

Don't leave me floating in this ocean all alone... Which movie animals could you handle a shipwreck with and have you resigned yourself to movie glasses forever?

Animated Weekend: Two Cats, Multiple Movie Homages

Jose here.

Last weekend I decided to catch up with some Oscar nominated films and realized I was doing terribly in the Animated Feature department having only seen Rango when it came out last year. Back in December after watching Arthur Christmas and The Adventures of Tintin I was sure I'd done my homework, as those were the nominees we were all expecting. However clever old AMPAS sneaked up on us delivering the weirdest lineup the category has seen in its young history. Not being a fan of Dreamworks animation, at all, I decided I might as well just get done with it and saw the 4 movies back to back. 

I kept a journal to accompany me down this trip.

This is how it went...

Click to read more ...

Oscar Isaac... with Cat

If Jonesy starts hissing, Oscar, run! He's spotted an acid-blooded alien or at least a Hyperdyne Systems 120-A/2.

Actually Oscar is just hauling around a new co-star (role size to be determined) on the set of Inside Llewyn Davis in which he plays Llewyn Davis, a singer songwriter in 1960s New York. The best part of this news is that this is the latest from the Coen Bros and it's filming already. Inside Llewyn Davis reunites Oscar with his Drive wife Carey Mulligan who is contractually obligated to be in every picture released for the next four years. Other costars include Garret Hedlund, Justin Timberlake (now no longer a musician at all though maybe someone should tell him he's more fun as a pop star than as an actor? SNL hosting aside), Stark Sands, F Murray Abraham and Coen Bros mainstay John Goodman.

You only have to wait until 2013 to see it.

Interview: The Man Behind "Puss in Boots" Is A Dog Person!

Monty and PussMonty meows and leaps up on the chair beside me. Cats always know when something is up. In this case, what's up is a phone call to Chris Miller the director of Puss in Boots, who is still reeling from his first Oscar nomination last month when Puss in Boots won itself a slot in the Best Animated Feature race. "Oh my god, it's insanity," Miller admits. "That day is a blur. I've never been through this before so I was pretty overwhelmed at the scope of it."

Monty does a little spin and settles in. If my cat understood any words beyond "treat", "Monty" and "no"*, he might be incensed by Miller's next confession when I ask him about his own pet situation. "Technically I'm more of a dog person. I can't lie about that."

* There is still some debate about whether or not Monty understand this word.

Miller is sadly pet free himself at the moment, still in mourning for the loss of a beloved pug. But this past year in cinema has been a dog person's dream and Miller is enjoying it. Martin Scorsese's plea for a write-in vote for "Blackie" at the inaugural Golden Collar Awards made him laugh and, like the rest of the world, Miller is crazy about "Uggie" from The Artist. He sheepishly admits that the main reason he attended a recent screening and Q&A of Oscar's frontrunning film was Uggie-related. "I thought 'I wonder if Uggie will be there. Oh I hope the dog shows up' I'm being totally honest!"

He was surprised and thrilled about Antonio Banderas open letter which added to the Golden Collar fuss by speaking out about Puss's snub. Puss in Boots, the character, has been in Miller's life for nearly ten years and it's the one cat he loves as much as dogs. "That cat was my favorite from the onset," he says recalling his years with the Shrek franchise. He loved Puss' intrigue. "He came with some history already. Or at least you knew he had some incredibly history. "

"Fear me. If you dare!

NATHANIEL: I'm curious about the career track for animation directors. You've done a lot of voicework and story art? How did you graduate to directing?

CHRIS MILLER: I was involved in story early on in my career and the writing end of it. With Antz and the Shrek movies we were given a lot of latitude to come up with material, characters and dialogue.
A lot of times we'd be sort of given an idea and sent off to come up with something. You share it with the producers and the directors and you sell it a bit. In doing that you get a little taste of everything in cinema. You're writing, you're composing shots, you're blocking out scenes, coming up with character interaction. You're really getting a first crack at visualizing a sequence. Looking back it was a great training ground for direction.

[Improvisation, Oscar madness, and moviemaking from your bedroom after the jump]

Click to read more ...