World's Linkiest

The Guardian a deleted pre-coronation scene between sisters Anna and Elsa in Frozen
Antagony & Ecstasy Tim on Muppets Most Wanted. I liked the movie more than he but this is why I hired him for TFE. Such an incisive film critic.  
Pride Source interviews Elaine Stritch about Rock Hudson, The Golden Girls that might have been and her gay fandom
Playbill offers up "top ten reasons why we love Sutton Foster" I cosign on all of them except for maybe #10 since I didn't see that one.

In Contention Exodus, that new Moses picture with Christian Bale, gets a new title
NPR on the recent spate of bible movies
Kotaku Joss Whedon already apologizing for Avengers Age of Ultron filming chaos
Pajiba you haven't forgotten about Tom Hardy have you? 
The Playlist ranks 20 great continuous shots in film history from The Earrings of Madame D (1953) through the opening of The Player (1992) and on to Gravity (2013) with many stops inbetween
GroupThink a guide to YA Dystopian novels. (I'm surprised how many of them have yet to be filmed but I guess they're publishing them as fast as people can write them) 

Today's Must Watch
Filmmaker IQ has created an informative 15 minute short on the history of the movie trailer in all its forms

The History of the Movie Trailer from FilmmakerIQ.com on Vimeo.

P.S. Very good news: Richard Linklater's Boyhood, which I reviewed at Sundance, will be hitting US screens proper on July 11th. Not too long to wait for this 12 years in the making movie. 

Monday Monologue: “There is no Barbara Novak”

Andrew again, with your weekly monologue. Chances are, if you’re asked to remember what films were tickling your fancy a decade ago you wouldn’t turn to Peyton Reed’s sophomore effort Down with Love. I wouldn’t hold it against you. 2003 had many good films, even great ones to offer. Reed's pastiche of the sex-comedies of the '60s was unlikely to be anyone's #1 film of the year but that does not mean it's without ample merits.

Ewan and Renée display their flexibility

When Down with Love opened in May 2003 to unexceptional reviews, both of its stars, Ewan McGregor and Renée Zellweger, had higher profile releases coming out in December of the same year and by the end of the year few were even thinking about it. Ten years after, less so. But that's unfortunate. The film, like many an homage, does not offer expressly much in the way of originality but as far as well intended romps in the romantic comedy genre go Down with Love ably succeeds more often than you’d expect.  We're a few days late in celebrating its 10th anniversary, but for this week’s Monday Monologue here's a reminder of the frothy pleasures of the film...

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Review: "The Place Beyond the Pines"

This review was originally published in my weekly column at Towleroad

Handsome Luke at the Fairgrounds

The opening shot from THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES, is a stunner. And not only because it starts with a view of a well-muscled and inked masculine torso. The camera follows the man (we don't see his face) as he paces back and forth, plays with a knife and then walks through a fairground where he turns heads and prompts amateur snapshots. Finally the camera catches his face. It's "Handsome Luke" (Ryan Gosling), a daredevil motorcylist about to defy death and gravity in a round metal cage. As soon as we've seen 'Handsome Gosling,' though, Luke throws a motorcyle helmet on depriving us of his Movie Star mug and enters the cage to perform miraculous stunts. As I recall there aren't any edits in this shot and I have no idea how it was filmed unless Ryan Gosling moonlights as a stuntman in addition to his many many other talents (like naming his body parts, and inspiring hilarious fandom and popular internet memes).

This lengthy continuous shot with its 'now you see him, now you don't' movie-star tease is a pretty apt description of the movie to come which is something of a bait-and-switch with a prominent throughline. [more]

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Best Shot: "How to Marry a Millionaire"

Hit Me With Your Best Shot, our series in which all participating movielovers argue for what is a particular movie's best shot, just keeps on surprising me. I've learned so much about the movies by doing it: what I personally respond to, how often a single image is dependent on the editing around it or the scenes preceding it for its punch, and that the most brilliant images tend to either define an entire movie OR illuminate a very particular piece of its identity. Best of all, I've learned things I couldn't have learned without an extra set of eyeballs... yours. Last week, for example, I came to appreciate The Royal Tenenbaums, in whole new ways via the posts on other blogs. Which is why I'm super anxious to read this week's entries. Because this week's movie, the romantic comedy How To Marry a Millionaire (1953) which was a favorite of mine as a teenager, left me very uninspired. I hadn't remembered how unambitious the visuals were, lazily trusting that Cinemascope would provide us with terrific images.

Which is, come to think of it, what many filmmakers did in the early days of Cinemascope. I've joked before that rectangles > squares but shapes are neutral. It's up to the filmmaker to know what to use a movie's shape for, be that square or rectangular or circle (should the movies ever get round)

So my choice for best shot makes good use of the Cinemascope. The Cinemascope allows this image above to be expansive while the blocking reveals a tight trap. The moment  comes early in the movie when the three golddiggers (Marilyn Monroe as "Pola", Betty Grable as "Loco", and Lauren Bacall as "Shatze"-- delicious character names!) think they've snared their first 'bear', a millionaire by the name of J.D. (William Powell, extremely well cast). The girls aren't greedy *cough* and have already agreed that even just one millionaire will do.

You only need one!

For a brief flash with all their backs are turned to the camera, it's easy to imagine a much creepier movie wherein the ladies pounce in for the kill. They're essentially predators, after all, sexy spiders slinking around their phony web (Manhattan condo with terrace) for billionaire flies.

While How to Marry is good popcorn fun, especially for Monroe's adorkable blind as a bat insecurities and Bacall's elegant snobbery as she looks down her nose at everyone and everything (including herself!), it's not much more than that. It feels padded even at only an hour and a half (is it the weirdly sleepy editing?) and the visuals are the least interesting thing about it. This is the only film we've covered where I had absolutely zero indecision about which shot to use. I'm a sucker for a continuous shot and if How to Marry's collection of them didn't feel so much like a filmed stage play (I actually wanted more cutting; that's so weird for me) they'd be a lot more exciting. But this one is a keeper. The middle 'backs to the camera' bit when the ladies pander to and coo at the squirming millionaire is perfect. The cherry on top is that the shot (and scene) ends with a delicious triple diva walk to the camera, all three stars really giving it to the camera... in character no less!

I think this is it kids, a great big room filled with nothing but rich millionaires. And us."

How To Discover Great Blogs (2012)
[Hint: click on them] 
Against the Hype Monroe, Gable and Bacall existing in the same universe?
Amiresque gets dreamy with Betty Grable 
Antagony & Ecstacy a passing of the sex goddess torch
Armchair Audience Bacall sure can move across a screen. But does she choose the right man?
Dial P For Popcorn moments that stick with you
Encore's World in most intrigued by the revealing shots of the threesome.
Film Actually Best Shot = Best Comic Timing
Movies Kick Ass 'there's no business like men business'

Final Three Episodes of Season Three:
Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr (August 8th), Singin' in the Rain (August 15th), and Dog Day Afternoon (August 22nd). JOIN US. WHAT WILL YOU CHOOSE AS BEST SHOT?

Review: "Magic Mike"

An exhilarating all night double date is winding down on a bridge in Tampa, just before the sun rises. Mike (Channing Tatum) stands up on the railing, looks over his shoulder and dives gracefully backwards into the water to the mild delight of the anonymous girls. His new protégé "The Kid" (Alex Pettyfer), already eager to follow in his new buddy's footsteps (and body rolls), jumps in awkwardly after him.

Hey Mike, I think we should be best friends!" 

The Kid blurts the invitation out with both of them bobbing in the water. He's like a little boy who's just discovered a whole new playground. It's a perfectly crush-worthy unguarded moment -- the kind that makes you give yourself over completely to a movie. My heart is yours, movie. Treat me right. 

This gem of a scene is also, as it turns out, the exclamation point to a perfectly formed Act One, "June". The movie takes place over the course of one life-changing summer for Mike and The Kid: June, July, and August. You go to Magic Mike to see seven spectacularly formed male bodies but the movie turns out to be all sculpted, too: June is introductions, flirtations and promise, by July you're deep in love/lust and too hot for clothing, and in August... 

the cock rocking kings of Tampa

Well, you know how sticky August gets...

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