Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Linkdown

Art of the Title has an amazing 3-part retrospective / interview with title designer Pablo Ferro. His work includes: Bullitt, Married to the Mob, Dr Strangelove, Beetlejuice, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and so many other greats
The New Yorker "why Mean Girls is a classic" even esteemed publications got into the 10th anniversary frenzy. Good piece from Richard Brody
The Dissolve Joaquin Phoenix will headline the next Woody Allen film, the one after Magic in the Moonlight. The prolific auteur isn't slowing down his one-a-year pac. Phoenix isn't slowing down either; remember how just a few short years ago, people thought Phoenix's career was over? The joke was on us.) 

 

Vulture Bilge Ebiri sticks his neck out for "Why Adam Sandler Matters"
Paper Mag 5 Most Swintessential Moments from Tilda Swinton's career. Love this though none are her actual acting & filmography which is tops. 
Playbill Idina Menzel & Julie Andrews talk Frozen, Wicked and The Sound of Music Live! on "Watch What Happens Live". Julie is very magnanimous about Carrie Underwood but I love the hint of 'i'm aware you all think i'm just being diplomatic' utter vagueness of "acting is acting is acting". Ha!

I thought she was great. Listen, she made it her own. But listen: acting is acting is acting."

The Wire pontificates on Emma Stone's career now that redundant superhero movie is in theaters. Shouldn't her career be so much more by now?
Cosmopolitan interviews Amy Schumer on 'sneaky feminism,' Parker Posey, plastic surgery and Judd Apatow's Trainwreck
Pajiba this is how you assemble a damn cast. On Joe Swanberg's wonderful ensembles 
AV Club is fear of TV cancellations a thing of the past? Shows with low ratings are no longer automatically doomed and fan passion counts for far more than it once did.
Gothamist wonders if James Franco is doing okay. Get out of bed! 

Today's Must Read
Cléo wonderfully provocative piece on "Samantha" in Her (now on DVD) from Angelo Muredda:

Early on, Samantha is eager to establish herself as, if not a human, then at least something more ambitious than a machine. She proudly proclaims that what makes her her is the ability to grow through her experiences. “So basically,” she says, “in every moment I’m evolving, just like you.” The latter part of that statement reads as a veiled threat to Theodore, who seems rather stalled in his moody present state as a sad man who writes other people’s love letters for a living despite being unable to sign his own divorce papers. It is a succinct expression of the film’s male smugness: that a girlfriend who begins excited about the world and her boyfriend’s witty emails is still a girlfriend who will one day leave.

TGIF: What's Your Favourite Award Presentation?

Glenn here. It's Friday, which for a lot of people means the weekend. If, like me, you don't work a traditional 9 to 5 job then it means nothing at all. Except, of course, it becomes socially acceptable to be up until 4am watching movies. I have an OFCS ballot that is incomplete and I've only got 30 hours to watch all the contenders!

Of course, I'll never actually get to watch them if I spend my time continuously watching clips from award shows, which is something that inevitably happens during the season. It's a sickness, I swear. Inspired by yesterday's Golden Globe nominations and watching Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell present musical/comedy actress at this year's award show for about the 100th time. Apropos of it being the end of the week, here are some of my favourites, but how about yours? 

Top Ten Biggest Money-Making Actresses Right Now

For today's Tuesday's Top Ten we're using Forbes numbers for discussion lift-off We recently discussed their list of the top paid actors from the past twelve months and came to the conclusion that they don't challenge themselves much at all. The women are a slightly different story. While it's true that no one would mistake this for a list of 'The Best Actresses Working' or 'The Actresses Who Are Currently Testing The Limits of Their Range,' this list does have slightly more variety in filmography though far less in terms of beauty and age as is always the case with the men and the women of Hollywood

01 Angelina Jolie $33 
Tops the list by way of signing on to Maleficent for Disney. The Sleeping Beauty prequel is a surefire hit, both because it's presold -- branding being everything -- and because it's Jolie who rarely falters at the box office. 

nine more ladies and an actress poll after the jump

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Linkhead

USA Today no, Jennifer Lawrence did not have a wardrobe malfunction despite all visual evidence to the contrary. That's just the dress!
Filmdrunk uncovers the MTV promo that got JLaw her SAG card - she mentioned it in her speech last night.
In Contention wonders where Ang Lee is in all the who will win Pic/Dir confusion
i09 do you want a documentary about the ill-fated Tim Burton / Nicolas Cage Superman movie? I sure do! Schadenfreude for days on end!
Pop Elegantarium awwww a new Film Experience baby. Congratulations to mom Alexa (who writes the Curio column right here)
EW Hunter Foster on Bunheads with real life sister Sutton Foster. Gah. I ♥ them both
MNPP superheroes working it
Pajiba Celebrity friendships you probably didn't know about. I knew a few but some really goodies unearthed here. Some of these are really surprising (Kyle Chandler & Lorenzo Lamas) others shouldn't be surprising but somehow I didn't know (Matt Bomer & Lee Pace are best friends?) and others are just delightful as in 'they stayed close after filming!' (Christian Bale & Winona Ryder?) but anyway, read it. Fun finds.
Wired Is Glee stealing arrangements from indie musicians? My god I'm so glad I gave up on that show when I did and have never been attempted to return. This story is so sleazy awful. 

And I'll leave you with an old video of Emma Stone shaking it shaking it shaking it.

This makes me want to watch Easy A and Crazy Stupid Love on loop right now.

Gangster Squad: Bullets and Boredom

Michael C here to kick off the movie year with my first review of 2013 for a movie I noticed had slipped through the cracks here at the Film Experience in the rush of Oscar Nomination Fever. But surely 2013 will get better than this! 

Gangster Squad is a film haunted by the ghosts of its superior cinematic ancestors. Some films do gain resonance from evoking earlier titles in their genre but Ruben Fleischer’s crime saga is such a creative void that it can’t wrestle the audience’s attention away from the specters of film noir past. So much more rewarding to occupy one’s mind with fond memories of Chinatown, than to watch characters we don’t care about exchange gunfire in action scenes we can’t follow for reasons not worth understanding. 

Penn vs. Brolin in "Gangster Squad"

The most obvious film intruding on Gangster Squad (2013) is The Untouchables (1987) - at times the new film borders on a beat-for-beat retelling of the earlier story with Al Copen switched out for Mickey Cohen... [more]

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