Moviegoing Diaries: "Bachelorette" is the Best

 [Editor's Note: Beau texted me this morning all tweaked out with "Bachelorette" pleasure so I asked him to be more specific and was he ever. - Nathaniel] 

Thank you, little baby Jesus. Last night, I was given a present. Unlike mirth, gold and whatever else you got, mine came running up, sweating, coke stains under her nostrils, blinking fervently and then yelled out:

‘I’m here. The FUCK you want?’

Lizzy Caplan and Isla Fisher misbehave in "Bachelorette"

I’ve been frustrated with the lack of quality in 2012 releases. With the exception of Moonrise Kingdom, Take This Waltz and Magic Mike nearly everything has disappointed. Even those with something to offer here or there commit some kind of strange habitual plot seppuku and just fucking die on the spot. 

I was not as taken with Bridesmaids as so many others. With the exception of McCarthy, its narrative, beats, notes and tones that were so familiar as to warrant a cliche moratorium. This is what I wanted Bridesmaids to be, and even to compare the two right now I feel, does Bachelorette a major disservice. You can already see the comments and stock quotes coming linking on to the other, and when I texted Nathaniel this morning, I purposefully avoided doing so.

What I felt and texted was this: 

Click to read more ...

Box Office Numbers. What's Yours?

I have important questions to ask Hollywood and you...

Chart via Box Office Mojo

To Hollywood:

• Who greenlit $125 million for a remake of Total Recall without a star as bankable as Ahnuld? 
• Why don't you make more smart but mainstream adult productions as cheap as Magic Mike and then actually promote them well so they become big hits instead of just releasing them in 5 theaters and hoping for the best? The profit margins are pretty big with this one. Consider that it's already earned 15 times its budget and that doesn't even include home video where it will be an even bigger hit or any foreign box office yet since it hasn't gone international.  

To You:

• How many of this week's top 12 have you seen?
• How much life does The Dark Knight Rises (reviewed) still have in it? It's $43 million behind The Dark Knight and $103 million behind The Avengers at this same 17th day point in their runs.
• What do you think the semi-success of Moonrise Kingdom means for Wes Anderson? It didn't reach Tenenbaums popularity but it sure held on with word of mouth and will be much bigger in ten years time the way so many "acquired taste" movies are.

Speaking of numbers... Last night I was in one of those crap movie moods. Do you ever get those? It was too hot to be outside and I just wanted to see something stupid while laying on the couch. So I watched What's Your Number?

Well, I did ask for stupid. It's my own damn fault.

I did not, however, ask for relentlessly sexist and offensive. Women who have slept with more than 10 men in their lifetime -- even if they're gorgeous urban singles in their early 30s who've been to college-- are apparently "sluts"? It's one of those movies where if you switch the genders in your head it makes absolutely zero sense. Nobody would ever understand a movie wherein the plot involves a guy who feels guilty about having had more than 10 girlfriends and his friends all think he's an embarassment because of it so he vows to give up sex because THAT'S FAR TOO MANY! 

The plot and politics were so terrible (and predictable) that it even made it hard to enjoy the otherwise good cast though I did laugh at Anthony Mackie's crude gesture as a closeted gay and Blythe Danner's exasperation of the high strung mother of the bride. I felt so bad for Anna Faris and Chris Evans while watching it but, then again, they did sign on so they can't not have known what they were getting into. So shame on them, too. 

P.S. Remember that bizarrely misguided moment in Chris Evans career wherein his management team announced that he was no longer going to take his shirt off? Ha! That didn't last long.

Maybe their numbers from commissions on his movie offers immediately dried up? 

You think?

Basic Link-stinct

Never Mind Pop Film lists "rules of the cinematic universe" and they're really so true
Tom and Lorenzo Sharon Stone is still a star
The Oregonian theories as to why festival hits do such middling box office 
Empire The Hobbit Parts 1 & 2 have finished filming. 
/ Film How ridiculous is this? A new Aliens related video game won't include any playable female characters? Fans are up in arms. This is after all the franchise that starred Lt. Ellen Ripley and now Dr. Elizabeth Shaw. 

The Film Doctor on Wes Anderson's miniaturized world in Moonrise Kingdom
Handmade this is so cool Moonrise Kingdom Cross Stitch. This movie is aging well in my brain... and heart.
Interiors Film Journal maps out the great elevator scene in Drive
Burbanked on the trailer to Here Comes the Boom. I would only add: why is no one complaining that the plot is like a grotesque parody of Warrior (2011)? 
In Contention Tapley asks a smart question "Could Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes's divorce make The Master this year's zeitgeist movie?" 
Hollywood.com ohmygod. with headlines like this "Could Dark Knight Rises win Best Picture?" all I can say is 'Here we go again. Gird your loins!'

Off Cinema 4 Fun
Abtruse Goose "arithmetic for beginners" 
Twaggies this website illustrates funny tweets. This one has a movie connection sort of 

Today's Must Read
Listen, I know I link to Tom Shone way too much. I have a massive mancritic crush, I freely admit. I just love his writing. His new column for the Guardian "Magic Mike turned me gay!" is great... Like Mr. Shone, I am bisexual at the movie theater so I appreciate the confession. The article even veers towards the difference and sameness of the "male and female gaze," a topic we just happened to be on while discussing Kim Novak in Picnic (1955). 

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "Picnic"

In the Best Shot series we all watch a pre-selected movie and pick what we think of as its best shot.

If watching Picnic (1955) taught me anything it's that you really need to exercize caution. Caution about whose filthy shirts you'll launder, who you'll let kiss you in the car parked by the river, which daughter you'll vicariously live through, which college friend you'll drop in on unannounced and empty-handed, which man you'll drunkenly throw yourself at to tear off his clothing (Rosalind Russell you crazy bitch!), and so on. Above all else Picnic reminded me to use caution before renting DVDs! I had never seen this Best Picture nominee and had only heard tales of its beautiful photography but the version I got was a terrible transfer in *gasp* "Pan and Scan".

In this slinky sexy scene pan and scan robs us of the beautiful lines of Novak and Holden's bodies as they dance romantically around each other.

If that's what you watched I apologize profusely for assigning this movie. But let's talk about Young Beauties, Old Maids, and Hunky Men anyway. The movie demands it...

Click to read more ...

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.