Top Ten Tweets: from Death Becomes Her to Dracula Untold

No, I'm not desperate for material. I'm not!

It's just that certain other more substantive articles are taking me longer than I expected because I over do it, don'cha know. In case you haven't noticed today, our season premiere, is a special "top ten day" - lists all day!

It is no secret that I love twitter. So much truth, fun, satire, insight, and silliness in 140 characters for when your attention span is very very short. You should follow the team on twitter: Nathaniel, Michael, Anne Marie, Jason, Glenn, Amir, Abstew newbies Manuel & Margaret (...and Matthew should he ever resurface)

10 BEST TWEETS OF THE WEEK
 aka random tweets that Nathaniel loved

The one thing that is more threatening to me than ebola is the proliferation of YouTube celebrities into mainstream culture.

— Robert Kessler (@robertkessler) October 13, 2014

We should remake DEATH BECOMES HER using only this year's Best Actress contenders.

— Jordan (@veilleuxwho) October 12, 2014

8 more: Clooney, Mean Girls, Dracula after the jump

Click to read more ...

YNMS: Tomorrowland, American Sniper, Black Sea

Tonight is the "Closing Night" of the New York Film Festival (Birdman and I'm happy to report that it's wondrous) though there are screenings tomorrow making the title only honorary, really. We'll wrap up soon with Inherent Vice and Birdman thoughts and things we learned at the fest. All the screenings and the first wave of Oscar seeking interviews (coming at'cha soon) have left us seriously behind on the matter of movie trailers / teasers so here are three which you may well have seen already but let's discuss in abbreviated Yes No Maybe So fashion.

TOMORROWLAND
Yes - This does what teasers, hell trailers themselves, should do: intrigues but doesn't give the game away. If only full trailers would follow suit. Come on studios: Help moviegoers rediscover a little something called curiousity. 
No - It's not really fair since he's had a couple of low key years but I'm feeling Clooney fatigue for some reason. Was it the wedding?
Maybe So -According to the vague summaries the story, about a futuristic utopia created by technology, is actually led by Britt Robertson (seen here discovering it via a magic pin) with Clooney in co-lead position as a former whiz kid she enlists to help her get back to this magical place and something something. Like I said: Vague. That's the best kind of pre-release info.

AMERICAN SNIPER
Yes - Trailers that are essentially one scene clips with flourishes round the edges to convey a movie are big "yes" moments. This scene, a sniper trying to decide whether to kill a woman or child is properly lose-lose upsetting. 
No - that tagline "the most lethal sniper in US history" paired with "12.25.14" is gross. Thanks for the coal in the stocking, Warner Bros! Merry Christmas to you, too.
Maybe So - It's a Clint Eastwood film. As you know his aesthetic is way too dreary for me to fully enjoy (even the recent musical was dreary!) but this kind of film can get away with dreary and probably should. Don't know about the banal easy juxtaposition of "American family life!" shoved aggressively into this Middle Eastern war zone via all those inserts but I like how mundane Bradley Cooper's voice sounds in this context.

BLACK SEA
Yes - Two obvious things. 1) Submarines and ocean settings in general often make for fine thrillers given the claustrophia or 'all alone in the world' madness. And 2) Jude Law, for all of the unevenness of his career, is always watchable. Isn't it great that "he's a liability" is voiced over our glimpse of Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom, The Place Beyond the Pines)? He's anything but a liability in movies but of course he is just that in context since he's so good at playing shifty/dangerous characters. Scoot McNairy is also in it.
No - A cuisinart presentation of the whole movie, albeit without grotesque spoilers just general spoilers that the men turn against each other. But we kinda figured that with the pitch in the first minute. Still, where is the hook to care about this? Or is it assumed we will through that blaring music and fast-cutting.
Maybe So -  Kevin Macdonald. Is the jury still out on him (The Last King of Scotland, The Eagle, State of Play, How I Live Now) or does everyone just expect a range from *shrug* to 'quite watchable' but never great?

Links

Salon "Dear serial tweet-favoriter: you are a coward" lol. a must read for anyone with a Twitter account
The Uncool Cameron Crowe's agonizing search for a title for Almost Famous (2000)... in notepad form
Film School Rejects two members of the staff watched "the 50 best movies of all time" and here are their takeaways from that two year process
Antagony & Ecstasy on King Vidor's The Crowd (1928) at the great end of silent filmmaking
Kenneth in the (212) shares a pretty great X-Men related Graham Norton wherein Fassy & McAvoy see gay fan art of themselves

MNPP tries to rekindle his love for George Clooney with his three favorite Clooneys. Good choices
Variety asks where the kids movies are this summer in the absence of Pixar
The Wire "Zac Efron hits bottom by accepting life advice from Tom Cruise" haha. I'm linking that for the title alone 
i09 see what your favorite webcomics would look like animated 
Cinesnark terrific examination of why Captain America films are what Superman films have failed to be 

news bits
Empire the ever employed Liam Neeson joins A Monster Calls... the new feature from the director of The Impossible. I can't wait until it's retitled something dull like "Dark River"
Cinema Blend The Flintstones getting a new animated feature because no franchise is allowed to ever die
In Contention The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby will be released in three different versions. It's a neat experiment but it fills me with horror. Goodbye final cut and "definitive" versions. That's a thing of the past (Malick, Lucas, and Scott have been trying to force that on us for years with their "oh, i'm sorry did i say i was finished i wasn't finished" tinkering so I'm sure they're thrilled.)
Guardian Andrea Arnold to direct first US film, a road trip called American Honey. I hope she casts professional actors this time. 

I'm not aware of too many things, i link what I link, if you know what I mean

Hello Cinema has a really fascinating conversation about the reception of foreign films, Iranian and elsewhere, in North America referencing interesting movies like A Separation, Leila, Mother of George, Children of Heaven, City of God, and many more
Man, I Love Films on the beloved 40s noir horror Cat People (such a good flick, huh?) 
My New Plaid Pants falls in love with (nsfw) 1966's Georgy Girl with Lynn Redgrave & Alan Bates 
Guardian George Clooney, perpetual bachelor, is engaged! 

ABC Musicians Paul Simon and his wife Edie Brickell arrested for disorderly conduct. The New Bohemians were not brought in for questioning
Theater Mania Grease Live! will be the next TV musical event after The Sound of Music's success. No cast yet (and good luck strying ot out Stockard/Olivia/John) but it's aiming for 2015 
Serious Film my friend Michael liked Match, the Tribeca film starring Patrick Stewart I reviewed yesterday, a helluva lot more than me so it's worth sharing an opposing opinion
First Showing footage from Russell Crowe's directorial debut, The Water Diviner
Empire the WB triples down on director Zach Snyder giving in both the Man of Steel sequel and the Justice League movie  (but why? People have already turned on Man of Steel as a 'meh' which doesn't bode well for enthusiasm next time)
Cinema Blend ...is on rumor control: Matt Damon as Aquaman? 
Towleroad so that's what Teen Wolf's departed cast member Colton Haynes has been up to. (side note: Towleroad has been killing it with the post titles of late)
The Wire revisiting Mean Girls with the woman who wrote the non-fiction / non-comedy book it's adapted from 

Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People" List
The full list has been revealed with these 27 people in the "arts" section: Marina Abramovic, Amy Adams, Diane Paulus, Matthew McConaughey, John Green, Beyoncé, Sheika al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Donna Tartt, Jordan Peele, Seth Meyers, Benedict Cumberbatch, Robin Wright, Binyavanga Wainaina, Miley Cyrus, Robert Redford, Jenji Kohan, Yao Chen, Arundhati Roy, Megan Ellison, Carrie Underwood,  Kerry Washington, and Keegan Michael Key. Weird eclectic lineup. (This last season renewed my love for Amy Adams but I've never thought of her as "influential" per se.) Interestingly enough -- at least for The Film Experience's purposes -- five of the slots are taken up by recent hotly-contested Oscar contests. Best Directors Steve McQueen & Alfonso Cuarón are both accounted for as are the leading "Original Song" nominees Robert and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (from Frozen) and "Happy" Pharrell Williams.  All of the celebrities get tributary write-ups by other starry folk: Oscar whisperer Harvey Weinstein honors film legend Redford; James Franco writes about Abramovic (OF COURSE HE DOES); Naomi Watts talks up Robin Wright who had her best year; and Jessica Chastain has the good sense to worship Megan Ellison...

The Italian Renaissance flourished because patrons like the Medici family sponsored artists and valued their craft. Today the film industry has been blessed with a modern version of the Medicis — a single benefactor who has the utmost respect for cinema: Megan Ellison.
         -Jessica Chastain 

The magazine has multiple covers as most event issues do these days. Who would you have placed on the list that didn't make it?

The Amazing Technicolor Link Blog

Village Voice is Frozen the first Disney movie about girls rather than for them?
The New Yorker asks Richard Brody, film critic, to explain himself. Cute video but omg his desk is cramped
Jezebel somehow I missed this interview where Bryan Singer blamed women for the failure of Superman Returns (2006)... Jezebel, predictably, has words for him.  
The Dissolve has a piece about the toxicity of twitter and its effects on intrafeminist battles. Really interesting and ties into what's been going on with the Dylan Farrow letter I think 
VF George Clooney's advice for posing on the cover of Vanity Fair 
Coming Soon interesting. Dakota Fanning to headline the next film from Miss Bala director Gerardo Naranjo. She'll play a roadie on the way towards self discovery

NY Times Phedon Papamichael, nominated for his cinematography on Nebraska shares his favorite things of the moment from Instagram to the Polish film Ida
Pajiba on the beautiful casting of a new Netflix show: Linda & Kyle & Sissy oh my
Coming Soon got 10 free hours? Amazon Instant Watch debuts 10 new series pilots we've never heard of today but one of them called Mozart in the Jungle has a great team and cast
i09 a movie version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamboat produced by Elton John, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber? Sure why not. But they better get a costume designer that's on point

Cinema Blend Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is actually on track towards filming again. Ha. The saga of this movie is probably more exciting than the movie could ever hope to be. Lily Collins will star.
Coming Soon the original Fantastic Four movies were just terrible and I have literally no optimism for the reboot either despite admiring director Josh Trank's Chronicle and virtually all of the actors individually just not the in roles he's considering them for. His casting is too young, too arbitrary, too non-WASPy. I know it's foolish to lament the lack of role opportunities for hot blondes in Hollywood - Hahaha - but if any superhero role ever was meant for a WASPy blonde and a WASPy blonde alone it was Sue Storm. Kate Mara and Emmy Rossum don't fit the bill and isn't Miles Teller way too young and fun-loving for the science genius gravitas of Mr Fantastic? 

Finally
You know how much we love the topic of age and acting here at TFE. Well on this recent HuffPo conversation they discuss the earning power drop for actresses which comes, they say, at 34. With men their power doesn't drop until their mid 50s.

I started the video aggravated that all the panelists seemed clueless about the disparity when it came to the men... I mean it's so obvious since male actors don't even start their reign until their 30s usually (Leonardo DiCaprio is not the norm, he's a rarity. What's far more common is the Channing Tatums and Brad Pitts of the world who kick around for a bit winning some attention and then *BOOM* supernova at about 30)... but I'm glad they ignored the men and discussed the women. It's an interesting conversation and Lisa Rosman is a critic I liked and she's good on the fly discussing this. I would need to read more about this study to believe the results fully though because from where I sit it does seem to me that actress careers are lasting longer, even in terms of lead roles, than they once did. Obviously Sandra Bullock, even more successful than she once was as she approaches 50 -- and she was pretty successful to begin with! --  is a rarity. And yet in general it does seem to me that the major actresses are having longer shelf lives than they once did. They don't seem to just vanish until their mid to late 40s early 50s now (notice the quick fades of Hunter, Allen, Linney, Clarkson, etcetera) rather than the late 30s early 40s it once was.