The Link is Not Enough

Thompson on Hollywood 5 things you won't learn about the making of Psycho from Hitchcock
Animation Mag GKids, that indie distributor who is bringing us great foreign animated Oscar contenders has even better news for 2013: A 25th anniversary rerelease of Grave of the Fireflies. You MUST see this movie.
I Need My Fix the motion poster for Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Fancy.
Variety ohmygod Pedro Almodovar wants to make a sci-fi movie. I'm living for this. Please do. 

The Playlist seems as if Sam Mendes might do another Bond picture post Skyfall
NY Post on exciting BluRay news for Gypsy, and many other classics
Anna Kendrick proves to her fans that she's tweeting 
Pajiba is very unhappy with Barbara Walters '10 Most Fascinating People' list. Particularly with the selection of our new Oscar host and this memorable bit on EL James of "Fifty Shades of Grey" fame:

I am sick of the way that criticism about this book has somehow morphed into derisively calling it mommy porn... My problem is the same problem I have with Twilight: the national obsession with terrible fucking writing interspersed with a cursory at best and hungrily timid notion of sex.

BadAss Digest the Marvel Studios "Phase One" box set has new features. I read through them and there's no full length documentary of Chris Evans training shirtless to get Captain America's body so there's no way I'm paying $220!
NY Post Watchmen -- you haven't heard that title in awhile, have you -- is getting a collector's edition with a super long cut and more Dr. Manhattan nudity. Too bad the movie is so stiff.
Vanity Fair Amanda Seyfried in couture... and on her relationship with Hugh Jackman in Les Miz and Dominic Cooper's eight-pack. No really.

 Off Cinema
Huffington Post Fiona Apple cancels the South American leg of her tour due to her dying dog. This is so incredibly sad and Fiona Apple is so awesome. Fact.
Gawker Anderson Cooper gets catty with a obnoxious twitter follower 

Happy Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching and big Oscar contenders are celebrating with connections both very real and carved (haha) out of thin air. Here's a Happy Thanksgiving from Dreamworks Lincoln 

...and one from Fox Searchlight's Hitchcock which you can e-mail to friends and family here.

I'm really disappointed that in this day and age of abundant web animations -- I mean even I can make little animated gifs of my drawings! -- this card didn't have movement. Hitch actually stabbing the turkey would have been sickening.

Curio: Hannah on Thanksgiving

Alexa here. Every year on Thanksgiving I make an effort to catch Hannah and Her Sisters, one of Woody's best and certainly my favorite film with a Thanksgiving theme.  Its framing of three Thanksgiving dinners hosted by Mia Farrow's Hannah resembles the three Christmases in Fanny and Alexander (while I'm at it, I may queue that one up for Christmas). Maybe it's the elegance of this structure that makes the film great, as it holds together Woody's wonderful vignettes, especially those amongst Barbara Hershey, Max Von Sydow and Michael Caine. And this scene pretty much summarizes my philosophy of life.

E.E. Cummmings by cartoonist Louie Chin.

I wish I could drag the rest of my family away from the football to watch it with me, but I usually do so as a solitary endeavor in between baking pies. Here, after the jump, are some great little homages and artistic curios in honor of this film I never, ever tire of. 

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A Celebrity Halloween

For the first time in its long long history New York City's Halloween Parade was cancelled. But some celebrity fav Halloween parties did go in in London and Hollywood. Here are a few photos.

Let's start with Chloe Moretz and Rose McGowan... primarily because I don't know what they're supposed to be: Is Chloe a crying vampire, a rock and roll devil ... or maybe she grabbed some rejected scraps from Colleen Atwood's costume trunks on the set of Dark Shadows; Is Rose a Christmas Rockette, a Babe in Toyland, or January Jones?

Help me out in the comments (and tell us what you wore on Halloween!). More celeb photos after the jump...

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Curio: Rosemary's Bric-a-brac

Alexa here. This Halloween I am taking advantage of the fact that I'm pregnant by dressing as my favorite film heroine, Rosemary Woodhouse. Some may find it in bad taste to dress as the mother of the devil's spawn when you are with child, but I'll use any excuse to celebrate Polanski's masterpiece Rosemary's Baby (1968), which has its Criterion release today.

Rosemary paper doll by Ana Camamiel.

I've ordered my copy, and while I'm at it I may buy one of these these great Rosemary curios I stumbled upon while searching the web for my costume pieces. Tannis, anyone?  

Three more vintage pieces...

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Oscar Horrors: "What's This?!?" an Animated Visual FX Nominee

Here lies… The Pumpkin King of The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the visual effects that made him dance.

The work of Pete Kozachik, Eric Leighton, Ariel Valesco-Shaw and Gordon Baker holds a unique place in the history of the Academy’s visual effects category. As the first – and as of 2012, the last – soley animated film to receive a nomination in this category, it earned the visual effects branch’s respect like none before or since. Oh sure, Mary Poppins and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? won the category in their respective years, but those trophies came predominantly for the way they integrated animation with live action. The Nightmare Before Christmas, however, earned its nomination for the way Henry Selick’s stop-motion universe came to life thanks to innovative camera techniques.

While many may think this film’s idea of “visual effects” lays exclusively at the floating ghosts and shape-shifting shadows that pepper Henry Selick’s visual palate, the Oscar nomination was more a reward for the way the cameras were developed with computer technology to help navigate the heavily-designed “claymation” world.

More on this 1993 Oscar Race after the jump...

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