Earth's Linkiest Heroes

Whedonesque okay so supposedly Joss Whedon started shooting The Avengers today. I've long said this movie will never happen so if cameras are actually rolling (do people still say that anymore with digital cameras?) and they don't stop production at some point unexpectaly I'll be totes wrong. And I'll be happy to be wrong (so long as the movie is good.)
Pajiba the ten movies people most lie about having seen when they haven't.
Movie|Line Stephanie Zacharek reveals the summer movies she's most looking forward to... even though she hates writing about trailers.
Acidemic remembered Jesus, via Franco Zefferilli, for Easter. I did such a bad job with Easter at the blog. I didn't even post a bunny picture. What's wrong with me? I'm normally such a holiday-friendly guy. Do you have a favorite Jesus portrayal from film or television?
Gold Derby looks at the possible Best Comedy Actress lineup at the Emmys. Did you know that The Lovely Laura Linney has never been defeated when nominated?
Coming Soon Johnny Depp to cameo in the 21 Jump Street movie.
FourFour writes about Lance Loud, now famous again post-humously due to HBO's Cinema Verite.
Us Magazine congratulations to TFE darling Toni Collette! She had a baby boy.

Just For Fun
My High School Boyfriend Was Gay have you seen this new humor site? Prom photos are the best for unintentional comedy. You woudn't believe mine but, no, I won't ever be sharing it.
The Awl on friendships with the unemployed.
Omaha I'm sharing this link about a tattoo artist just because of his following quote from the tattoo artist to your right on the rise of intricate realistic tattoos.

“You can put beautiful art on the body just as you can put beautiful art on the wall. I spent nine hours putting a tattoo of Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman on one guy.

Nobody loves La Pfeiffer more than me but I couldn't wear her face on my body for the rest of my days. Do any of you have tattoos? I'm squeamish about them but I'm always curious as to what motivates others to get them.

Easter Egg Movie Madness

Happy Easter TFE readers. I ran out of time this year but I had totally planned to create Black Swan Easter Eggs to add to my previous collections of movie-themed easter eggs. The visual has to be iconic and easily reduced to oval form, see. Nina Sayers and her scary eyemakeup totally work. In order to be somewhat festive today, anyway, here's a reprint of a classic post. If you haven't read it before it's new to you!

Movie Themed Easter Eggs

Time for Arts & Crafts! All holidays lend themselves to movie obsessing and Easter is no exception.Plus, who doesn't love brightly colored edibles? Here are a few movie themed easter eggs you can make with your kids, godchildren, nephews, nieces or your adult friends who behave like children.

Materials needed: eggs, food dye, vinegar, water and the ability to measure and boil it, spoons, glasses, white crayons, black crayon or black marker, red candle, hand/eye coordination and some degree of artistic ability.

Get started! Boil water. Insert eggs (leave boiling for 10-12 minutes). Take water off stove without burning self. Rinse eggs in cold water. Put eggs on cooling rack. Leave for a few hours. Return. Mix different colors of dye into glasses (1/4 tsp food coloring / 1 tbsp white vinegar / 3/4th cup hot water) into which you can dip zee eggs. Ready... and GO.

Superheroes and Salmonella after the jump.

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Box Office Takes Flight

Dave here rounding up the box office while Nat's away thinking about nicer things.

Parrots took over from rabbits at the top of the box office this weekend, although the fact that it still isn't Easter might give that foppish British bunny a boost this week. Or did they bounce him out too early? Rio signals the coming of summer by scooping the biggest opening weekend of the year so far, besting Rango's $38.1 million. Meanwhile, Scream 4 came in a pale second place, not even making half of Rio's total; and Nat will be delighted to learn that Academy Award Winner Helen Hunt's Soul Surfer held steady as others tumbled around it. Maybe Ghostface might be able to take a stab at her as he falls past her next week?

Jesse Eisenberg doesn't usually look so emotional at the movies...

The Box Office (Actuals)

01 RIO new $39.2

02 SCREAM 4 new $19.3

03 HOP $11.2 (cumulative $82.6)

04 SOUL SURFER $7.4 (cumulative $20.0)

05 HANNA $7.3 (cumulative $23.3)

06 ARTHUR $6.9 (cumulative $22.3)

07 INSIDIOUS $6.7 (cumulative $35.9)

08 SOURCE CODE $6.3 (cumulative $37.0)

09 THE CONSPIRATOR new $3.9

10 YOUR HIGHNESS $3.9 (cumulative $16.0)

Disastrous numbers for the $45 million-budgeted Your Highness, crashing almost 60% in only its second week; but beautiful ones for the $1.5 million budget of Insidious, a bonefide hit that even looks likely to outgross horror rival Scream 4. Sometimes the little guys win!

And how the mighty Ghostface has fallen. Here's a usefulless comparison of the opening weekends for the whole series.

Of course, the original Scream started out small and ended up breaking $100 million, whereas the unfavorably received Scream 3 couped the biggest debut but faltered before $90 million. Those numbers are now just a forgotten dream for Scream 4, of course; how much do you think it'll end up grossing?

Lower down the chart, audiences shrugged at Atlas Shrugged (thanks Glenn), Win Win won a little extra on further expansion, and the biggest winner of the week was Italian thriller Double Hour, snatching the biggest per-screen average with $15,400... on its two screens. But what did you enjoy this weekend, in theatres or at home? I had a scream myself.

Box Office: The Source of that Insidious Hopping

Fact #1: I love Easter, bunnies, Easter bunnies, chocolate bunnies, coloring eggs.
Fact #2: Seeing Hop would ruin the upcoming holiday entirely for me because nothing makes me gag harder than animated CGI characters doing hip anachronistic things like oh, I don't know dreaming of playing in a rock n roll band. Just typing this out gave me salmonella. Mainstream moviegoers felt otherwise throwing their hardearned cash at the British wabbit. It had the best opening weekend since Rango. Where were these crowds when The Rock was doing Tooth Fairy?

01. HOP $37.5 new
02. SOURCE CODE $14.8 new
03. INSIDIOUS $13.2 new
04. DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: RODRICK RULES $10.0 (cumulative: $38.1)
05. LIMITLESS $9.3 (cumulative: $55.5)

Poor Patrick. Things never end well for him at the movies.

Hop's success frightens me and the only possible joy that can come from it is that maybe someone will give James Marsden another plum comic gig like the one in Enchanted.  I would however totally want to see this week's chart topper if it were about Jake Gyllenhaal and the Easter Bunny ibeing thrust back in time repeatedly until they saved Patrick Wilson from demonic possessions in The Source of That Insidious Hopping. Don't you wish you could sometimes watch three movies at once?

Per Screen Average Which movies were you most likely to find crowds at? I've eliminated all the specialty IMAX stuff and everything that's only at one theater because "come on" and here's what'cha got.

01. HOP $10,000ish
02. IN A BETTER WORLD $8,000ish (The Danish Oscar winner is finally on a few screens. Weird to wait an entire month post Oscar win to debut.)
03. WIN WIN $7,000ish (cumulative $1.9 million. Big jump in screen count this past weekend. I almost went today but my friend shifted plans.)
04. JANE EYRE $6,700ish  (cumulative $3.4 million. Still going strong. Yay)
05. INSIDIOUS $5,500ish (and this type of movie is always better with a crowd)

What did you see over the weekend? I was entertaining so I didn't get out. Although we did watch the SXSW winner Weekend which was fairly strong as indies go. It definitely knew what it wanted to be and didn't get distracted at being that and that's always a huge plus.

Kiss Her, She's Irish. Plus: Maureen O'Hara & "Connemara Days"

Two generations of screen fame: Maureen O'Sullivan and Mia FarrowHappy St. Patrick's Day to all Irish or Irish-appreciatin' readers out there. There are numerous male Irish actors who get plentiful attention. In fact, there almost always seems to be a new one tearing the screen up. Case in point: Michael Fassbender (Irish/German), who we're suddenly not so sure we're happy about sharing with the entire world. How will there be enough to go round? He's slim as it is and WE SAW HIM FIRST, DAMNIT.

The actresses never get much attention. We seem to go whole decades without an important Irish lass winning substantial popularity or acclaim. So why not celebrate today's working actresses of Irish descent with a photo gallery?

But first, we must bow to the greatest of them all, Maureen O'Hara. How adorable are these photos which I nabbed from Mothic Flights and Flutterings and Stirred, Straight Up With a Twist who writes on the image to your right...

After a few green beers, this photo of Maureen O'Hara will begin to make sense.

Gah. Don't you just love Maureen O'Hara? The world is totally in need of an O'Hara revival. I must seek her out and beg for an interview or something.

Okay, after the jump some current stars. Who do you love?

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