Just Say Link

The Guardian Jane Fonda will be playing Nancy Reagan for Lee Daniels' as yet untitled feature about a White House butler. That's the one he'll follow The Paperboy with.
Towleroad first official look at Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean (though we have already seen pap shots) in Les Misérables.
Movie|Line can you guess what the most rented DVD of 2011?
AMC Film Critic Thelma Adams on what mothers and daughters can learn from The Hunger Games

IFC Fix Actor Toby Kebbell on the troubled adaptation of Akira. He was up for the Tetsuo role but he didn't like what they were doing with the project. I admire his honesty/fandom but I don't like that he's even up for the role. Asian actors please... it's not like Asian American actors don't exist.
Movie|Line can you guess what the most rented DVD of 2011?
AMC Film Critic Thelma Adams on what mothers and daughters can learn from The Hunger Games
In Contention Woody Harrelson's mirror characters in The Hunger Games and Game Change
Rope of Silicon a look at Michael Shannon as a ruthless killer in The Iceman.
After Elton remembers the gayest moments in Mad Men history.
EW five ways to fix Smash which has been renewed for a second season (yay!)

for fun...
Gizmodo Great Simpsons humor. The apps on Mr. Burns' iPad.
world of wonder Atheist Barbie. Hee.

May the Links Be Ever In Your Favor

The House Next Door Poster Lab: Cosmopolis "a tame puppy to the preview's rabid dog"
The Mary Sue a Captain America surprise for soldier and son. Awwww 
24 Frames the Genesis Awards, honoring animal friendly media, were handed out. Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Born to be Wild won best feature and best documentary respectively.
The Hairpin why 1995 was the best year for movies

The Wrap Frank Langella's new memoir dishes about other famous actors, including affairs with Rita Hayworth and La Liz.
The Sheila Variations anatomy of two pratfalls by physical actors Elvis Presley and Cary Grant.
The Wrap interesting. The great X-Men writer Chris Claremont also wanted Angela Bassett to play Storm when he first imagined his team on movie screens. And he wanted Kathryn Bigelow to direct. 

Hunger Links
Serious Film Michael's review of The Hunger Games 
Cinema Blend 10 differences between The Hunger Games books and movies. 
The Wrap the breakdown of the audience for this massive opening. Not the usual kind.  

Review: Hunger Games

This review was originally published in my column at Towleroad. Congratulations to Towleroad for winning Outstanding Blog at the GLAAD Awards

"The Hunger Games," now in their 74th year, began as a way to punish an uprising against the government. The totalitarian regime of Panem (in what remains of the former United States) maintains total control over the outlying districts. Each of the 12 districts is required to send forth two "tributes" annually, a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 to 18 chosen by lottery. They are shipped to the Capital where they are paraded about and then shipped off to die for the amusement of the masses. Everyone in the nation watches. There are no alternatives in this dystopia. Only one adolescent will live bringing supposed honor (and maybe food?) to their starving district... or so claims the capital. What honor there is in forcing teenagers to kill each other is not a question the Capitol asks itself.

Any similarities that The Hunger Games has to the Japanese classic Battle Royale (2000), which also features schoolchildren forced to kill each other by a totalitarian regime -- only one survivor allowed -- are, according to The Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins, entirely coincidental. Another film in this subgenre, the little seen Series 7: The Contenders (2001) also features mandatory lotteried killing for televised amusement. In short, the ideas are nothing new, just the treatment; these are topics we're obviously grappling with in popular culture in this era of televised "reality" and winner takes all capitalistic vice. The gap between the haves and have nots grows and this dystopia gives it steroids.

"The Reaping" Effie chooses tributes from District 12

When 12 year old Primrose Everdeen (Willow Shields) is named as tribute in "The Reaping" ceremony, her protective sister Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) volunteers to take her place. The district also sends Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) a sweet strong baker's son who Katniss knows a little. Will they kill or be killed? 

Click to read more ...

Box Office: Hungry For a Potter/Twilight Replacement

Audiences were ridiculously eager to collectively devour their new multi-year franchise, giving Hunger Games with no bankable stars and only books to sell it, a gargantuan opening weekend... right up there with Batman and Spider-Man with nary a superpower in sight... unless you count archery skills. I guess Hawkeye would. You'd think people were actually reading (gasp) given the enormous success of these bestseller-to-movie transfers for about a decade now. Sadly the numbers do not bear this out with one famous study claiming that 27% of adults in the US don't even read one book a year. 

As I walked into my consulting job Friday I overheard two women talking, and the conversation might have been scripted for an informercial specifically designed to sell tickets... 

Younger Woman: What is this Hunger Games? Everyone is talking about it!
Slightly Older Woman: It's going to kick Twilight's ass. Do you want to know the premise? 

I knew it would be big but I didn't know it'd be colossal. 

TOP TEN (Estimates)
01 THE HUNGER GAMES  $155 new in wide release
02 21 JUMP STREET  $21.3 (cum. $71) [Reviewed]
03 THE LORAX  $13.1 (cum. $177.3)
04 JOHN CARTER  $5  (cum. $62.3) [Review, Kitsch Beefcake, Dr Seuss's John Carter]
05 ACT OF VALOR  $2 (cum. $65.9)
06 PROJECT X  $1.9 (cum. $51.7)
07 A THOUSAND WORDS $1.9 (cum. $14.9)
08 OCTOBER BABY $1.7 new in limited release
09 SAFE HOUSE  $1.4 (cum. $122.6)
10 JOURNEY 2 THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND $1.3 (cum. $97.1)

How early did you have to show up to get a good seat? We arrived 30 minutes early and that was just barely enough time to get two seats together... on the side. My preference is middle middle but whose isn't? They always fill up first.

Curio: Anticipating The Hunger Games

Alexa here. I have skillfully avoided much of the hysteria surrounding The Hunger Games for quite a while. Like Nathaniel, I've been reluctant to jump on the over-marketed, YA-franchise bandwagon. But loving Jennifer Lawrence's performance in Winter's Bone, I took notice when she was cast as Katniss. And when the first full trailer emerged I felt a tingle down my spine. Yet for months I held steady in my resolve to avoid the marketing cacaphony. But something in me broke down this week: I started the book.  Well done, Lionsgate, you conquered me with your buzz-making machine.  In light of my change of heart, here are some pretty swell creations made in advance of the film.

Limited edition prints by Purple Cow Posters.

Poster prints by Entropy Trading Company.Click for more, including jewelry...

Click to read more ...