The Linking Cure

Incredible Suit is on the Goswatch to detail four upcoming chances for Ryan Gosling to continue his awesomeness into 2013.
Collider Great news for Viola Davis fans - a second lead role cometh. (Of course she had to make it happen herself.) She'll produce and star in a biopic about the first African American elected to the Texas senate. It's based on the Mary Beth Rogers book Barbara Jordan: An American Hero.

Vanity Fair has a gallery of backstage photos of film/theaters stars in their dressing rooms by Simon Annand including beautiful shots of Rachel Weisz, Tom Hardy, Daniel Craig and Cate Blanchett.
Flavorwire 40 of the best lines from Mad Men's Don Draper (Jon Hamm) or his writing team, rather. Someone make this into a super cut please. One my my all time favorites is:

You don’t cover for me. You manage people’s expectations."

In Contention on the ongoing success and controverseries surrounding Asghar Farhadi's amazing Oscar winner A Separation.
Kenneth in the (212) thinks Rosie's interview show on Oprah's new network is great. Apparently she and Sandra Bernhard talked King of Comedy quite a bit. Ugh, love that movie. (Damnit does this mean I have to DVR another show?)
Boston Review a former president of the American Psychiatric Association reviews A Dangerous Method. Interesting review and it takes time to detour into the theatrical production of "The Talking Cure" (the play that preceded the movie) wherein Ralph Fiennes starred in what became the Michael Fassbender role.
ioncinema oooh, the first photos I've seen from Laurence Anyways the new Xavier Dolan picture. This one stars the wonderful Melvil Poupaud as a man who decides he wants to be a woman.

Today's Must Read
Moviefone's Mike Ryan calls a "John Carter" in 50 states to see if they're seeing John Carter this weekend. Insane, funny, awesome.

Beauty Break: Taylor Kitsch of Earth

I'll tell you how I feel about John Carter of Mars this weekend but since we're midway through the week let's pause for a breath, a sigh, and to absorb the beauty of Taylor Kitsch of Earth.

He started out as a model and after breaking through as an actor playing Tim Riggins on television classic Friday Night Lights, he proved he could pop on the big screen with his cameo as Gambit in the otherwise execrable X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Now he's getting true showcase parts in blockbuster films. John Carter hits this weekend and Battleship arrives in the summer.

I read A Princess of Mars (the first in an 11 book franchise, and the basis of this film's plot) when I was a little boy. Literally the only two things I remembered about it as an adult were that:

1. the green martians had six arms
2. John Carter and his princess were totally naked!!! 

These are the things a little kid commits to memory. Since I remembered nothing else I thought it would be amusing to test my memory and I Kindled "A Princess of Mars"... BEEFCAKE & BOOKS after the jump

Click to read more ...

Madonna Bowl

I was trying to make Sunday the ultimate day of productivity but finally I succumbed to laziness/excitement and just tweeted through the Superbowl. Or, well, half of it at any rate en route to Madonna's much awaited Half Time show.

So let's relive the whole experience right here (in case you aren't following me on Twitter and if you aren't, why the hell not?) since I am too lazy to write up a whole article and there are movie ads and movie references to discuss. Though strangely Madonna's whole Cleopatra inspired entrance didn't occur to me till just now. I was too excited to process anything (still reeling from meeting her).

Below are tweets from me and others. 

• my entire adult life I've heard the Oscars referred to as "the gay superbowl"... so I'm trying to watch 'the straight Oscars for the 1st time
• so far it's really boring. they didn't open w' a comedy routine. no beautiful gowns. you can't even see the celebrity faces. (Helmets. Boo!)
• Tom Brady=the prettiest football star of all time! That's an assumption but a confident one.
• I don't like 'The Straight Oscars' ... too many ugly old men, not ANY pretty actresses #GaySuperbowlOnly21DaysAway
• @StevenMCuevas: If the Oscars at the Gay Superbowl and Rooney Mara's dad owns the Giants, does this mean Rooney wins an Oscar?

One of many incomprehensible Battleship images that could be Transformers cutouts

• @ZeitchikLAT: thank you Battleship, for bringing back large-scale, incoherent school of movie advertising.
• It went away?
  
  MORE AFTER THE JUMP

Click to read more ...

Yes, No, Maybe So: "John Carter"

With Hollywood searching madly for the next franchise and the next one after that -- which can mean billions upon billions of dollars even when you stop trying (Deathly Hallows Pt 1, Pirates part whichever, Etcetera) -- so why not John Carter of Mars. He's the other oft-naked hero from Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs. If Tarzan could generate millions upon millions for decades upon decades, why not this other guy?

Taylor Kitsch is THE PRINCE OF PERSIA JOHN CARTER.

So on March 9th, 2012 John Carter arrives on Mars... albeit without Mars in his franchise title. Weirdness. After a decade of ever-lenghtening film titles, Hollywood has decided to go short again. The Invention of Hugo Cabret becomes the boring "Hugo" and John Carter of Mars becomes the boring "John Carter". Hopefully the movies bearing these names aren't similarly reductive.

Let's break down the trailer with our patented Yes No Maybe So system. How badly do we want this one?

Writers never tire of naming their messiahs JC  - SUBTLE! -- but we're curious about this "John Carter" fellow and his director, too. After five years of heavy glowering and heavy drinking and sensitive soulfulness on Friday Night Lights will Taylor Kitsch's charisma transfer to the big screen. That cameo in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (let us never speak of that fi---oh, damnit!!!) was eyegrabbing but will he be able to carry an entire movie? The other huge question mark here in terms of transferring is Finding Nemo / WALL•E director Andrew Stanton. How well will his gift transfer to live action (a similar challenge awaits Brad Bird in Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol) . We're ready to find out.

Like many fans of Pixar, we hoped for a huge genre leap for Pixar when this was first announced; why shouldn't the great animated studio do a dramatic sci-fi action flick with their insane technological wizardy? Alas the only thing that appears to be animated here are the super tall multi-limbed martians. And if this trailer is any indication they stick out like... well... animated characters in live-action filmmaking often do. That last line reading is curiously disheartening too.

When I saw you I believed it was a sign that something new could come into this world.

...because, you see, this movie doesn't look "new" at all. It doesn't look like some great new hope coming to our movie world. It looks like every other movie! You've got costumes that give you Prince of Persia or Zardoz flashbacks, you've got animated superhero leaps in the desert that recall Hulk's big jumping bean moment or maybe something from that Immortals trailer. Mars doesn't look otherworldly really unless by other worlds you mean Tattooine. And why are John Carter and his love interest (Lynn Collins) wearing so many clothes? We knew they couldn't be starkers like they often are in the book, but why so much material even covering their midriffs? On the other hand this trailer is very short and perhaps they're saving the provocative or eye-candy imagery for the movie itself and maybe it'll all be magic in context.

We're a maybe so for the source material, the director/star double risk, and the off chance that the movie is a helluva lot weirder than this generic peak. But we're starting to worry about leaning full on "no".

You?

This Link Goes To 11

Boston Globe Wesley Morris looks back at Todd Haynes's defiant Poison, now 20 years old but still strong.
Antagony & Ecstasy chooses the 100 Best Films of All Time
Scanners "Moments out of Time" for 2010
Critical Condition Mark shares his dream Oscar ten.
Playbill Another award for Annette Bening. I'd never heard of this one though "The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association's Dorian Awards"

Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, James McAvoy (and others) in X-MEN FIRST CLASS

Hero Complex first photos from the star-studded X-Men: First Class
Movie|Line, prepping for Sundance, reminds us of 13 films that broke out in a big way at the snowy festival.
Boy Culture prompted by Jane Fonda's return has an On Golden Pond flashback. 
Everything I Know names the best stage musicals of 2010 ...and the worst. 
Natasha VC The inimitable Natasha has some words for Robert DeNiro in regards to his Globe speech. 
The Wrap f/x epic John Carter of Mars is coming three months earlier than expected: March 2012.