Linkland: Thelma & Louise, Marion & Melanie, Regina & Shawn

Movie|Line "what the box office skeptics are missing about Super 8"?
In Contention does not like Super 8. "Super h8ted it" Uh oh.
Just Jared Dakota Fanning's High School Graduation. Congrats Dakota!
Mister Hipp "sometimes you can still catch me dancing in it" - just lovely. Still my favorite Tim Burton film.
Kenneth in the (212) Thelma & Louise, 20 years later (in Toronto.) Awwww I ♥. Sadly, Brad Pitt was not there.
Tom Shone loves Melanie Laurent in Beginners. As do I.
The Critical Condition has a really interesting question/thought about Marion Cotillard in Midnight in Paris. NOTE: Don't read it until after you've seen the movie!
Splash Page talks to Chris Evans about working on The Avengers.

X-Men "Born This Way" Parody.

Teehee. Fun lyrics although some may quibble about Magneto not being... that other way.

Finally, Scott Feinberg shares the nominees for the 1st annual BTJA "Critics Choice" Awards. Mad Men cleans up but the interesting part is the Emmy-diversion details: Glee is nominated but Jane Lynch is the only cast member with a nomination; they're absolutely nuts for all AMC shows; and Southland got a nomination for Shawn Hatosy (yes!) but not for Regina King (boo!). If you watch Southland you'll know that Hatosy's role got crazy intense this past season as his screen partner Kevin Alejandro was killed (so that he could sex up Lafayette on True Blood... or was that a post-job-loss career get?) and Hatosy's character broke down hard. But the MVP of this show is still Regina King. Go Regina!

Red Carpet: MTV Girls, Super Empathy, and Lively Nudity

Previously on red carpet lineup Nathaniel and Jose discussed Cannes gowns and Kurt and Nathaniel chatted about the annual Met Gala. In today's episode, Nathaniel and Jose discuss the MTV Movie Awards fashion.

Nathaniel: ‬ ‪This time we're starting a bit "off cinema" -- although calling the MTV Movie Awards cinema related is a stretch -- for a brief look at the CDFA Awards held this week in New York City.‬

Lady Gaga, Lady Watts, Lady Sevigny, Housewife Marcia

Jose: ‬ ‪Wait, is that the thing where Gaga is? I assumed this lineup was the MTV awards too. Ha. I obviously missed both ceremonies

Nathaniel:‬ ‪Yep. The Council of Fashion Designers honored the industry's biggest designers as is their habit. But they also gave an award to Lady Gaga. Isn't giving Gaga a fashion award kind of like giving Angelina Jolie a Fame Award. Like...

"Congratulations: You are You!!!"

Jose: ‬ ‬ ‪She should receive fashion awards at the Cattle Salesman Council, not the fashion council.‬
She's always so coy about it, like "oh, you think I'm special?", I hate that. ‪Despite my love of McQueen I personally think that you should be able to "wear" fashion and these awards should go to people who encourage that‬

Nathaniel:‬ I hesitated to include Gaga in the Lineup o Actresses because lord knows the woman CANNOT act (see: music videos and SNL). I wish so bad that she'd make a movie because people would finally stop kicking Madonna for her shaky thespian tendencies. But I have a larger point to make.‬

Which is that if you're attending such a thing, shouldn't you do what Chloe Sevigny and Marcia Cross are doing and NOT what Naomi Watts is doing? Something eyepopping or you might as well be wallpaper.

Jose: To be honest, I'd rather have my Naomi fix in this wallflower-ish type, cause she's made some hideous choices in the past‬. Remember that dress she wore to the Oscars that made her look like King Kong had recently attacked her? This is careless copying, though. This is essentially what Gwynnie wore to the Oscars this year, but short and shapeless.

Nathaniel:‬ And bland. Here's the thing with blond actresses that are not particularly unusually eye-popping in some way. They're like grains of sand on the beach. There are millions of others with whom you are indistinguishable unless you're giving it a little something extra.‬ Naomi overcompensates onscreen sometimes by ACTING but undercompensates on the red carpet.

Jose: I say let's pull a Freaky Friday on Gaga and Naomi.

Nathaniel: !!! Wonderful idea.

Jose: Gaga looking human would be more surprising than anything else.

Nathaniel: Totes. I keep waiting for her to have her own "Live to Tell" moment where suddenly she's just in a simple flowery dress with pretty hair. That was SO shocking at the time for Madonna.‬ That's got to happen eventually.

Jose: ‬ ‬ ‪I'd love to see what she wore when she was just plain old "Gaga from the block", even Madge is down to earth now (in Louis Vuitton of course)‬

Nathaniel: I like that Chloe's top feels rubbery and sentient and winged... I suddenly picture her as Professor X's love Empress Lilandra of the Shi'Ar but I have mutants on the brain.

Jose: That makes total sense. She wouldn't even need CGI to display weird powers.‬

Lilandra and Dazzler of late 70s/early 80s X-Men fame

Nathaniel:‬ ‪Heh. I know I've said this very recently in another red carpet post but everyone is conspiring to make me think of 70s DAZZLER from the X-Men lately.

Jose: ‬ ‪Marcia looks stunning. I'm pretty sure she's looked the same since the 70's, maybe she's a mutant herself‬.

Nathaniel: These sparkly disco jumpsuits! There needs to be an X-Men Origins: Dazzler movie to fully bring back the 1970s. Fashion is trying to take us there anyway.‬

Jose: And I'd love to see Cross in a catfight with Jennifer Lawrence. ‪I say, let's put 'em all in rollerskates and have ourselves a Xanadu-Men: First Class!‬

Nathaniel: Damnit. Now I have to go masturbate.

Jose: LOL. It's too early for that here.

Nathaniel: Self-love knows no time zones!‬ Speaking of masturbatory.... let's move on to the MTV Twilight Awards.‬

Jose: ‬ ‬ ‪Ew, fine.

Nathaniel:‬ ‪This first lineup of lovely ladies demonstrates to us that it's A) summer at last B) short skirts are in.‬

Emma Watson, Mini-Dakota, Emma Stone, KStew, Queen Reese

Jose:  ‬ ‪I remember the time when the fine people of the planet voted for movies like Scream and Lord of the Rings in those awards, heck they even gave Nicole Kidman a trophy for Moulin Rouge! when Oscar ignored her‬

Nathaniel:‬ ‪I was just talking about this to a friend yesterday at lunch. You sound like an old curmudgeon when you say: back in my day they used to vote for good movies! but in this case it's not nostalgia, it's plain-ass facts.

Click to read more ...

Team Experience: Swim with Mermaids, Ride on Gaga

This week I asked the contributing Film Experience team how they felt about Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and I also wanted to gauge whether we had any Little Monsters in our midst via Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" droppings.

You refused to see Pirates 4. What would ever bring you back to this franchise?

Michael: It's hard to imagine what could bring me back to the franchise at this point, (I feel like I only just got done sitting through At World's End) but a a 90 minute running time would be a step in the right direction.

Andreas: If Disney ever wants me to shell out for another Pirates movie, they'll have to go down a really surprising route, like selling it as "Andrei Rublev on the high seas." Or maybe they could introduce interesting characters! Some outrageous twist like that. What if they solved all their problems by just making Pirates 5 into Dead Man 2? They could bring in Jim Jarmusch to guest-direct, and use William Blake quotes for all of Jack Sparrow's dialogue!

Craig: Can they get all the sequels over with in one go and amalgamate the whole lot: The Hungover Kung-Fu Transformers of the Caribbean in the City of the Deathly Hallows Parts 2, 3 & 4 will be showing near you THIS SUMMER! Either that or they just cast the muppets instead of Depp, Cruz and company. I could easily do with another Muppets Treasure Island, thanks.

You saw Pirates 4. What did you think of the Mermaids?

Jose: The mermaids were truly preposterous! Where were their nice sea shell bras and their fuzzy crab and fish friends?

Although on the bright side, if it hadn't been for Syrena, we wouldn't have had a chance to see Sam Claflin shirtless. Is it only me or should Pé have played the queen of the mermaids instead of being stuck with that crappy character?

Kurt: It's such a shrug of a movie. That said, I liked the mermaids -- collectively, they were one of the film's very few inspired elements. The mermaid attack was the first action sequence I actually paid attention to. The depiction is neither totally accurate nor blasphemous. Just a new interpretation. And thank god for it.

What if Lady Gaga's "Borth This Way" was a movie?

Who should ride her cyborg self?

Andreas: I imagine Born This Way: The Movie as a cross between The Terminator, Showgirls, and Un Chien Andalou, but with extra preachiness thrown in. To be honest, I've always wanted Gaga to branch out into large-scale filmmaking just on the basis of the "Bad Romance" music video, so if she made exactly that, I'd be perfectly happy. The weirder, the better.

Jose: It would be a freaking Heavy Metal like extravaganza. Only two passengers should ever ride Gaga: Hedwig (from the Angry Inch)... 

...and  the Governator himself. Can you imagine those two in an action movie together?

Though you didn't ask who are they chasing/is chasing them  but I'll answer. There is only one being who can do that: Madonna. She needs to find the one camp movie role to make her a cinema icon.

Craig:  The Gaga videos to date, all strung together, are like a kind of movie anyway, aren't they? But if Born This Way were a movie it would be directed by Alan Smithee. Burn (rubber), baby, burn! Edward Furlong would clearly have to ride on Gaga's mutant-motorcycle. And Gaga herself would have to talk in a weird robo-Austrian-motor dialect. Doesn't she already do that in some of her songs anyway? It's part of her charm.

Kurt: If Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" were a movie, it would, of course be Labyrinth 2, and on the back of Gaga's cyborg motorcycle would ride David Bowie's Jareth, clad in his signature wig and junk-hugging leggings. Together, Gaga and Jareth would rule over their combined armies of little monsters, and anyone who spoke against their doubly strong maze of fabulousness would be swiftly tossed into the Bog of Eternal Stench.

YOUR TURN

• Who would you pay to see riding on Gaga's mutant-cycle?
• Do you prefer your mermaids carnivorous or sweet and tuneful?

She's Still in Love With Judas, Baby

Another couple of months, another Lady Gaga short film. Thankfully she's calmed down a smidge since the epic EPICNESS of "Born This Way" which was messy MESSYNESS.

Sometimes it's good to have a simple concept and just execute it well.

In this case its Christ & Disciples as biker gang with Gaga as the Holy Fool / Biker Chick who can't choose between her two (archetypal) men, saintly Jesus or bad boy Judas (Norman Reedus!) who is so rebellious he demands that his name be pronounced with extra syllables. Speaking of. Love the tongue-tripped lyric bridge.

In the most Biblical sense,
I am beyond repentance
Fame hooker, prostitute wench.

Video: B+ That Bit w/ the Lipstick: A+ The Break: D+ (video breaks are tired. just dance!) Song: B

P.S. TANGENT TIME:  I'm totes enjoying Gaga's reign these past couple of years but, gotta say it, really missing Madonna today. Like as in more than usual.

Maybe it's because Madge looked flawless at the Met Costume Gala. Maybe it's because this is Gaga's "Like a Prayer" no? I'm not saying that in a negative 'ripping off Madonna' way people like to assume. I'm saying that as in this is the moment where the stars feel indestructable and poke at the religious people's eternally thin skin and risk their noisy wrath while making some sort of dance-ready point about the eternal internal spiritual war that's a universal part of being human". That moment.  "Like a Prayer" is Madonna's very best song (A+) in a discography with astounding number of viable options for that title. So that's probably how the pangs of missing are so acute. Excited for her directorial effort W.E. -- when will we see it? -- but could use more music real soon. It's been so long since "Hard Candy". Just one more record as fab as "Confessions on a Dance Floor", please!? Pleaseandthanks.

P.P.S. We now return you to your normally scheduled film programming.

Links: Tim Hetherington (RIP), Batman Year One, Gaga Saga

Tribeca Film RIP Tim Hetherington. This is so sad.The just Oscar nominated co-director of the fine documentary Restrepo and an amazing war photographer has been killed in Libya. He had just recently released a book of photography called Infidel which had a section called "Sleeping Soldiers" --not your typical war photography.

You can listen to a lengthy talk by him about his work at "Foto 8" The site also has an accompanying gallery to watch while listening.

Movie|Line 3-D reboot of softcore Chinese movie Sex & Zen (I don't know whether or not to admit that I've seen the original. Whoops) breaks records in Hong Kong. American produced 3-D porn is also on the way. Ruh-roh.
Hollywood Reporter Batman Year One, an animated film igoing straight to DVD, casts Eliza Dushku as Catwoman. That works, her being a frisky kitty and all.
TOH Anne Thompson thinks Jennifer Lawrence looks terrible as Mystique in X-Men: First Class. I'd agree. I don't understand why they had to give her that abnormal forehead thing again. Shake up the look a little.

Weird Al explains what happened with Lady Gaga. She's disrupted his album release plans by rejecting his "Born This Way" parody "Perform This Way"
Playbill Been missing the awesome of Jonathan Groff or the bliss of Kristin Chenoweth on Glee? They return very very soon.

Antonio Banderas in The Skin I Live In (2011)

Vulture Margaret Lyons has a very astute article on what's right and wrong with NBC's "Parenthood". (I met one of its stars and I'll tell you about that tomorrow morning.)
Very Small Array has a horrifying chart about the quality slide in box office hits. Thanks to Awards Daily for pointing it out.
In Contention starts a series on the Cannes offering beginning with Almodóvar's The Skin I Live In.
Cinema Blend Jacki Weaver joins the Judd Apatow comedy Five Year Engagement. Go get those post-Oscar roles, Jacki!