i've been linking i've been linking why cant i keep my blogging off it, baby

They Live By Night amusing Noah anecdote with Robert Bresson and Dino de Laurentiis
AV Club Masters of Sex starts again in July. Wow, that was quick. Pleased I am.  
My New Plaid Pants have you seen this inexplicable trailer to Bad Johnson. Cam Gigandet's career is so weird 
Variety Jon Chu to direct Jem and the Holograms live action modernized version 

The Wire It's Time to Kill "Happy" - how the Oscar nominated and still #1 Pharrell tune overstayed its welcome 
Guardian Charlie Kaufman lining up film stars for his "How and Why" TV pilot: Catherine Keener, Michael Cera, John Hawkes, and now Sally Hawkins 
In Contention thinks these are the 20 best Fox Searchlight movies as they approach a big anniversary. They are a great company
/Film collects all the Mad Men Season 7 promos in one place which is helpful, though still unrevealing. I love that Weiner refuses to budge on spoilers, even in "next week on..." and has since the start. Though I do think this season is going to be L.A. heavy if I were guessing
Cinema Blend why Marvel might start killing off their big heroes at the movies in Phase Three
Towleroad Madonna unveils new skin care line "MDNA Skin" 
i09 names the 12 worst muppets, apparently in hopes they don't have screen time in the new film 
Film School Rejects 6 filmmaking tips from Lars von Trier 

Today's Watch
Louis Virtel uncovers 44 reasons for the earthquake in Los Angeles

My favorites are: 1, 4, 11, 15, 19, 29, 30 and 34

#19. Jonah Hill has as many Oscar nominations as Vivien Leigh."

We Can't Wait #8: Nymphomaniac

In the We Can't Wait series we're looking at our top 14 most exciting film prospects for 2014. Previously we've covered Boyhood, Big Eyes, The Last 5 Years, Gone Girl , Can a Song Save Your Life and Veronica Mars plus movies that just missed the cut. Here's Dave on Lars von Trier's latest which had a successful "surprise" screening (half of it at least) at Sundance this year. -Editor

Nymphomaniac
Agent provocateur Lars Von Trier takes us on an epic journey through the sexual history of Joe, a middle-aged, self-diagnosed nymphomaniac.

Click to read more ...

Yes, No, Maybe So: Nymphomaniac

I have been remiss in my Von Trier worshipping duties. He was once basically vying for Nathaniel's Favorite Working Director since I loved everything he made from 1996 through 2004. But in roughly those same years Almodóvar was peaking and Lars lost the Battle of the Auteurs. In the past nine years I have gone off Lars a little though Melancholia (2011) came thisclose to reginiting the passion. If it had only been tighter! I've tried to rewatch it a few times because I think it's a near masterpiece but the padding and wandering repetitions really undermine its potency and actively make me angry since it could have been one for the all time lists!

Which brings us to Nymphomaniac which is NOT keeping it tight as if to spite me. It's the story of a very loose woman, played by glutton for punishment Charlotte Gainsbourg (3 films with LVT now), and it's reportedly 5 hours long. (One wonders what it is that editors actually do on an LvT picture beyond lining up the scenes and calling it a day.)

So let's do a Yes No Maybe So on the very very very NSFW trailer so don't click on the "click to read more" link if nudity offends you since there will be screen captures... Okay, prudes and whores, let's do this!

Click to read more ...

Thoughts I Had... While Looking at the Nymphomaniac Teaser

A day or two ago I casually linked to the first poster for Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac though this flippant "oh and..." way of dealing with it doesn't do its succinct brilliance justic. So, it gets a whole post.

• Classic Lars pranksterism
• Although... does Lars love or hate Charlotte Gainsbourg's punani? This is difficult to suss out. I mean he obviously hated it in Antichrist (rusty scissors anyone?) but despite this tagline "Forget About Love" this strikes me as a very affectionate nod to Charlotte's private parts
• Best use of the parenthetical since Me and You and Everyone We Know

))<>((
Back and Forth Forever

• Pedro Almodovar probably already has this poster framed... (The Shrinking Lover anyone?)
• I don't see how this would work for a matching penis poster. No, I was not just trying to figure that out on my keyboard. Shut up.
• There's been a lot of talk about "real sex" rather than simulated sex on the set of this movie but we heard that before with Lars von Trier's The Idiots and he actually used body doubles for that so who knows if the starry cast (Shia Labeouf, Willem Dafoe, Connie Nielsen, Jamie Bell, Udo Kier, Stellan Skarsgård, Uma Thurman, etcetera) are being spared the grunt work (get it, "grunt" work? no, never mind) 
• Remember when Charlotte Gainsbourg was married to Heath Ledger in I'm Not There and how great she was in their scenes together? She's so undervalued as an actress but at least Lars gets her.
• In real life Charlotte is married to Yvan Attal who once made a picture co-starring Charlotte in which they played "Yvan" and "Charlotte" called My Wife is an Actress. The plot involved him worrying about her being unfaithful on set. I demand a sequel that takes place during the shoot of Nymphomaniac.

Thoughts I Had... While Staring at the First Image From "Nymphomaniac"

Behold the first still released from Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac which will star Charlotte Gainsbourg (in her third collaboration with the director following Antichrist & Melancholia). These are the thoughts I had in actual chronological order...

• That's a really odd choice for a first still. It's a tremendously vague tease but better this than those movies which release "first looks!" that might as well be headshots of the actors, they're so generic.
• Remember when Laura Dern got high from inhaling glue in paper bags in Citizen Ruth? 
• If that were Michelle Pfeiffer and this were 1992, a bunch of cats could run into frame and resurrect this poor soul.

• Who is this poor soul? 
• This doesn't look as fun as the movie's title. Bleak it looks.
• If this movie is as good as The Idiots (1998), my vote for the single most underappreciated von Trier marvel, I will want to have sex with it.
• Did you see Smashed? That scene where Mary Elisabeth Winstead accidentally smoked crack during a Lost Weekend really threw me.

• Will this movie have a mix of pathos and humor like many of von Trier's films or will it be an across the board icky provocation like Manderlay or Antichrist.
• Oh, I actually just looked up the plot synopsis on IMDb which suggestes that this is an image of Charlotte from perhaps the opening scene of the movie:  

A self-diagnosed nymphomaniac recounts her erotic experiences to the man who saved her after a beating.

• Interesting cast I think: Returning von Trier alum Charlotte herself plus Jens Albinus, Udo Kier, Jesper Christensen, Stellan Skarsgård and Charlotte's Antichrist hubbie Willem Dafoe; Scandinavian von Trier Virgins: Shanti Roney (who was marvelous in a sexually charged uncomfortable scene in Applause) and international actress Connie Nielsen who turns it out when a director challenges her (i.e.  infrequently but enough to make you long for the next time); People we most hope have sex very naked and super often in the movie even if its uncomfortably von Trierian sex: Jamie Bell & Uma Thurman; Stunt Casting: Christian Slater (as Charlotte's father?!) and Shia Labeouf who one assumes wanted to get naked and artsy again. 

p.s. here's a second official image, less vague, less safe for work.