Thursday, October 31, 2013 at 12:00PM I was all about to complete "Our Coven" -- our series of holiday witch posts -- in the traditional way when I realized that this requested review of The Witches that I'd written years ago had been lost from the internet! So we must repost with a couple minor updates. I hope you'll enjoy this look back at a key film from 1990.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Celebrate with The Witches
Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 8:00PM Behold the new poster for Alexander Payne's Oscar Bait, 2013 Edition. Thoughts I had... brought to you uncensored as they came to me while staring at it.
• This is why I shave my head.
• Gee, do you think this movie is in black and white? Black and White In Your Face
• Alexander Payne's ERASERHEAD
• DERNHEAD
• So proud of them for not caving to pressure to campaign Bruce Dern as supporting. Now let's hope they also admit that Will Forte is a lead as well (Fact: Road trip movies about two people travelling together have two leads. See also Thelma & Louise, Two for The Road, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Y Tu Mama Tambien, etcetera)
• Recently I forced The Boyfriend to watch Alfred Hitchcock's last film Family Plot (1976) and halfway through (he's clearly hating it) whilst Dern is making a confused face onscreen he says "why is everyone in this movie so ugly?"
• The Descendants was Alexander Payne's worst movie (still puzzled by the avalanche of praise if not the Oscar nominations). Can he redeem himself and make another Sideways?
• When the Best Actor Nominees are announced, if Dern is among them, I promise to mock up all their movie posters like this just for comparisons sake: PROFILE vs. PROFILE!!!
• How many people do you think type in urls when they see websites listed at the bottom of movie posters or at the end of trailers? NebraskaMovie.com
Your Thoughts?
P.S. Oh and the movie's new trailer
Friday, August 16, 2013 at 5:01PM In October just in time for Hunger Games: Catching Fire, CoverGirl is launching a new makeup line.
This reminds me of that 'what are they thinking?' time when Hilary Swank was trying to sell a fragrance or as i09 memorably puts it...
Want to feel like you're part of a decadent crumbling society that oppresses the working classes and forces children to kill each other for your amusement?
Hee.
But, bizarre morals aside (and, really, when have the fashion or beauty industry been interested in morality?) this got me to thinking about other films which really deserve their own cosmetic lines. I hereby submit to you three ideas.
Friday, July 19, 2013 at 9:42AM actressssssssss
Buzzfeed Nine magical photos of Nicole Kidman's hair in the Eighties
/Film Kristen Wiig's new comedy film Welcome to Me gets a slew of new cast members including just-Emmy nominated Linda Cardellini (from Mad Men & Freaks and Geeks)
Jacket Copy Reese Witherspoon will play the leadiest of leads in Wild, (in that she'll be onscreen every second without much in the way of co-stars) based on the best seller about a woman hiking 1000 miles alone after her mother's death
Guardian on the climactic row between Julie Delpy & Ethan Hawke in Before Midnight and acceptance vs. resignation in relationships
i09 check out Hailee Steinfeld's geeky nail art for Comic Con
tv mania
Vulture Matt Zoller Seitz on the pleasures and brilliance of "Suits" and why critics ignore it
Pajiba on the 25 best series which were never nominated for best comedy or best drama series in their runs. (Honestly I still look it up every time I hear that Roseanne was never nominated for Best Comedy. It seems so patently absurd that I resist the fact every time and scurry off to fact-check. But a fact it is.)
Slate *TODAY'S MUST READ* an excellent piece, arguing as I like to and have right here, that it's stupid to argue that "tv is better than cinema these days" for a variety of reasons but mostly for the dishonesty of this ubiquitous context-free argument.
it's Comic Con time so it's all genre all the time
Timothy Brayton reviews Pacific Rim. Kaiju dig it?
i09 on the first ten minutes of Terry Gilliams Zero Theorem which they memorably describe as "Blade Runner meets Sesame Street"
Superhero Hype huge gallery of cosplay photos from Comic Con - my favorites are these gender-flipped X-Men boys, The Princess Bride couple and this tiny Hulk
The Playlist shares the very inspired teaser poster for Gareth Edwards reboot of Godzilla
MNPP which is hotter: Lee Pace blonde or blonder?
Towleroad Jamie Foxx "Electro" teaser for The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Shit, guys, I was kidding about the looking like Mr Freeze part but now that I see more of him it's even moreso!
Coming Soon Character posters from X-Men Days of Future Past including Bishop (Omar Sy)
Cinema Blend the Sentinels design from X-Men Days of Future Past which will merge the superhero genre with the giant fucking robots genre at long last*
*that was facetious even though i'm a huge fan of that arc in the X-Men comics.
Monday, June 24, 2013 at 10:47PM This is a question I've never been able to fully answer but one that I've asked myself (and probably you) on occasion. Since "Best" quite often means "Most" when it comes to awardage of any kind, what does the Oscar's makeup branch have against the undead? This question came to mind again while watching Warm Bodies, a minor hit earlier this year which is now on DVD.
Please consider this post an early FYC
After the movie I found myself watching the extras and especially enjoyed "Extreme Zombie Makeover" which charts the evolution of the makeup design by Adrien Morot (who was Oscar nominated recently for Barney's Wedding). It's easy to make Nicholas Hoult look beautiful but how do you make him look sexy AND undead? It's a silly question but the answer is crucial to the success of this particular horror/romance hybrid. Adrien had to make sure he looked like the same species as the other zombies but also sexier. Where do you place the scars? How do you keep the veins in the same exact spot every day? How do you keep your leading man's mouth looking unhealthy without making him unkissable?
The answer to the latter question involves "zombie juice" --black food coloring with mouthwash! After the juice, the makeup artist would then fuss over Hoults mouth with a q-tip to clean his teeth so you'd still wanna makeout with him despite him being, you know, a rotten corpse.
The inside of the lip being black is still considered to be sexy somehow but having green teeth that doesn't work!
Hoult preferred his zombie juice strawberry or vanilla flavored. The more you know... ⌒★
P.S. Since zombie movies are still all the rage I loved this little aside from the director when watching the big makeup team transform 100 or so extras at once.
You know it's funny because extras -- when they're playing humans, sometimes extras can overract a little bit. But when they're dressed as zombies and in zombie makeup, they're all like Meryl Streep. They're all just really in character and amazing.
