Dinner with... Joel & Clementine & Link Roundups

November 19th, 2003. Dinner at Kang's again. Are we like those poor couples you feel sorry for in restaurants. Are we the dining dead?"

How did i forget this shot of Joel playing with his food. Food product smiley faces forever

I will definitely be 'the dining dead' tonight... slowly chewing on my food from the same restaurant I always order from. I can already feel the numbness kicking in. Long day. Best to send you off running to other blogs. 

Eat Links Instead
New Now Next is hosting a funny daily March Madness tournament for the "Gayest Cartoon Character of All Time" - I voted already but some of these face/offs are striking, silly, and super. I had to use a lot of "s" so pronounced tha sentence with a sibilant s please. 
YouTube the new Maleficent trailer - same as the one we covered extensively but for more of Elle Fanning and a backstory about Maleficent's wings (!) I am even more intrigued now but I wish movies would save surprises for the theater 
Gawker Landmark theaters invites you to bring your child to see Nymphomaniac Pt. 1. LOL (Hey, it'd be healthier for them than those slasher movies I always see parents dragging their kids into)

Buzzfeed not so insane fan theory about the interconnectivity of Disney kingdoms in Frozen, The Little Mermaidand Tangled. This is trippier than anything Chris Nolan ever dreamed up
The Playlist in addition to just being a mediocre actor Aaron Johnson is also a fussy one and didn't want to have white hair as Quicksilver thus further ruining the character for me in Avengers: Age of Ultron 
The Wrap Tilda Swinton and Barkhad Abdi join Bill Hader and Brie Larson in Judd Apatow's comedy Trainwreck  

Eternal Linkshine
If you aren't yet sick of the 10th anniversary party after all those Best Shots here...
Huffington Post talks to Kate Winset about her memories of the film
Cine Munch for those of you who have more creative energy for a dinner tonight or tomorrow this new blog offers menus and recipes to go along with great movies like this one . Complete with a drink: The Blue Ruin Mind Eraser with my favorite: Curaçao
People Mag 20 elusive facts about the movie - I didn't know a lot of these

Linksy

IndieWire the winners at SXSW Fort Tilden (narrative) and The Great Invisible (doc). You may recall that Short Term 12 was the big discovery last year so let's hope Fort Tilden hits theaters soon. But mostly I'm leading with this because the still released has kittens in it. Kittens!

But mostly I led with that because the first still released has kittens in it. Three. Kittens. Kittens, I say.

KITTENS

Ahem. Some links...
LA Review of Books Charles Taylor on Meryl Streep's recent string of gorgon roles and particularly August: Osage County. Really interesting article but Streep fanatics should steer clear since it is merciless. (Slightly confused about what this essay is doing at a 'Review of Books' since none are mentioned.) 
Golden Globe I hadn't seen this before - celebrities fav movies. Turns out Robin Wright loves Werner Herzog, Carey Mulligan loves Steven Spielberg, Emile Hirsch has very Oscar-bait taste, and Julia Roberts loves The Mexican most of her own ???
MNPP [NSFW] Jake Gyllenhaal on the set of Everest
The Playlist on Steven Soderbergh's King of the Hill Criterion release and his dissatisfaction with his post Sex, Lies and Videotape pre Out of Sight period 

Towleroad "Hodor" (Kristian Nairn) on Game of Thrones comes out in an interview 
Movie City News on "popcorn time" and piracy
The Wrap supposedly four actors fighting for the Doctor Doom role in The Fantastic Four: Eddie Redmayne, Sam Riley, Domnhall Gleeson, and Toby Kebbell. I'd say that wasn't a great get considering the face will be covered with a metal mask... but then origin stories, you know, they'll have some time before the face plate.
Variety uh-oh chest thumping Celine Dion could be back at the Oscars again in an Original Song performance. She gets a duet with Miss Piggy "Something So Right" in the new Muppets film 

Finally...
I don't normally post any fundraiser things beyond the site's own need for funding, detailed here. For instance, I had to make a ruling on no campaigns for indie movies simply because I get so many requests every week it'd be a part time job just putting up those posts with no added value for you the reader. But for movie theaters I'll make an exception. Brooklyn is home to so many cinephiles it'd be a pity if they lost another old theater. So if you want to help save the Brooklyn Heights Cinema -- which needs to update its equipment or be shut down -- here's the info!

American Hustle... 'you know, for kids!'

Text from a friend:

Too bad about their period piece aversion because New Jersey's political history, Abscam, and combover jokes are otherwise such big draws with the kids!

Box Office, Best Men, and Bootlegs

Between "Frozen" and "The Best Man Holiday" it's going to be a good year at the Diggs/Menzel householdI live in Harlem where bootleg copies of Tyler Perry movies are priced $2 higher than all other bootlegs. I only tell you this because I was hoping to have some choice 'overheard' tidbit about The Best Man Holiday to share with you, picked up on my street or elevator or some such since I knew it would open big. You can sometimes somehow hear future box office receipts, in the stale air of movie theaters when certain trailers play. But the only movie conversations I've heard on my street lately were about superhero movies (pick a movie, any movie) and, in my lobby, 12 Years a Slave... where three elderly women were complaining about how expensive the tickets were. "When did they raise the price?" I'd say those ladies don't get out to movies much but then I myself am often surprised at the ticket counter. I'm not sure what the algorithym is or the triggers to raise them but it's been happening so often lately I'm beginning to think the trigger is each new Matthew McConaughey movie. He's in another one? alright alright Raise it again, people!

BOX OFFICE BAKER'S DOZEN
01 THOR: THE DARK WORLD $38.4 (cum. $146.9) Review
02 THE BEST MAN HOLIDAY $30.5 *new* 
03 LAST VEGAS $8.8  (cum. $46.9)
04 FREE BIRDS $8.3 (cum. $42.2)
05 JACKASS PRESENTS: BAD GRANDPA $7.6 (cum. $90.2)
06 GRAVITY $6.2 (cum. $240.5) All Posts 
07 ENDER'S GAME $6.2 (cum. $53.7) Posts
08 12 YEARS A SLAVE $4.7 (cum. $24.9) Discussions
09 CAPTAIN PHILLIPS $4.5 (cum. $97.6) Podcast
10 ABOUT TIME $3.4 (cum. $11.5) Review
11 CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE... 2 $1.9 (cum. $113)
12 DALLAS BUYERS CLUB $1.7 (cum. $3.0) Posts
13 ALL IS LOST $0.9 (cum. $4.2) Review & Podcast

The Best Man Holiday came a lot closer to shearing Thor than I expect most expected. And with a budget exactly 10% of Thor's ($17 million vs. $170 million) it's got to be feeling pretty great about itself right now. In limited release, Nebraska opened at 4 theaters on the coasts. The Oscar-baiter won the highest per screen average (for context a better original per screen average than All is Lost or Dallas Buyers Club in their tiny opening weekends but not as good as 12 Years a Slave) but we'll know more about its box office prospects in the next couple of weekends. The last three Alexander Payne movies, buoyed by the chattering Oscar classes, have averaged $72 million in theaters. But can a black and white movie without a Jack Nicholson or a George Clooney at the helm do that well? Time will tell. 

What did you see this weekend? 

Paging Lacuna, Inc. - Naomi Watts' 2013 is One She'd Rather Forget!

One of my favourite movie-going memories of 2013 was seeing the trailer for Adore play before a bemused sold out opening weekend audience at Blue Jasmine. Amongst the scattered laughs was one lady a row or two behind me who uttered to her companion, “What is Naomi Watts doing?” She, and the rest of us, are sadly still waiting for an answer. On the heels of that Oscar nomination for The Impossible, Watts has since appeared in two films that have literally been laughed off of cinema screens.

[Adore and Diana giggles after the jump...]

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