Top Ten: Actress Centerfolds

Given the recent cancellation of The Playboy Club which we mourned mainly because Laura Benanti deserves to be famous.... Given James Franco's Flaunting and pants-dropping... Given the waves the oft-naked Shame has been causing at festivals ... Given disgraced actress Lindsay Lohan's newly announced decision to pose for "Playboy" for a million bucks (only a million? I hope she realizes she used to make more than that for acting) today feels like the unofficial Mandatory Day of Nude Celebrity Appreciation. [Disclaimer: I type this fully clothed.]

So let's celebrate the movie actresses who have gone before Lindsay!

Oh sure, sure. The common wisdom is that this is La Lohan's new rock bottom and we shouldn't be celebrating but -- please -- actresses take off their clothes all the time for totally worthwhile purposes (Acting!) and the only thing that's shameful about the human body is that we're ashamed of it. Plus, it's worth noting that actresses have won Oscars AFTER doing this so this isn't rock bottom so much as a lame opportunity to have just said "Lindsay Lohan" and "Oscars" in the same sentence!

If anything this might be her first smart move in years. But only time and Lindsay herself will be able to confirm that.

TOP TEN PLAYBOY ACTRESS PICTORIALS

#10 MARILYN MONROE 1953
#09 SANDRA BERNHARD 1992
I thought I'd kick off with this perverse double bill, and I have a reason. Marilyn Monroe was on the first cover of Playboy in 1953 the year of her definitive ascent (Niagara, How To Marry A Millionaire) but she didn't actually pose for the magazine. The famous nude was shot years prior to her stardom, in 1949 to be exact. Sandra, one of Hollywood's most consistent provocateurs, posed purposefully for reasons of her own 40 years later. We won't deign to speak for her as to why but it did carry a certain exegetic charge as an imagined passive/aggressive (aggressive/aggresive?) response to ex-friend Madonna's "Sex" book which also debuted that year. All of which is to say these are the two poles between which the general truth of nude photospreads lies: first what Playboy imagined itself to be with women as commodity specifically for male pleasure (again, Marilyn wasn't actually involved) and second what Playboy pictorials often become with women as entrepeneurs of their own career/bodies and the pleasure of men of secondary, tertiary, or even no concern at all.

Not to get all fancy about T&A. 

NSFW Beauties after the jump: Julie, Charlize, Drew, Kim and more...

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James Franco Cracks Me Up

Just when you think you've seen it all when it comes to James Franco's uncanny ability to keep himself embedded in the popular conversation, even when he doesn't have a movie out (an increasing rarity given the speed at which he throws himself at cameras or behind them), the old dog comes up with a new trick.

In the profile inside he says

I don't want to be confined."

We didn't realize he meant it quite so literally... the other alternate Flaunt cover [NSFW] after the jump.

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'hey, girl. I got you these links.'

Film Critic Why We Need More Female Directors
Feminist Ryan Gosling 'Hey girl. Anne Fausto-Sterling has a theory that five categorical sexes would help break constrictive gender noms, but the only sex I need is you.' LOL! Best new novelty tumbler alert.
WQXR "Movies on the Radio" is streaming a long tribute to the music of Pixar to honor Steve Jobs in passing. Have a listen. 

The Front Row interesting piece on sex in the movies (by way of the two Fassy pictures) though I disagree with quite a lot of it. I personally don't think there's enough nudity/sex in the movies, given it's place in the general fabric of life nor do I think Shame is particularly coy about bodies.
Ultra Culture has quite a different view on Shame but loves it.
The WOW Report Cher being her awesome self, cheering Chaz on.  
Liz Smith reminds us why Tom Cruise is still a star, despite it all. With references to other legendary actors and actresses.
Empire this will only mean something to you if you loved the über indie Primer (which put so many big budget sci-fi movies to shame) many years ago. Its debut director Shane Carruth is finally working on another movie. 

The Critical Condition on Take Shelter. I haven't written about this movie and I guess maybe I won't, but I am quite in agreement with what Mark says right here.
Movie|Line no Liberace for your future Oscar predictions; the Steven Soderbergh biopic is going to HBO.
Serious Film doesn't think Oscar voters should forget these performances from earlier in the year and I must say they're interesting choices.
fourfour distills Downton Abbey for ya with giggles and sighs.

Today's Must Read Miranda July shoplifts for The New Yorker in "Free Everything". I heart. The New Yorker is the best magazine. The writing is always so good that it doesn't even matter what the topic is. I recent finished a multi-page essay on Taylor Swift and it felt like a thrilling page turner and I could not care less about Taylor Swift. 

Links: 2011 Lists, Avatar Rides, W.E. Edits, Drive Colors,

The Wrap have you heard this big news? Florida is getting an Avatar theme park. Florida is just overrun with theme parks, yes? How can they work in the hair sex thing? 
Movie|Line Madonna's W.E. will be reedited following festival savaging.
In Contention Now officially moved to the HitFix family. Check it out.
Movie|Line the movie Brad Pitt wants to be remembered for is... ??? Really? A personal pick I see.
Fuck Yeah Dementia I loled at this reworked moment from The Shining. [via]
Ultra Culture on Crazy, Stupid, Love. It's okay to want to f*** Ryan Gosling. Society says so! 

My New Plaid Pants discovers the Evil Gay (Rob James Collier) in the Emmy winning Dowton Abbey. And loves him.
Han Cinema we've been wondering if we'd see any foreign animated films in Oscar's weak animated eligible pool this year? Wonder if this could be one King of Pigs from South Korea. 
The AV Club and PopWatch both wonder if it isn't time that we all let go of Star Wars. As someone who grew up with them, seeing them in first release, I understand this issue too well.
Low Resolution, taking Nick's Flick Picks cue, is making a best of the first 50 he saw this year. Interesting and fine choices for acting honors including my Higher Ground gals (see previous interview) 
Some Came Running on Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method and the notion of what's cinematic. Interesting read for sure though I quit halfway through as it'll be better once i've seen the movie in question. My online reading is increasingly developing this pattern so my link lists are becoming cataloguing lists given that bloggers tend to write about movies so far in advance of your ability to actually see them.

Finally... since we're obsessed with Drive this week

Her breasts aren't real! Just sayin'.

Scanners I was just about to post this very framegrab from the Drive trailer. I hadn't noticed it until I accidently freeze-framed at this moment the other day and saw all the blurry breasts. LOL. It's a very breasty setpiece in the movie (and one of my favorite scenes; the strippers collective zombie like performances are perfection) But here it kicks off a host of observations about the color palette of Drive: teals, pinks, oranges and its orgasmic but nonsexual relationship with red.

April Showers: How Stella Get Her Groove Back

waterworks weekdays at 11

Travel back in time to that unfortunately brief time period when Angela Bassett was headlining movies. After the Oscar nomination for rocking that Tina Turner biopic and lending unforgettable fire (literally) to Waiting to Exhale she got her own picture to headline: How Stella Got Her Groove Back. The movie wasn't great but didn't it have one of the best titles of any book/movie/whatsit ever? The correct answer is yes.

To Shower or Not To Shower. That is the Question

How did Stella get her groove back, exactly?

Lots and lots of sex with Taye Diggs that's how! If that's how one does it, than singer/actress/wickedwitch Idina Menzel is possibly the grooviest chick on earth.

To shower or not to shower? They've just fought... again. These two are always arguing. But since getting her groove back in Jamaica, and returning to San Francisco with her studly groove-inducer in tow, she just can't resist his shameless display. Continued after the jump (mild nudity)

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