Top Ten: The Best of Kristin Scott Thomas

DON'T LEAVE! Don't check out of the movies now. 

I'd like to speak to your manager."
-Kristin Scott Thomas as "Crystal" in Only God Forgives

As you may have heard the great Kristin Scott Thomas, who first broke through as Hugh Grant's deliciously tart unfortunately platonic friend in 4 Weddings and Funeral and was Oscar nominated way back when for her ice hot sand- blasted eroticism in The English Patient and who has elevated countless films since has rather casually tossed off a 'good riddance' to cinema. 

I just suddenly thought, I cannot cope with another film. I realised I've done the things I know how to do so many times in different languages... I can't do it any more. I'm bored by it. So I'm stopping

Oh come on Kristin, Only God Forgives wasn't that bad. [More...]

Click to read more ...

20:13 for 2013 screen capping fun!

Six long years ago I ran a popular series called 20:07 where I shared freeze frames for various films at the 20th minute and 7th second of the film. T'was super fun and popular and every once in a while we bring it back.  So here we are at the tail end of 2013! These are screencaps from the 20th minute and 13th second (or thereabouts - streaming titles do not always promote accuracy of screencapping) from films released this year that are already available for home viewing*

Which of these seven movies did you see? Do they bring back fond memories? 

Feels as if the world is perfect. Like it's never going to end..."

Spring Breakers. James Franco's Alien enters seconds later. It is going to end.

Click to read more ...

Links with an Invisible Glass of Moët

Inside Movies Andrew Lincoln looks back at "to me you are perfect" from Love Actually
MNPP wants to watch Only God Forgives again. Are you also experiencing these deviant feelings?
Ultra Culture anatomy of most Blue is the Warmest Color "reviews" 

In Contention wonders if Will Forte can win Best Supporting Actor traction for Nebraska - well the category is amorphous still...
BuzzFeed saw fit to rank every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Such a mammoth project so even if you quibble with the ranking -- and boy do I (love "Beer Bad") --you have to respect 
Gawker weeping through The Best Man Holiday 
Pajiba how to prepare yourself for the release of Nicolas Cage's nude photos 

And while I was in Los Angeles earlier this week the Moët British Independent Film Award nominations were announced. I love little weird awards groups like this (the corporate titling not so much) because you can't tie them to "ooh, they're trying to influence the Oscars" which is just about the most boring thing you can possibly do if you're a group thinking of handing out awards. No matter what your group is, if it has no character, personality or purpose outside of predicting another groups awards, QUIT - the world doesn't need you! But anyway... here's a complete list of nominations in case you missed them as I did. They were big fans of the bleak with the violent Starred Up and Clio Barnard's festival gem The Selfish Giant leading the nominations. They also approved of Metro Manila which is the UK's Oscar submission. But they also found room for more mainstream senior Brit efforts like Philomena with Judi Dench and Le Week-End starring Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan.

What a World: Ralph Fiennes & Kristin Scott Thomas are co-stars again. But this time he's sleeping with her screen daughter. Here's why I spit out my Moët, though. They ignored 12 Years a Slave in "International Film" and had a reaction to Ralph Fiennes' The Invisible Woman that I find not only puzzling but deeply lazy. They nominated it only for Best Actress (Felicity Jones, whose appeal still escapes me like crazy) and Best Supporting Actress (Kristin Scott Thomas). Now y'all know I am an über fan of KST but if you're handing out acting prizes to that movie and you DON'T start with Joanna Scanlan, who plays the unloved wife of Charles Dickens, you're on autopilot with stars in your eyes. To which you might counter if you haven't yet seen the film "But KST is a great actress!!!" Well, yes, dear reader and BIFA voters, she is... but Joanna is this movie's MVP. And by a significant margin, too. 

Of course the movie is marginalizing Scanlan, too. She doesn't appear or barely appears in the ads and none of the film's promotional stills include her; P&A has never been a meritocracy.

Linking Spirit

Nostalgia Critic wonders if the film parody is dead. From Young Frankenstein to the Scary Movie movies it is a free fall plummet rather than a steady decline. Lots of clips to illustrate.
Cinema Blend The Muppet Movie is coming to BluRay for the first time
Marvel Thor The Dark World's official site is up 
Fast Design movie posters that reduce your favorite films to geometric shapes - some of these are awesome. Others I dont quite get.
"Fighting Spirits" check out this 5 minute animated short, a semifinalist for the 2012 Student Oscar, about rival ballerinas

Slate great magazine articles that inspired movies from Bling Ring to Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Coming Soon The Weinstein Co's buying spree continues unabated: Jane Got a Gun, Carol, Passengers, Suite Francaise, and The Young and Prodigious Spivet 

Off Cinema
Salon how "You are My Sunshine" became a children's classic 
i09 Joss Whedon's commencement address at Wesleyan "you are all going to die" 
Advocate an interview with Katee Sackhoff. I love her but unfortunately never see her in anything because of the very limited types of shows she appears on.
Slate engaging piece on how technology hindered Arrested Development's popularity in its first three seasons, a show ahead of its time

More Cannes?
Awards Daily two clips from the Cannes champ Blue is the Warmest Color
Ultra Culture excellent piece on the issue of "real sex" in filmmaking and how fake it all still is
Film Comment interesting discussion of the competition films at Cannes from several critics. I love the harsh discussion of Only God Forgives  or at least the parts of it I read (too many spoilers) and the notion that Ryan Gosling should never speak to Refn again. This makes me want to see the movie even more!

TM: It’s very fetishistic about all those aspects—the martial arts aspects, the Asian aspects, the notion of framing. It’s just a big wank frankly. And looking at it from a career point of view, he can get all the big actors he wants at this point because he’s famous and has this free rein. I think he needs to be careful about doing films like this. He needs to be smarter about his career and his script writing. 

JR: It does seem now that there’s a group of filmmakers, and Gaspar Noé is one of them, who are sort of writing fan letters to each other. Noé making films for Refn, etc. This little group of the “wild boys.”

Hee!

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Only God Forgives"

Only God Forgives reunites violence-loving director Nicolas Winding Refn with his Drive star Ryan Gosling for the story of a man (Gosling) whose cold-hearted mama (Thomas) urges him to seek vengeance against the man (Vithaya Pansringarm) who killed his brother. The trailer came out a few days ago (many days ago?) but I couldn't bring myself to type about it before now because my finger was too busy hitting "replay". The film opens in July and the wait might be excruciating.

Kristin Scott Thomas. Cinematography by Larry Smith 

The trailer came out a few days ago (many days ago?) but I couldn't bring myself to type about it before now because my finger was too busy hitting "replay". We'll break it down with our Yes No Maybe So™ system after the jump and I promise to say something about it other than "OMGKristinScottThomas OMGKristinScottThomas OMGKristinScottThomas" though I can't promise I won't also say that a few times.

Click to read more ...