Link, Don't Kill My Vibe

AVClub Ingmar Bergman's Persona (1966) finally comes to Criterion
/Film who is Holly Hunter playing in Batman vs. Superman. Speculation continues
Empire Wither Cate Blanchett post Blue Jasmine. After Carol it looks like The Dig is it, an archeological period piece true story based on the novel by John Preston. Directed by Oscar-winning Susanne Bier (Brothers). Yay!
THR nasty legal battle between an actress who felt coerced into nudity and Cinemax. Wasn't she aware of their nickname "Skinemax"?

Film School Rejects on Drew Goddard and Sinister Six (which groups all of Spider-Man's greatest villains together). FSR are predicting the inevitable collapse of the superhero genre and it certainly does seem like oversaturation is arriving by 2016 or 2017 at the latest with no less three studios fast-tracking multi-film super universes to attempt to compete with Disney/Marvel's gazillion dollar franchise
The Guardian Tina Fey and Amy Poehler reuniting on the bigscreen for The Nest. My best friend still quotes Amy's line from Baby Mama all the time "You don't know my life!"
Variety talks to Roman Polanski about Venus in Fur, his actress wife, and why he won't be retiring 
Playbill Shirley Maclaine joining Glee. Too bad I haven't watched in years but I'm not about to return now. Sorry Shirl, love you!

'Run Away!'
Both of my former arch-enemies have new films on the way 
Empire Daniel Craig suddenly drops out of Renée Zellweger's possible comeback vehicle The Whole Truth, which was supposed to start filming right now. The Zeéeeee is still having trouble getting back out there.
In Contention Hilary Swank has not one but two Oscar plays for 2014: You're Not You (in which she plays a woman suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease) and The Homesman in which she transports crazy women across the States in the western helmed by Tommy Lee Jones. I'd bet on the latter (if not for Swank since the showy roles are probably the crazies) and if You're Not You is any good I'll steel myself for absurd category fraud since it sounds like Emmy Rossum is definitely her co-lead.

Today's Watch
Miss Anne Hathaway returns to us in all her singing starry glory, comically revamping hiphop songs lounge lizard style...

Distant Relatives: Persona and Mulholland Drive

Robert here with the first entry in Season 2 of Distant Relatives, the series that explores the connections between one classic and one contemporary film. This week we feature a request by Nathaniel himself. Feel free to make your own requests in the comments.

Two movies about two women

When Mulholland Drive was released to perplexed but ecstatic reviews in 2001, and then again when it was being declared the best film of the decade in many places nine years later, there were few mentions of a film that seems to be an obvious influence: Ingmar Bergman's Persona. Perhaps that's because the actual influence is as indefinable as the two films themselves. The Wikipedia entry on Persona shares a few non-specific sentences about its influence on Mulholland Drive paired with a note demanding a source for this information. So how do we know these films are related? Well they certainly seem like they should be. Both are about two women living together under unusual circumstances, one sick, the other a caregiver. In both cases, at least one of the women is an actress. Both films show a general degredation of these women's relationships. So why weren't more people blathering about the obvious intersection of these two movies? My guess is because both Persona and Mulholland Drive only really inspire one question: What on earth is going on? Interpreting, explaining, "decoding" if you will, these films is the understandable immediate concern of anyone whose just been exposed to these two terrific cinematic puzzles. Yet that does them a sort-of disservice. These films are more than puzzles. You could spend a lifetime trying to figure out what they're all about and completely miss what they're all about. That said, we won't spend much more energy here trying to find answers about these films. We haven't the time, the space, or the likelihood of agreement enough to keep it from being anything but a distraction.

Bergman's Persona begins with actress Elizabeth Vogler (Liv Ullmann) experiencing a sudden fit of despair and going voluntarily mute. In the hospital, she's paired with nurse Alma (Bibi Andersson) and the two are sent off to a seaside cottage where they develop an ambiguously intimate relationship and the silent, passive judgement of Elizabeth begins to turn Alma into an aggressor. Eventually the film begins to flip on it's head, revealing its own artificiality, and it becomes impossible to know who is who, and what role they're playing. Mulholland Drive opens with aspiring actress Betty's discovery of accident victim amnesiac Rita hiding out in her apartment. Soon, between line readings and Betty's audtions, the two lady sleuths are investigating Rita's life and identity and eventually becoming lovers (or have they always been?). Eventually the film begins to flip on it's head, revealing it's own artificiality, and it becomes impossible to know who is who, and what role they're playing.

Unusual universal themes

Death. Sex. Love. Ambition. Lynch and Bergman love all the standard universal themes. But they add two more strange, dark and upleaseant universal themes to the list.... Click for full post.

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