Here's to Angelina Jolie

Additional respect to Angelina Jolie for her brave editorial about her double mastectomy. It's one thing to go public with a difficult health decision. It's quite another to go public when the health decision you make is so directly tangled up with your persona. I don't mean to imply that Angelina Jolie's breasts have made her career but they sure as hell haven't hurt it. She's a global sex symbol and though she doesn't make as many movies as she used to she'll always be a beautiful sexual woman. She mentions in her editorial that she doesn't feel any less womanly. I hope she drives this point home with a really sexy movie some time soon.

I chose the word "additional" as a modifier for respect because "newfound" would have been inappropriate. I've admired her for a long time. Sometimes I am amused at how much philanthropic celebrities become targets of scorn in certain pockets of the media (I mean the shit Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon get!) and with certain sections of the populace but mostly when this happens I feel sad. I think deep down a lot of the anger that philanthropic celebrities stir up in us is shame-based -- this person is better than me! Yes, even if I was drowning in money. I personally love outspoken do-gooder celebrities but I'm also man enough to admit that my own charitable impulses (which I do have on occasion) are meager in comparison. I'm sure I would do charitable things were I suddenly blessed with hundreds of millions but would I use it to build schools and orphanages and so on? I'm doubtful. I'd more likely spend it on friends and family and shrines to great actresses (by which I mean investing in movies starring them which wouldn't get made otherwise).

So here's to Angelina - a seismic screen presence, a very good actress when she applies herself, but mostly a good person. She has demonstrated over and over again that she thinks about the greater good and cares more about the world than herself.

(Her boyfriend is pretty cool, too.)

Yes, No, Maybe So: The Butler

abstew here with another edition of "Yes, No, Maybe So". Tonight's trailer of choice Lee Daniels's latest, The Butler. Oh, and please be gentle–it's my first time...

When last we caught up with the Oscar nominated director, he was dishing up a heapin' helpin of some southern fried, kitschy, camp in The Paperboy. I think people were a little surprised to see that the follow-up to the Oscar-winning Precious involved an Academy Award winning actress peeing on the star of the High School Musical movies. And, well, surprisingly the Academy didn't feel the need to shower that film with any gold of its own. So, just how will the decades-spanning Butler fair? Will it be more Precious (Oscar noms for all!) or more Paperboy (um, the Razzies are next door...) Let's take a look!

YES

• One word: OOOOOooooPPPPPPppppPPPRrrrAAAAaaaAAAAaaAaHHhhh!!! [more]

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All for Link and Link For All

Variety are House of Cards and Hemlock Grove and other new instant watch series the saviors of Netflix? I sure hope so. I shudder to think of a world without Netflix and I've been very surprised at how gleefully people have watched its fall. Wake up cinephiles: there are so few services left that give us this much variety in movies. I mean do you really want to rely on Redbox if you want anything other than the latest blockbuster?
Bold Hype Gallery I'm so sad to hear about this Scorsese Tribute here in NYC after the fact (and so annoyed that it was only up for three days -wth?) but look at these amazing paintings from the just closed installation,
Inside Movies new pics of Jamie Foxx and Dane DeHaan in Spider-Man 5 (which is called The Amazing Spider-Man 2)

Awards Daily Vertigo and Kim Novak are guests of honor at Cannes this May
Advocate Darren Criss sings the gayest cover of "Call Me Maybe"... I bet you thought covers of that song were over?
Hammer and Thump will Spring Breakers continue to change minds about Harmony Korine's shock-friendly filmography? 

Ed Douglas (photo via BadAss Digest)Finally... And Quite a Lot Importantly.
[soapbox] Though I'm loathe to remind my fellow US citizens that we live in a selfish self-sabotaging world where 50% of the country thinks "we're all in this together" equals weakness (or, even more misguidedly,"evil") and thereby punish themselves and others by fighting against universal healthcare, I must. Ed Douglas, who writes for Coming Soon and who has been nothing but sweet to me my whole career (others say the same which proves he's a truly nice guy), was recently diagnosed with leukemia. Like many film journalists he is without healthcare so if you have it your heart or pocketbook to donate, join the fundraising effort. The goal was raised from $10,000 to $50,000 due to the immediate and very heartwarming response from the cinephile community but if you've ever seen a hospital bill you know that that kind of money can be gone in all too quickly (another reason we need to cut out the parasitic middle man known as the insurance industry whose profits are directionally proportional to blocking our access to healthcare... or just jacking up the prices for it if they can't find ways to block it) and just pay for healthcare for everyone. [/End soapbox].

Argo, A Second Viewing.

Amir here. There are two days left until the Oscars, but no doubt as to what name is called when the final envelope is opened at the ceremony. Argo has become a juggernaut, steamrolling through the reason with one industry award after another and is now undoubtedly in the driver's seat. As is par for the annual course, in the past few weeks, Affleck’s film has been subjected to more criticism than it probably deserves. A film that was once a successful crowd-pleaser, a surprising box-office sensation, a well-made, old-fashioned thriller, is now being touted as the best of the year by the Academy most of us hold in high regard, so naturally expectations have dramatically skyrocketed. 

Recently I rewatched it, hoping to reconsider my initial opinion of the film and find the spark it’d been missing the first time around. It’s not that I disliked Argo then. Quite the opposite, I really enjoyed it. For one thing, Argo’s depiction of Tehran in the early 80s is, on the surface, dead-on. I have my bones to pick with the characterization of Iranians in the film – particularly during the Bazaar sequence – but as a native of Tehran, I have to admit I got a kick out of watching the geography, the atmosphere and the language down to every banner and chant play out so accurately. All the more impressive when you stop to consider that it wasn’t filmed in Iran at all. [More...]

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I Think I'm Going to Link It Here

NPR Bradley Cooper speaks. And charms. 
New York Times 'red carpet projects' 478 looks from Oscar's past. Truly random selection but it was fun seeing some of the stunners again
LA Times another day, another prize for Argo. This time it's the USC Scripter prize for screenplay (which goes to the author of the original text and the screenwriter who adapted it). I'm glad there are a few "who will win?" dramas left for Oscar night but, as ever, Best Picture won't be one of them. Argo has become a steamroller.

Gawker Rich Juzwiak slams Rex Reed's unkind words for Melissa McCarthy but makes a righteous demand of Identity Thief's star: "Transcend, McCarthy, transcend."
Atlantic Wire beautiful posters for Oscars Best Pictures via Gallery 1988
Salon The Rethuglicans are already spending big to "make fun of" actress Ashley Judd even though she's not yet (officially) given up showbiz for politic
Guardian talks to Stephen Daldry about his Oscary career and his latest stage piece (directing Helen Mirren as the Queen again)

Coming Soon in the many articles spreading the assumption that Quvenzhané Wallis will soon become little orphan Annie in the second big screen adaptation of that stage musical, none have ever confirmed that she can sing. If you can't belt "Tomorrow" the role can't be yours. Can she?
Carpetbagger with Oscar, there's even competition to make the "In Memoriam" list. No, not by dying. I didn't mean it like that.

and here's the complete Oscar nominated short Adam and Dog by Minkyu Lee

Lovely.