Links

Comic Convos an animated summary of Michael Fassbender's role in Prometheus. Hee
Trespass Our friend Glenn reviews The Dark Knight Rises 
Slate's Tanner Colby gives HBO a free drama series pitch, a bridge between the America of Mad Men and the America of The Wire if you will... 
Filmmaker Magazine 25 New Faces of Independent Film 
Cinema Blend 5 Batman villains they wish Chris Nolan had used in his trilogy. But, you know, you can only use so many and Batman does have the best rogues gallery.
Hollywood.com the latest hiccup for The Wolverine. Jessica Biel is not on board after all. So much pre-production trouble with this movie.  Now the role may go to Tinker Tailor's Svetlana Khodchenkova

Today's Video Must See
Here is Annette Bening and Warren Beatty's eldest child Stephen who was born Kathlyn.

He doesn't speak about his parents at all in this video but the internet is saying that this is Stephen Ira Beatty so I believe (everything on the Internet is true, right?). Stephen makes a joke about staring at us uncomfortably to end the video but the only thing uncomfortable about this charming motor mouthed super smart kid staring at me is a) how hideous the walls in this room are and b) freaking out over how much he EXACTLY looks like a cross between his parents. Especially when he smiles. Well, more Beatty than Bening but still...  Right?

Finally, you should know that Park Chan-Wook's first English language film Stoker, featuring a dreamy triangular cast of Mia Wasikowska as a lonely girl, Matthew Goode as her shady Uncle and Nicole Kidman as her unstable mother is no longer the 2012 release we were hoping for. It will open on March 1st, 2013 in limited release. Don't be sad. We still have more Nicole Kidman coming in 2012 with The Paperboy. Next year: Stoker and Oscar Bait The Railway Man.

Halfway 2012. Supporting Actors (Thus Far)

We're surveying the "best" of the year thus far even if the pickings are slim. Previously we covered Actress, Actor and Picture. Now, the gentlemen in the sidelines.

SUPPORTING ACTOR  January through June Releases
Surveying what we've seen so far in this particularly category is challenging. In ensemble pieces from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel to To Rome With Love, there just wasn't a breakout performance that rose so far above the film's limitations that you had to praise it. Mark Ruffalo's funny Hulk and Michael Fassbender's suave killer in The Avengers and Haywire respectively came closest but were better showcases for the commanding charisma of the actors than their actual skills. So if I had to turn in a ballot RIGHT NOW (god forbid) it'd go like so... 

Explanations and Team Experience survey  if you click to continue...

Click to read more ...

Another "Prometheus" Mystery: Will There Be Oscar Play?

Ridley Scott's Alien franchise prequel Prometheus should probably be a film I take great objection to. The first reason I ever loved the series (beyond Lt. Ellen Ripley, queen of all action heroines) was how it doubled as an ever evolving adventurous launch pad for young auteurs. It's got the same premise virtually every time so you sit back and immediately see the director's vision in sharp relief against each previous or subsequent film. Even the lesser entries in the series have this to recommend them and in the 90s, even after Alien Ressurection I wanted them to keep making Alien films so we could see it through the different set of rising auteur eyes each time. I didn't really want Ridley Scott to go back for this reason. I especially didn't want him to go back back. Backstory and prequels -- conceptually, they are like safety nets for the imagination. Don't be afraid of wondering... we'll catch you!

Where is the mystery? Or rather, why don't people want more of it. Why do you they want so many answers?

Thankfully, Prometheus doesn't rob the Alien franchise of all of its mystery and magic. It's not midi-chlorian level obnoxious. And given the screenplay and execution, for better and worse, the new film creates its own mysteries. Some or these are intentional and some surely not, some internal some external. What did David⁸ say to The Engineer in the penultimate scene? Is the MPAA's request that Ridley Scott remove the entire abortion sequence -- not so coincidentally the strongest sequence in the film -- the dumbest thing they've done since Blue Valentine's NC17? Or is it just the thousandth priceless example of how aesthetically stupid they remain and or the millionth piece of case evidence that they should never be allowed anywhere near art!

This week since I know I desperately need to update the Oscar predictions I've been thinking of another Prometheus-specific mystery. Will it have an awards future? [Aliens & Oscars after the jump]

Click to read more ...

and I can't fight this linking anymore... I've forgotten what I started fighting for ♪ ♫

Vulture the best grimaces and grins from Mad Men season 5. Good stuff
Tim Robey interviews the great Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen on his very busy career (Thor 2, Hannibal TV series, A Royal Affair and more...)
Liz Smith on the Friar's Club roast of Tom Cruise (opening quote via Alec Baldwin) 
EW Jeremy Jordan (Broadway's Newsies and Bonnie & Clyde) joins the cast of Smash. They're really shuffling players for Season 2. Which still won't solve the problem of treating Megan Hilty like she's not the Starriest of Stars on the show. (sigh)
Hollywood and Fine "why I love/hate Rock of Ages" point of view from former rock critic. 

Stale Popcorn on Yentl "Barbra I can hear you". I also like this movie, haters begone.
Movies.com Here's the actor who's playing Osama Bin Laden in Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty 
Pop Watch Prometheus deleted scene still. Who is "the engineer" talking with? 
The Mary Sue on the trials and tribulations of superhero costumes
My New Plaid Pants does the only sensible thing and screencaps the red band Magic Mike trailer. Even with all the goodness inherent in such an effort my favorite thing is this comment from a reader named "Paco":

I am starting a petition to have this movie remade every year, with a rotating cast of actors.

Pass that petition right over. Reboot With Depantsing!

Appropos of nothing, it's Sam Hargraves, Chris Evans stunt double!Finally, the Thought Catalog has "The Life of Someone Who Didn't Like The Avengers"  Funny read.

You didn’t hate it, but you wanted to like it more, and you knew that thinking it “wasn’t terrible” wouldn’t be good enough. Like that time that you saw The Dark Knight and pointed out the badly-choreographed fight scenes to your friend who proceeded to have a hissy fit in the theater lobby...

It does get lonely out there if you don't like a universally beloved thing (like me with Forrest Gump/Braveheart. OMG I hate those movies). I never shared this tidbit from my family time away from the blog a few weeks back but my sister didn't like The Avengers at all. Sadly she didn't say why. It's so hard talking movies in depth with my family. They never explain themselves. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I talk out into the void via The Film Experience? 

The Lord of the Links: The Return of the Link

whoa. no link roundups in forever. time to catch up on movie news and/or must see web droppings

Yahoo Movies Fine Thelma Adams piece on Prometheus' "foreign object" sequence. [shudder]
24 Frames Noomi Rapace and Sigourney Weavers' Alien franchise screen tests
IndieWire six life saving tips for cinematographers from the great Darius Khondji (Se7en, Evita, Midnight in Paris, and more...)
Empire Penelope Cruz will star in her fifth Pedro Almodóvar movie Fleeting Lovers (title may change) which starts shooting this summer. Yay! Double Yay! All About My Mother star Cecilia Roth is also in the cast.
YouTube if there's anything I hate about YouTube it's the ability to name your videos "official". But this "Official" Les Miserable trailer starring (gulp) Katie Holmes is kind of a good prank... I mean Nightmare!
In Contention production designer J Michael Riva (Django Unchained, The Color Purple) has passed away at 63.

Awards Daily Singin' in the Rain is getting a 60th anniversary rerelease on July 12th. Just in time for the Gene Kelly Centennial. And yes, if I can manage it here at the Film Experience July and August will house a big Gene Kelly retrospective right here at the Film Experience. He's up there with Montgomery Clift in my favorite (male) movie star charts after all.
Life of Pi the tiger growls memorably for the first time on the official website. Also he looks amazing.
Movie|Line Better three years late than never. Xavier Dolan's award winning debut film (and Canadian Oscar submission in its year) I Killed My Mother is FINALLY getting a US theatrical release. 
Guardian hears that The Avengers might get a three hour version for theatrical rerelease this fall. Considering Joss Whedon's comments on the deleted material (indulgent, killing the rhythm) and his own feelings about different versions of the same story (no) perhaps this is a very bad idea.
Queerty the red band ass abundant Magic Mike trailer.

filmmaking tips
IndieWire six life saving tips for cinematographers from the great Darius Khondji (Se7en, Evita, Midnight in Paris, and more...) 
Movie|Line twenty-two pieces of storytelling advice from a Pixar artist
LA Times offers up awards show tips for the Oscars (hey, that's sorta filmmaking tips) via the Tony Awards though I will continue to hate everyone and especially every writer who suggests very publicly that we don't need to see Costume Designers winning their prizes. A pox on all your craft-hating houses!

casting news we don't have much to say about but we should probably share anyway...

Greer takes over for Buckley in the Carrie remake

• Jean Dujardin is in talks to join Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street
• Amy Ryan and Dane DeHaan may join an upcoming non-documentary take on West Memphis Three currently starring Colin Firth and Allesandro Nivola (my god how many movies will this story inspire by 2020?)
• John Madden's "Exotic Marigold" follow up is a comedy called Murder Mystery and may star Charlize Theron
• Judy Greer (recently interviewed right here) wins the gym teacher role in Carrie, previously played by the great Betty Buckley. I only wish I weren't so dreading the movie.

off cinema
Gawker an alligator eating a croc? 
Sound Cloud she may have lost the Tony but Jayne Houdyshell keeps giving it from Follies. She rerecorded "Broadway Baby" as a solo for a compilation. It's wonderful! 
Cinema Blend an amusing piece about that George Bush head on spike story from Game of Thrones 

Zachary Quinto, Claire Danes, Chris Rock, The Fanning Sisters... and that's just a tiny sample.Finally...

 Have you seen the Paramount Pictures celebration? They gathered 116 stars together -- NOT photoshopped, actually there -- for a Centennial Photo.

The photo is so big you have to scroll to get the whole thing on your computer. You can mouse over it to enlarge see who's in the shot but without doing so I spotted George Clooney, Jamie Lee Curtis, George Takei, Julianne Moore, Meryl, Mark & Marty, Jane Fonda and Eddie Murphy straightaway. Watching the video gives you a closer look at the star networking. Watching stars mingle is the best part of starry events... though they never share enough.

It makes you wonder who knows each other and who doesn't. And who really does or doesn't want to be talking to whom. Did the stars who haven't had a good role in decades bee-line to the directors present (Lynch, Fincher, Scorsese, etcetera) or have they given up but for anniversary shindigs to honor their past glories? All I know for sure is that photo events like this make me happy.