Curio: Screenwriter Love

Alexa here. Josh Abraham is a man of many hats: writer, producer, cartoonist. At his etsy shop he sells some of his artwork that has a film spin; I particularly like his Manic Pixie Dream Girl print, which is updated to include Samantha from Her. In a series of prints he's titled "Screenplay Heroes," Josh has turned his had to sketching some famous writers like Woody Allen and the Coen brothers (in the running for Oscar noms again this year) onto pages of their screenplays. His vaguely Hirschfeld-esque portraits really lend themselves to the black and white pages.

I love the idea of displaying your favorites as a collection. Here are seven fine examples of his work from Nora Ephron to John August...

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The very brief history of slavery in cinema

Tim here. Barring the unexpected end of civilization between now and January, 12 Years a Slave is going to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, and has the clearest shot of anything right now to taking the win altogether. Everyone reading this site knows that as sure as we know anything, which makes it a little shocking when you step back a bit and realise that, as of the day I write this, the film still hasn’t technically been released yet. So I guess we can add “general audiences thinking it sucks” to the list of reasons that it might crash and burn, though I think the end of humanity is at least as likely.

This will be the second time in two Oscar cycles that a film about slavery in the United States will be competing for the big prize. 2012 had Quentin Tarantino’s ultra-violent pastiche Django Unchained of course, and two more diametrically opposed films on the same topic can hardly be imagined: a white American making a hugely irreverent piss-take of the whole edifice vs. a black Brit with his excoriating historical drama. [more]

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Tarantino's Preemie Top Ten

October 5th seems like an exceptionally weird time to deliver a top ten list. It's too late in the year for a "so far" list and too early for anything like completist summation and way way too early for anything like retrospective nostalgia. But Quentin Tarantino has never been known to shut up when he felt like talking so he's revealed his top ten of 2013 (so far) which are, in alphabetical order

• Afternoon Delight (Jill Soloway)
• Before Midnight (Richard Linklater)
• Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen)
• The Conjuring (James Wan)
• Drinking Buddies (Joe Swanberg)
• Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach)
• Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón)
• Kick Ass 2 (Jeff Wadlow)
• The Lone Ranger (Gore Verbinski)
• This Is The End (Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg)

It's very Tarantino and that's all I have to say about that. I only wish he had revealed a top ten of 2012 instead since he never did one for that year. Yes, conflict of interest with Django Unchained or what not, but literally no one would blink if he had put his own film on it. It would've been very Tarantino and that's all anyone could have said about that. 

P.S. the world would be a better place if all directors did this, don'cha think? I mean not in October but at all.

Monologue: "Like a Virgin"

Having revisited Tarantino's love of little piggies and Jackie Brown's Best Shots we end the Tarantino 50th Birthday festivities at the appropriate place given the director's love of circular plotting: The Very Beginning. When Quentin Tarantino was, essentially, a nobody, he was still Quentin Tarantino. Long before he was training his camera on knives and hands threatening Jamie Foxx's upside down junk in Django Unchained, he had the balls to open his debut feature with a monologue about big dicks... or Madonna's suggested love for them in her then 8 years old hit single "Like a Virgin".

This is the very first shot of Reservoir Dogs (1992).

Over the black of the credits Mr Brown (Quentin Tarantino) has introduced his thesis "The entire song is a metaphor for big dicks." more...

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Visual Index ~ Jackie Brown's (Best) Shots

Twenty-one entries (!!!)  have come in for this week's Hit Me With Your Best Shot featuring Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown (1997). It's all to honor the popular auteur's 50th birthday. Jackie Brown is something of an anomaly in his filmography so it's a good one to revisit.

Unfortunately I've had some bad news today so I'm not sure when my own article will be up. In the meantime, and by all means, enjoy these fine articles. Click on the chosen Best Shot in our HMWYBS series and you'll be carried off to its corresponding article.

Enjoy all the shots (and their clickable articles) in semi-linear order after the jump...

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