Linker Come Back to Me

My New Plaid Pants pic of the day, first image from the set of Steven Soderbergh's Liberace bio Behind the Candelabra with Michael Douglas and Matt Damon as lovers
Movie City News 29 Weeks To Go until Oscar! Wooo
Cinema Blend apparently they're going to reboot The Brady Bunch. 
i09 pretends that 10 upcoming remakes / reboots aren't going to suck. Hey, someone has to stay positive.

Hollywood Elsewhere Dark Right(Wing) Rises... People can't stop talking about the politics of Chris Nolan's Batman trilogy.
Hollywood.com interviewed me and other pundits on The Dark Knight Rises Oscar hopes
Awards Daily breaks down the Tony nominees who made it to Oscar nominations 
Pajiba would like you to think about all the brunettes in Chris Nolan films. It's always brunettes.
/Film manages to dig up a tiny bit of info about the Coen Bros Inside Llewyn Davis 
Awards Daily breaks down the Tony nominees who made it to Oscar nominations

Obits
is it just me or are people dropping like flies... I'm a bit freaked out :( 
Studio Briefing Mr Cyd Charisse, singer/actor Tony Martin (1913-2012), has died 
The Guardian pays final respects to Chris Marker (1921-2012), the experimental filmmaker of La Jetée fame (which inspired 12 Monkeys)
New York Times the ever fascinating Gore Vidal (1925-2012) 
Fresh Air remembers Lupe Ontiveros (1942-2012) of As Good As it Gets and Selena fame. I loved it when NBR handed her Best Supporting Actress for Chuck and Buck (2000). Remember that? That's my favorite Lupe turn.

Finally, in much happier news...
Have you heard that Nina Arianda (Midnight in Paris, Win Win) is signing projects left and right. Looks like that Tony Award for "Venus in Fur" really did it. Nina, who has previously really had bit roles in movies, has surely arrived.

She recently signed on to play the great Guilieta Masina in Fellini Black and White the story of two missing days in the life of Oscar magnet Federico Fellini right before the Oscars in 58. Are they making this movie just for us? Seriously! She's also set to play Janis Joplin in another upcoming bio with Martha Marcy May Marlene's Sean Durkin helming after approximately a million years of rumors of this actress and that actress and sometimes more than one at once, playing her in a biopic. Hollywood apparently just can't let  The Rose (1979) be the last word. Tina Fey and Jane Krakowski even sent up the development hell of Janis Joplin biopics in an arc of 30 Rock. Nina also joins a huge cast of recognizable actors in the fascinating sounding The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby which is reportedly a two-part film told from the husband (James McAvoy) and wife's (Jessica Chastain) perspectives.

This is all a long way of saying learn Nina's name and expect her on an Oscar shortlist in 5...4...3...2....1

Always Be My Linky

AV Club two new roles for Mariah Carey as an American Idol judge and returning in front of Lee Daniels camera (they worked together on Precious, remember?) in The Butler which already has a very starry cast
My New Plaid Pants a remake of With a Friend Like Harry? Like JA I'm shocked this hasn't already happened. Sergi Lopez was so good in that!
Towleroad Lady Gaga's makes her acting debut in Machete Kills 
SubAtomicCowboy ...reminds us that that's not technically true.

Hollywood Elsewhere a Marilyn Monroe intervention
Movie|Line has theories on the Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart breakup. Interesting though the accompanying opinion/absurdity that 'Kristen Stewart could be the next Jodie Foster' negates my ability to take it seriously.
/Film Battle Royale for the CW as a TV series. From the Dept of Truly Hilariously Terrible Ideas 
Hollywood.com Revenge returns on September 30th. Start the countdown 

Na na na na na na NA na na na na BAT LINKS ♫
Dancer a Day "You're so Bane. You probably think this song is about you." 
We Got This Covered "Imagine the Fire" a lengthy interconnected essay on The Dark Knight Rises.
Natasha VC Christopher Nolan has a little Cousin Matthew in him, huh?
Forbes on The Dark Knight's political conservativism.
Digital Spy Anne Hathaway on the possibility of a Catwoman spin off. Given that she doesn't want to do it without Chris Nolan it's never going to happen (see also La Pfeiffer's stance in the 90s about Catwoman IF it was with Tim Burton)

Cast This! "Hocus Pocus" Sequel

A new rumor swirling round the internet this weekend is that Disney is considered a sequel to Hocus Pocus (1993) that mildly amusing witchy family comedy starring Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker which was a much bigger success on video than it was in theaters. I remember liking it -- I love funny women trios as I just mentioned -- but wishing it was as funny as we all know all those actresses to be.

Moviehole reports that Disney may fast track this new film for release next year and is calling it Hocus Pocus: Rise of the Elderwitch. /Film reports that Disney is denying it entirely. The title sounds, to me, like an unecessarily complicated title when modern trends suggest that they'll probably just remake it (excuse me "reboot" it) and attempt a new franchise.

If you were making a magical comedy about three naughty witches, who would you cast? You need really funny girls to live up to Midler, Najimy & Parker and as is the tradition with female comedy trios from 9 to 5 to Witches of Eastwick and Hocus Pocus and on through the Charlie's Angels movies, you need distinctly different personalities / hair colors.

If you don't include Ari Graynor in your triple wish list, I will never hire you to cast my own debut feature. Go!

The Not So "Amazing" Spider-Man

originally published in my column at Towleroad

Andrew Garfield hanging about on The Amazing Spider-Man set.

Déjà vu  is an unsettling feeling. You can’t quite place the why and whens of it but you know you’ve experienced whatever this is before. Not so with the reboot of Spider-Man which has been optimistically retitled “THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN” for 2012.  The new webslinging film arrives only five years after Spider-Man 3, that final sour note in Sam Raimi’s otherwise sweet trilogy. This déjà vu is easy to place with the “whens” and thus less unsettling if still perplexing on account of the “whys”. We’re back to summer 2002 when Peter Parker first pined for a high school sweetheart, first indirectly contributed to his uncle’s murder, first learned that with great power comes great responsibility, and first swung around a big screen Manhattan in his iconic red and blue spandex.

Franchises are the comfort food of the movies and though there’s nothing wrong with comfort food beyond its lack of nutritional value, so much depends on the delivery when it comes to the familiar pleasure. The Amazing Spider-Man spins its title card with webbing very swiftly which leaves you hoping for a zippy entertainment with key twists on the mythos to keep you engaged. But after a new corporate thriller prologue featuring Peter Parker’s heretofore unseen parents the movie settles into excessively familiar story beats. We’re forced to wait out the entire numbing origin story again and relive many story beats from the 2002 origin story, with the only major exclusions being the absence of Parker's employment at The Daily Bugle (weird) and no James Franco shaped obstacle to his girl’s affections. Other than that only the names of the major characters have changed: Blonde Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) stands in for Redhead Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) as the love interest Peter likes to photograph; Dr Curt Connors/The Lizard (Rhys Ifans) stands in for Norman Osborne/The Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) as the scientist Peter looks up to whose illegal human experimentation (on himself!) wreaks havoc on his mental stability.

Once you start talking to yourself in an out of body "evil" voice, it's just a matter of time until you're a Green Super Villain. More...

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Burning Questions: What's Wrong With An Instant Reboot?

Michael C here to get Spidey's back this Fourth of July.

There used to be a natural life cycle for big movie franchises. It began with audiences thrilling to the sight of Christopher Reeve soaring over Metropolis and ended a few films later with everyone looking away in embarrassment as Superman traded punches with Nuclear Man on the moon. This was followed by a period of mourning long enough for everyone to wonder if the last film was some kind of fever dream, and then and only then could a fresh creative team breathe life into the dormant franchise.

But now, no sooner does Emo Spidey cha-cha his way into an early grave, than the suits decide to shake the etch-a-sketch on the whole show and pretend the last three films never happened. In a world fast approaching franchise over-saturation, with sequels dropping with a frequency normally reserved for Tetris blocks, the idea of a hugely successful series starting over from scratch while the body of the last entry is still warm, feels like a new low in shameless cash-grabbing. 

Time for a new actor to don the mask

But take a step back for a moment, put emotions on hold and ask the logical question: What is so bad about an instant reboot?

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