Links

Rock Paper Scissors God, I'm losing even to the "novice" computer. Don't click over. I warn you of the time you will waste!
Us Magazine reveals the identity of Scarlett Johansson's much-discussed (including right here) Oscar date.
The House Next Door "A Firm Hand" Dan Callahan on the ultimate blonde, Catherine Deneuve.
IndieWire has an overview of "Rendezvous With French Cinema" (the reason I'm meeting Ludivine Sagnier tomorrow)

Just Jared Ewan McGregor has a new haircut. He's also about to make a bank robbery movie. Andrew Garfield is also (possibly) starring in the remake of the Austrian/German movie The Robber. What hath The Town wrought?
Daily Mail I didn't even know Toni Collette was pregnant again and she's quite far along. I miss United States of Tara.
b blog interview with Sissy Spacek's daughter Schuyler Fisk. She's got a new album out and she'll be in Gus Van Sant's Restless later this year. So music or movies, Schuyler?

Music... I just love that it’s my own thing. It’s a special thing I can do. I also love being a part of a film, especially projects like “Restless.” The film actually inspired the last song on the record, “Waterbird.”

And here's a half hour long "making of" of Todd Haynes's Mildred Pierce if you don't have HBO and might need to wait awhile to see it. In the meantime there's always the Joan Crawford classic to get acquainted with in the interim. It's well worth your time.

New DVD: Let Me In

It occurred to me recently that I had never said anything about Let Me In, post theatrical release, so let's do that now since it's fresh out on DVD. The American vampire film won a few year-end citations here and there as a high-quality film but it didn't fare well with the public. It was featured in Cinematical's surprising and funny list of the lowest grossing wide releases of 2010 a month ago. Here's what they said about the vampire film.

Let Me In (Gross: $12.1 million. Widest release: 2,042 theaters.) Let's face it. No matter how good it was, a moody remake of a Swedish import about a non-sparkling teen vampire was never going to be a blockbuster. But we were still surprised at just how poorly this fared in theaters. For comparison's sake, 'Twilight: Eclipse' made $300 million, and even 'Vampires Suck' made $36 million. This is why we can't have nice things.

I get the sentiment and love the joke but I can't agree that it's a big loss as a "nice thing".

It's true that I objected to the remake so I wasn't automatically the most receptive audience. But I kept hearing how good it was so I finally caved and watched a couple of months ago, at first with great interest, about what they'd alter and how its new American setting would affect it. The strong reviews are not surprising. It's a well made, handsome movie. The cinematography is beautiful and moody (though it heavily borrows from the aesthetic ideas from the original, particularly in regards to depth of field), the performances are solid, etcetera.

But the movie fails to answer the question that all remakes must answer: What is the reason you are remaking this? If the movie presents no answer beyond "because it was in a funny language" the movie has failed.

The American version of Let The Right One In didn't make radical changes or bring in new exciting ideas about the characters/story. The few alterations seemed to merely underline the originals suggestion that the victimized boy (Oskar/Owen) would one day become the serial killing man (Håkan/The Father) because he loves that little monster (Eli/Abby). It's creepier when you have to do the work to connect those dots yourself. The only big alteration (place but not time) adds nothing new. And then there were minor erasures of the first film's more difficult and more ambiguous sexuality. Gone was the shock cut to Eli/Abby's genital area and gone was Oskar's gay (?)  father  -- this character never appears in the remake except by telephone where we learn that he's shacked up with someone named "Cindy". Unless that's a drag queen, he's safely heterosexual for American audiences. Audiences of the original seem to disagree on matters of Eli's gender and on Oskar's father's orientation but the very fact that they prompt argument is another testament to the first film's insinuating ambiguous grip on its audience.

Oskar & Owen

Mostly Let Me In seems content to love and ape Let The Right One In clinging to it as willfully as Oskar/Owen latches on to Eli/Abby. The love is a mark of good taste but a weak excuse for a remake. If you love something, watch it! Be inspired by it. Make your own thing instead. The film it most recalls, other than the Swedish original, is Gus Van Sant's Psycho (1998). That earlier much-reviled "recreation" is a far more interesting artistic exercize because it's so weirdly honest about it's own borrowed artistry and masturbatory xeroxing. Critics weren't at all kind but then that one wasn't in a 'funny language' to begin with.

Also New on DVD This Week
Critical darling indie Monsters, the true story Conviction (interview with Juliette Lewis), the sci-fi tinged drama Never Let Me Go (here's a piece on Andrew Garfield) and Oscar doc finalist The Tillman Story.

Clint Eastwood & Beyoncé. A Match Made In...

This might just be the strangest thing you read all week.

Clint Eastwood, currently working on FBI biopic J. Edgar, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Hoover and Armie Hammer as his lover and star employee, will be chasing that unlikely project with... wait for it...

A STAR IS BORN with Beyoncé. According to Deadline it's a go and they may even start shooting the third musical version of this story before the end of the year. There are so many things one might say to this news including.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo"

or perhaps

"the earth is doomed" which is what I tweeted.

Maybe "Streisand is gonna be pissed" which is what I went with for my upcoming Towleroad column.

Stars Are Born in the 30s (Gaynor) the 50s (Garland) and 70s (Streisand)

I've never understood why anyone would want to remake A Star is Born (including Babs in the 70s), given that Judy Garland's 1954 performance is so unassailably ginormous and mythical and awesome and Oscar winning (damnit!). But mostly, I'm scratching my head about conservative manly "get off my lawn" Clint Eastwood doing two gay-appeal projects back to back. First he's training his Oscarbait eyes on a closeted cross-dresser and then he's turning klieg lights on an actual show queen?

Finally, aside from Eastwood's "what the hell will this be like?" involvement it feels rather redundant and not just because we've already had three film versions. Won't watching Beyoncé do A Star is Born be like watching a two hour extended remix of "Listen" from Dreamgirls.

That's the whole emotional arc and story right there.