The Link Menagerie

Stale Popcorn defines "Xanadusiasm" and we're all about it. Make it official, Websters.
Towleroad in which I make New Year's Resolutions for Hollywood since they keep having dumb ideas like remaking Carrie (1976) of all things. Just... NO.
Observer Rex Reed laments the many cultural departures of 2011 from La Liz to another Oz Munchkin.
Best Week Ever who knew that Michael Shannon had this much adorable cuteness in him?

THR Jessica Chastain coming to Broadway in 2012. I guess she wants the EGOT by 2017 or something. Over Achiever!
Some Came Running Glenn Kenny has a J. Hoberman top ten to mark the Village Voice's strange decision to dump their famous critic. 
Cinephilia & Sass has a letter to the fading James McAvoy... who does need his "Here I Am!" role surely. 
Acidemic If I were a TCM programmer... 

Your Movie Buddy shares his Oscar ballot. Kurt is also busy over at...
The House Next Door ...offering up Oscar prospects for The Tree of Life
Super Punch why your clothes don't look as good as in magazines (illustrated by Antonio Banderas)
Tom Shone wonders why Best Picture so rarely lands a Leading Acting Oscar to go with it anymore. Oddly, he seems to be complaining about it. Me, I love the spreading of wealth at the Oscars since the best film of any given year rarely has the best everything. 

Finally...
This week's most actressy event -- other than my interview with Charlize ;) -- is Nicks Flick Picks announcement of a Best Actress Birthday Party project. Here's the calendar and the first birthday party favor: Jane Wyman in The Glass Menagerie. Nick's been busy! In related news it's also Annie Hall's birthday today. Ms Diane Keaton turns 66. I'm itching for her to be in a good movie again so here's hoping one of her recently completed pictures works. It's not that she doesn't work.

Papa Linkes

AV Club Excellent "Why don't you like this?" argument over Hugo. I liked Hugo more than Tasha does but significantly less than Scott but I found the Moulin Rouge! comparisons especially fascinating.
Movies.com crunches the numbers on Best Director, with 15 directors already honored somewhere or somehow.
Vulture who had the bluest eyes in War Horse? Not Joey, the humans. 

Roger Ebert on why movie theater audience is down. Normally I think this topic is overworked but he gets a few really succinct points in and I had no idea that Netflix's instant watch streaming numbers show a preference for art film fare!
First Showing David Fincher on why he made each of his pictures. That people are still wondering why he felt he needed to make Dragon Tattoo even after seeing it, is maybe a problem. :)
Movie|Line I lol'ed heartily reading this calendar of dates to watch in 2012
Movies.com David Ehrlich's writes a quite funny piece on the "Overrated" titles of 2011

What are you doing New Year's Eve? ♫

Ahhhhh (500) Days of Summer reunion for Winter!

Indiewire the top ten box office hits, subtitled division. France rules as per usual.
Anne Thompson on why The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is struggling at the box office. 
Cinema Blend on disappointing films of the year. Death to hype!

Finally... I wanted to take this moment to say goodbye to Cheetah from the Tarzan movies who supposedly died this past weekend. A lot of chimps played Cheetah of course as there are a ton of Tarzan movies and The Wall Street Journal claims this could not have actually been the one from the Weismuller/O'Sullivan movies. Supposedly Cheetah was 80 but life expectancies for his species is like 35 so that's baffling. Human life expectancy is like 67 years and how many 140somethings do you know? It seems weird to say "favorite thing!" about obituary madness but I was delighted to see Mia Farrow tweeting about it.

I'd been debating whether or not to make a big to do of Tarzan's centennial in 2012 (October to be exact) though I suspect most readers aren't into that particular swinger since comments tend to be lowsville on Tarzan moments here. That's one franchise that really seems dead. RIP. 

RIP Ken Russell

JA from MNPP here taking a moment to reflect upon the death of the never-a-dull-moment filmmaker Ken Russell (1927-2011). If you're unfamiliar with Russell's work, oh my god you have to fix that! I listed five of my favorite movies of his earlier today, you can't go wrong with any of them. Well... wrong isn't really the right word. Because they can be very wrong indeed. Sometimes so wrong they're right, but just as often, perhaps more often, so wrong they're just very very wrong.

Whore. Nun. Whore, Nun. Whorenun.

But that's alright! Because in Ken Russell's hands bad taste and good taste... well they got really stoned with each other, painted themselves gold, and headed to the bi-annual insane asylum orgy for nymphs and perverts, and it was hypnotic. In one corner there's Ann-Margret humping a phallic couch cushion while covered in baked beans, in another there's Alan Bates and Oliver Reed sweaty and naked and rolling around on top of each other, in another there's Vanessa Redgrave in a habit with a hump having an orgasmic god experience, and there's Kathleen Turner waving a silver dildo at Anthony Perkins, and on, and on. (It's a very loud room we're imagining, with these people.) There was nobody like him, and there won't ever be again, and movies are a lot less interesting now without him.

What's your favorite Ken Russell movie?

Theadora Van Runkle (1929-2011)

Take off those berets and fedoras and pay your respects. The great costume designer Theadora Van Runkle, a three time Oscar nominee, passed away this past Friday of lung cancer at 83 years of age [src]. For those who don't immediately connect her name to her movies, know that her work was seismic. 

Her most famous creations were actually those done on her very first feature Bonnie & Clyde (1967). She was able to do the picture only after Warren Beatty and the costume designers guild president screamed at each other for half an hour (she was not a guild member then) according to Mark Harris's invaluable tome Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and The Birth of New Hollywood.  She had never done a film and at one tense point admitted to Warren Beatty that she had no idea what she was doing. 

After Beatty vetoed her first period-specific ideas, she came up with the now legendary out of time ensembles that nodded to both the 1930s (when the story takes place) and contemporary 60s French New Wave that the project had always hoped to emulate (Beatty had originally wanted François Truffaut himself to direct).

You see people who are great beauties and never get anywhere. This was style."
-Theadora Van Runkle on Dunaway as Bonnie. 

Van Runkle even claims that she was the one who brought the unknown Faye Dunaway to Beatty & director Arthur Penn's attention. "There's the girl you should cast!" though there are competing legends as to how Dunaway first came up in the long search for the girl.

Because of the tight budget, many of the costumes worn by other characters weren't actually Van Runkle's designs but costuming the titular pair was enough to win her a permanent place in movie history and her first Oscar nomination. She was later nominated for both The Godfather Part Two (1974) and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986).

Those Oscar nominated movies were hardly the only memorable gigs. Other showy movies included the infamously delirious transgendered farce Myra Breckenridge (1970), the ill-fated Mame (1974), the post-war romantic drama New York New York (1977) and the bawdy gaudy musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982).

I'll always have a special place in my heart for her work on Peggy Sue Got Married. I love that too-shiny / too-tight gown that Peggy Sue is proud she can still fit into at her 25th reunion. Like Bonnie, Peggy Sue is straddling two eras, this time literally; a lovely mirage of the past clinging to a totally contemporary soul.

Good night and thank you, Theadora.

John Wood (RIP) and Link Roundup

Before the link roundups I wanted to say a fond farewell to British actor John Wood who died at 81 this weekend in his sleep. I'll always remember him as the Bishop of Aquila who was driven to madness and lust by the beauty of the young Michelle Pfeiffer in Ladyhawke (1985). It happens.

Though the Tony winner spent much of his time on stage he also had several screen roles including parts in hits like War Games (1983), critical darlings like Orlando (1993) and The Purple Rose of Cairo (1995) and Oscar favorites like The Madness of King George (1994) and Chocolat (2000). His final feature film was also the final Merchant/Ivory film The White Countess (2005). RIP John Wood.

Socialite Life Harry Shum Jr (Glee) is taking voice lessons. Guess he doesn't wanna wear that "CAN'T SING" t-shirt on the show anymore.
Vulture surveys Southern accents in the movies and compares them to the real thing.
Kenneth in the (212) remembers Body Heat (1981) and bemoans the passage of time. It gets us all!
i09 Matt Damon is playing a cyborg in Neil Blomkamp's District 9 follow up Elysium. Here's some unofficial photos so proceed at your own risk.
Cinema Blend surveys the extremely crowded December release schedule... in 2012. It's already crazy. Zombie epic World War Z with Brad Pitt is the latest inductee. 

Stale Popcorn Glenn surveys the 60 (gasp) films he watched at the Melbourne Film Festival. Drive gets his number one spot and Melancholia is another favorite.

Off Cinema
The Awl shares t-shirts on view at 2011's Lollapalooza (they still have that?). This amused me for some reason. 
Tom Shone on the election of 2012 and Rachel Maddow's problematic prediction. I so agree and Shone always give good prose.