A Link Odyssey

The Flick Filosopher "my back let me show you it" on the faceless objectification of women in movie posters
Pacific Standard investigates what's going on with all those shlocky monster movies on Netflix Instant Watch. One studio is just churning them out by the dozen!
Splash Page Andrew Garfield wonders why we can't have a gay Spider-Man 

Vulture does some mathematical analysis from 1989-to-Now and, nope, Hollywood just doesn't make movies about women anymore
Deep Dish (site is NSFW) picks the best (& worst) of the season. A lot of Nashville, American Horror Story, and Downton Abbey but Don & Betty win "best sex" for Mad Men. I concur.
Hollywood in this week's Truly Tasteless News, they are already planning a movie about the Boston Marathon Bombing. It might be well-written -- the guys from The Fighter are onboard -- but still... a little time to heal people. 

Finally, Jose from Movies Kick Ass never cared much for Stanley Kubrick while still respecting him (he and I are similar that way) but Jose was finally converted to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by way of this week's big screen viewing at BAM in Brooklyn as part of their Big Screen Epics series. And how!

Coincidentally I was also there and the size of the screen, the beauty of the theater (thanks BAM) and the immersion of the sound also made me a new and real convert. It was as if I'd never seen the film before. Suddenly so many movies... so many movies seem like they owe their best moments and even their existence to it. (Hi, Tree of Life!) I suddenly need to reevaluate every Kubrick on the big screen. In fact, the only film of his I've seen in the size it deserves is Eyes Wide Shut (1999)... though in that case, size didn't matter. I was unmoved. 

Let us now praise Japanese monsters

Hi everybody, it’s Tim, using the impending release of Pacific Rim as a bald-faced excuse to talk about one of the greatest guilty pleasures in the whole of cinema: THE GIANT MONSTER MOVIE.

Guillermo del Toro’s extravagant, costly tentpole picture is, of course, a well-publicized love letter to the Japanese genre known as kaiju eiga: the giant monster movies born from the iconic 1954 Godzilla. These quickly descended from the relative sincerity and social messaging of that film (or the contemporaneous American production Them!) into trashy action films that further descended into silly matinee pictures, borne on the wings of the legendarily awful Baby Godzilla, and his soullessly googly eyes. [more...]

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Why Do Zombie Movies Never Win Makeup Nominations With Oscar?

This is a question I've never been able to fully answer but one that I've asked myself (and probably you) on occasion. Since "Best" quite often means "Most" when it comes to awardage of any kind, what does the Oscar's makeup branch have against the undead?  This question came to mind again while watching Warm Bodies, a minor hit earlier this year which is now on DVD.

Please consider this post an early FYC

After the movie I found myself watching the extras and especially enjoyed "Extreme Zombie Makeover" which charts the evolution of the makeup design by Adrien Morot (who was Oscar nominated recently for Barney's Wedding). It's easy to make Nicholas Hoult look beautiful but how do you make him look sexy AND undead? It's a silly question but the answer is crucial to the success of this particular horror/romance hybrid. Adrien had to make sure he looked like the same species as the other zombies but also sexier. Where do you place the scars? How do you keep the veins in the same exact spot every day? How do you keep your leading man's mouth looking unhealthy without making him unkissable? 

The answer to the latter question involves "zombie juice" --black food coloring with mouthwash! After the juice, the makeup artist would then fuss over Hoults mouth with a q-tip to clean his teeth so you'd still wanna makeout with him despite him being, you know, a rotten corpse. 

The inside of the lip being black is still considered to be sexy somehow but having green teeth that doesn't work!

Hoult preferred his zombie juice strawberry or vanilla flavored. The more you know... ⌒★

P.S. Since zombie movies are still all the rage I loved this little aside from the director when watching the big makeup team transform 100 or so extras at once.

You know it's funny because extras -- when they're playing humans, sometimes extras can overract a little bit. But when they're dressed as zombies and in zombie makeup, they're all like Meryl Streep. They're all just really in character and amazing. 

Reviews: Monsters University & World War Z

This double feature review was originally posted in my column at Towleroad

Another Month. Another Apocalypse

If the world can be powered by screams, as Monsters, Inc and its new prequel MONSTERS UNIVERSITY claim, then we've surely got a surplus to run on for decades to come. The horror genre in all its shapes, sizes and moods (including children's film) has rarely, if ever, been more popular. Brad Pitt warns a surely soon-to-be zombified family in WORLD WAR Z who have holed up in their apartment that "movement is life". They should run! But where are they supposed to run exactly? Zombies, werewolves, vampires, serial killers, and monsters are everywhere on film and television. Even outside the horror genre, dystopias (Hunger Games anyone?) or apocalypse awaits; at some point every superhero and action movie now blows its (budget) load on laying waste to New York City and/or its counterparts across the Globe. If pop culture is mass catharsis for our intangible mood, than we are all terrified children and in need of much therapy. 

Apologies for the armchair psychology but this must surely be why we've made our zombies crush-worthy (Warm Bodiesjust arrived from Netflix as I was typing this, no joke, - Hiiii, Nic Hoult!), our vampires twinkly, and our monsters cuddly. I mean just look at this guy "Art" to your left! He's practically built for wrap-around hugs... 

[More on cuddly monsters and Brad-chasing zombies...]

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i ♥ glowing eyes

i just do! Beauty Break: Awesome Glowing Eyes

8 more sets o' vibrant peepers after the jump

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