Linkboy

Guardian an "intimate" Q & A with the one and only Hilary Swank. Admit it: you want to know how often she has sex and what her most embarrassing moment was.
<--- ExpressUK talks to Lucy Punch whose career has apparently been reheated by playing that golddigging bimbo in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger last year.
Movie|Line offers up suggestions for replacing Darren Aronofsky on The Wolverine. I do vaguely like the Andy and Lana Wachowski suggestion. The others, not so much.
The Playlist Joseph Gordon-Levitt will play The Holiday Killer in The Dark Knight Rises (2012). That'll mean something to some of you but for me it's the first Bat villain from a movie that I'd never heard of prior to the movie.
Every Film in 2011 Just like it sounds. Hats off (but maybe straightjacket on?) to this UK guy Neil White who is going to review every film released in the calendar year. Insanity! He's already to #105 (The Adjustment Bureau).
Orlando Sentinel here's a charitable movie promotion: Disney is encourage potential young Tangled customers to get their hair cut. The locks go to making hairpieces for those suffering from medical hair loss.

One of my friends asked if I wanted to see [lists four movies] yesterday. I say 'I'll see any of those but Paul.' My friend is all "oh, right. You hate geek things." Total misconception! So many people think this about me so I feel defensive. Not true. loves geeky things. I just have a weird ambivalence about fanboy culture because it's too narrow/noisy. I love superheroes and sci-fi and such but how you gonna live on only one to three genres? Why limit yourself? If you're not also taking in classic cinema, Almodóvar, serious actressing, arthouse, silent film, talky dramas, and other genres you're going to die of artistic malnutrition! So I say "Ugh, stop it. I do so love geek things. But Paul? Seth Rogen voicing a CGI alien?"

[Diesel Sweeties]

For what it's worth I ended up at Rango finally. Y'all were right to push me in that direction. In case you aren't aware, the "Reviews" on the banner will take you to an index of movies seen and screening log and when I've reviewed something the link itself. I'm behind so I'll need to do capsules soon.

Off Cinema Diversions
Towleroad photos of last night's super moon. It was just blinding and beautiful here in NYC. Were any of you killed by werewolves?
Warren Ellis issued a challenge to his readers to remake/remodel The Fantastic Four. Super fun illustrations followed. They don't mention it in the thread but 2011 (November to be precise) marks the 50th anniversary of the cosmic ray mutated superfamily. Too bad the film version was so terrible.
Spiegel Knut the famous polar bear has died.
The Awl answers the question "What is a Rebecca Black?" in case you noticed that name clogging up your twitter feed and facebook wall this past week.
Vulture has a funny "dos and don'ts" for making your own Friday style viral hit. Warning: Disturbingly homogeneous Teen Girl emerges! I haven't been a teenager in a long time but I remember there being more than one kind. I mean there's even several different types on Glee each week.
Antenna offers an informative primer on all sorts of things going down with Netflix, Google, MPAA, NPR if you, like Nathaniel, find the behind the scenes of  media-internet-showbiz occassionally confusing / disorienting.

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Super 8"

We already did this once during the Superbowl but here's the full trailer to J.J. Abrams Super 8, a clear attempt to recapture 80s Spielbergania. Disturbingly hypey things are flying cross the internet like 'a Best Picture nomination is all sewn up!' uh... from 2 minutes of footage? It's not like its a Holocaust drama or a biopic and looks particularly fetching. History is littered with trailers that looked awesome, the movies proving less so. We shall see. The other disturbing thing I read was that the internet had 'a collective boner'. Call me old fashioned but the only way I'd ever be interested in a collective boner was if I could handpick the orgy members. Ewww. But those caveats aside the trailer IS good. I'm a "yes." But let's play our game anyway.

Yes It certainly looks intriguing... and all the things that worked in the 30 second version (the mystery, the borrowed music, the "gee whiz it's 80s scifi!" feel) are expanded and gain in oomph at 2 minutes. Surely a good sign for the next (two hour) expansion, right?

No Sometimes when people (J.J. Abrams) try to be someone else (Steven Spielberg) they feel like jpgs that have been saved at lower resolutions. Or they miss the mark and end up like some weird amalgam (Spielberg + Shyamalan ÷ Abrams = ?) The proof, one way or the other, will be in the full 2 hours.

Maybe So I know that this is about the kids but wouldn't it be appropriately wondrous if Coach Taylor knocked a plum supporting role out of the park and had a big screen career and/or an awesome TV offer to follow his Friday Night Lights perfection since that stellar show has filmed its last scenes.

Here's the new trailer

Yes No or Maybe So people?
Okay okay, I'll bite on the overhype. Let's discuss Oscar prospects, too. A few techs or much more?

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.