Armie Hammer Can Fire A Machine Gun (And Other Linkables)

FilmDetail GASP. Terrence Malick actually photographed in Cannes this weekend. Or is it a cardboard cutout?
Vulture picks the best (and worst) performances from Glee Season Two now that it's wrapped. Sound choices throughout actually.
Austin Translation the latest Pixar short La Luna wraps production.

Dan Hipp 'I am Tetsuo!' (an Akira moment)
FourFour on Kate Bush's "Director's Cut"
Gold Derby Jane Lynch (Glee) may host the Emmys
IonCinema proves that it's not just Oscars that cajole people into ridiculous predictions: herewith predictions for Cannes May 2012 edition.
Pajiba imagines worst-cast baby names from the current crop of starry couplings.
Kenneth in the (212) Justin Bartha on Matthew McConaughey's McConaunuts. What the...

Oh and mark your calendars for March 8th, 2013 if you're so inclined. That's when they'll be releasing Sam Raimi's Oz: The Great and Powerful, one of many Wizard of Oz themed projects that is stupidly not the mega-popular half a billion plus grossing Wicked. Alas.

Finally...
did Armie Hammer really need to compare kissing Leonardo DiCaprio to operating a machine gun in that you just have to pretend to know what you're doing even though you don't?

Excuse me Armie but you know what you're doing! Unless you're marriage is really unconventional. I'm constantly bemused by this topic. Hello world? Listen up. As someone who has kissed both men (duh) and women (what? I experimented in college) I'll break it down for you: both men and women are human [GASP]. Each human being has lips and a tongue whether or not they have a penis or a vagina. I know that's hard to wrap your head around, world, but it's TOTALLY TRUE. Have you ever met someone without lips or a tongue? Kissing is kissing and the  major variable, gender-wise, is facial hair. Otherwise the differences are pretty much person to person. It feels best when you're hot for each other. It feels dumbest when you're not which any professional actor is more than well acquainted with as kissing is a basic job requirement; more basic than firing automated weaponry! The end.

She's Still in Love With Judas, Baby

Another couple of months, another Lady Gaga short film. Thankfully she's calmed down a smidge since the epic EPICNESS of "Born This Way" which was messy MESSYNESS.

Sometimes it's good to have a simple concept and just execute it well.

In this case its Christ & Disciples as biker gang with Gaga as the Holy Fool / Biker Chick who can't choose between her two (archetypal) men, saintly Jesus or bad boy Judas (Norman Reedus!) who is so rebellious he demands that his name be pronounced with extra syllables. Speaking of. Love the tongue-tripped lyric bridge.

In the most Biblical sense,
I am beyond repentance
Fame hooker, prostitute wench.

Video: B+ That Bit w/ the Lipstick: A+ The Break: D+ (video breaks are tired. just dance!) Song: B

P.S. TANGENT TIME:  I'm totes enjoying Gaga's reign these past couple of years but, gotta say it, really missing Madonna today. Like as in more than usual.

Maybe it's because Madge looked flawless at the Met Costume Gala. Maybe it's because this is Gaga's "Like a Prayer" no? I'm not saying that in a negative 'ripping off Madonna' way people like to assume. I'm saying that as in this is the moment where the stars feel indestructable and poke at the religious people's eternally thin skin and risk their noisy wrath while making some sort of dance-ready point about the eternal internal spiritual war that's a universal part of being human". That moment.  "Like a Prayer" is Madonna's very best song (A+) in a discography with astounding number of viable options for that title. So that's probably how the pangs of missing are so acute. Excited for her directorial effort W.E. -- when will we see it? -- but could use more music real soon. It's been so long since "Hard Candy". Just one more record as fab as "Confessions on a Dance Floor", please!? Pleaseandthanks.

P.P.S. We now return you to your normally scheduled film programming.

Bear Force One: The Movie

I kicked off our reader appreciation series last month with an interview with Alex, aka BBats. Wanted to let you know that he's currently co-starring in the comedy short Bear Force One in which the President of the USA declares wars on Bears*. It won the Best of the Fest at LA Comedy Shorts Festival earlier this month.

You'll have to be in the right mood for this (think South Park's love of grotesque animated yuks and you're in the general comedic vicinity) but bless BBats for being so shameless.** If you watch you'll know what I mean when you hit the interrogration scene wherein he lets his freak fur literally fly.

Love the end credits song. I was wondering when that joke was coming.

*The blog is being overrun by animals lately: elephants, monkeys, bears. I have no idea what's going on.

**This is the first (but not the only) reason I knew I could never be an actor from the word go. I am so easily embarassed.

Hugo Nominees Or: How To Stop Worrying and Love The Geek

The quickest thing you learn once you become obsessed with awards is that they never end; someone is always handing out prizes for something. And since the eligibility periods are different for everything it takes forever for a single year's entertainment to finally be "old" aka ineligible. Such is the case with 2010 entertainment (mostly the second half of it) which is still eligible for Emmy nods (July 14th), Tony nods (May 3rd)... and The Hugo Awards, which are science fiction based, and newly announced today.

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION – LONG
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Toy Story 3

Inception and Toy Story 3 can breathe a sigh of relief that The King's Speech featured neither threatening alien invaders (Wallis Simpson does not count) nor superpowered heroes (Helena Bonham Carter does not count, her super powers being off screen).

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION – SHORT
Doctor Who: ‘‘A Christmas Carol''
Doctor Who: ‘‘The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang''
Doctor Who: ‘‘Vincent and the Doctor''
Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury
The Lost Thing

I've embedded this "Ray Bradbury" vid once before on the old blog but it made me LOL so here it is again. With Doctor Who cancelling itself out (one assumes) Will The Lost Thing, the animated short, repeat its Oscar win at the Hugos?

Shaun Tan, the Australian illustrator behind that short, is also up for Best Artist, a category which includes Dan Dos Santos, Bob Eggleston, John Picacao and Stephan Martiniere.

Since there are definitely not enough awards for online entertainment (The Film Experience certainly hasn't won any trophies, y'know *sniffle*), here are some webzines to check out if you're into sci-fi. They're all nominated: (Semi-Pro) Clarkesworld, Interzone, Lightspeed, Locus, Weird Tales, (Fan) Banana Wings, The Challenger, The Drink Tank, File 770, StarShipSofa

Here's a complete list of the nominees should you enjoy sci-fi.

Nathaniel in Nashville Pt. 1

I thought I'd share a few of my adventures at the Nashville Film Festival whilst practicing on my wacom tablet -- so hard to get the hang of this, the wacom not the Nashville. (I've been to the Nashville Festival a couple of times so I think I have the hang of it now.) I arrived in my Herzog tee -- I always live in mortal fear that some Herzog freak will grill me about good ol' Werner since I probably don't know as much about him as I should given the human advertisement aspects of t-shirt wearing. My favorites are Grizzly Man and Aguirre the Wrath of God and Nosferatu but Werner is prolific so I can't say I've seen everything.

The jurors and guests of the festival stay in downtown Nashville where you can get to the touristy parts quick but the festival is actually at a multiplex called Regal Green Hill...(update:  but I'm hearing from Mark in the comments that this is not the same thing as Green Hills. What do I know? I live in NYC and never drive and am losing my spatial relations skills)  Nice theater with lots of screens. They shuttle you back and forth so as I'm waiting for the morning shuttle I am scribbling away at you.

Last night riding from hotel to festival I ended up in a van of fellow jurors, though none from my category. I was  happily chatting away with the guy in front of me when I suddenly realized Who He Was. It was Jamie Travis, a filmmaker I am so enthralled by -- the Patterns trilogy is genius --that I'm just grateful his back was turned and he didn't see my insta-tranformation into scary obsessive superfan.

It reminded me of my very first Life Drawing class in college where I was just randomly talking to the new kid in class. We're chatting for like 5 minutes and then the teacher walks in and new kid just stands up and starts taking his clothes off. (Was it something I said?) Turns out new kid was the nude model and suddenly I went from gregarious to totally awkward / speechless. It was kinda like that except for that nobody got naked.

In reality I'm sure I kept babbling but my sentences probably made less sense.

Celebrity Sightings
Some country music stars were doing the carpet but I never know who they are. I did gaze at Kris Kristofferson and Emmylou Harris chatting up TV crews on the red carpet for awhile though. The carpet had been mostly shoved into the VIP tent instead of outside where it usually is (very stormy and wet night).

Kristofferson had just received a career prize at the screening of his new movie Bloodworth. I arrived too late to see it but I heard from my driver Elaine -- a lovely retired woman volunteering at the fest -- that it was good and she was just raving about W. Earl Brown, who plays one of his sons in the movie.

I give it a 4.3 out of 5. "Brady" is Academy Award material!

Val Kilmer and Dwight Yoakam are also in the movie but it turns out that this W Earl Brown also wrote the movie and was smart enough to give himself a great part.

I couldn't quite make out why Emmylou was with Kristofferson (she's not in the cast list of the movie) but she looked eerily ageless. She just turned 64 and her silver locks -- clearly not a wig -- are so thick and lustrous you'd think she was 30 or 40 but for the silver.

Okay, back to the festival with me. Ciao.