Revolving Links

Gawker "Magneto to Marry Professor X" the headline is actually true! Sir Ian McKellen is the best. 
Slate an excellent piece on American cinema's love affair with serial killers and violence with Terrence Malick's Badlands as centerpiece
Playbill I bet you thought you were done hearing about "Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark"'s production trouble. Ha! The trial which pits director Julie Taymor against the producers starts this May.

i09 on why condensing those sprawling Game of Thrones books is a very good move for HBO. The show won't be running forever. 
Salon interviews Lily Tomlin, a lifelong feminist who sends up feminism in Admission as Tina Fey's mom 
Awards Daily breathless online reactions to an August: Osage County screening. 
ScriptNotes Screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin discuss the Veronica Mars kickstarter on this podcast - two different opposing takes.
My New Plaid Pants on Xavier Dolan and his influences including Julianne Moore and Michelle Pfeiffer scenes. No wonder I love Xavier Dolan!
The Film Doctor 8 notes on Oz: The Great and Powerful 

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Playbill Hugh Jackman attached to the adaptation of the novel Six Years. I can't wait to see how he follows up Les Miz and whether he's hungry for future Oscar play.
Guardian Keira Knightley to play Coco Chanel in a short film

Laura Dern's schedule just freed up. Where are you David Lynch?!?

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Deadline Lynne Ramsay a no show for Jane Got a Gun on the first day of shooting. What's going on there? I feel like we're only get 1/100th of the story in these reports.
Cinema Blend Christina Ricci leaves Girlfriend in a Coma pilot. She was to be the girlfriend, the one in the coma. 
TVLine Enlightened has been cancelled. Sad day for Laura Dern fans 

Awards Leftovers: The Editors, The DPs, The Gays

The Editors
Do you have any thoughts you need to get off your chest about the ACE Eddies? They barely received any play coming as they did on the heels of the Oscar nominations but I wanted to mention them anyway since I love 'the invisible art' and it's what I think I would have done had I gone into filmmaking (if not casting). This year their drama nominees Argo, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, Skyfall, all received Oscar nominations but for the latter which was bumped to make way for Silver Linings Playbook, the only Comedy recipient to transfer with AMPAS. Also nominated in comedy or musical: Les Misérables, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom, and Ted.

"I know this will sound batshit crazy but your editing is just not as good as the editing in Silver Linings Playbook! which is also better than Skyfall"

This is not meant as a knock on Playbook since I know its fans are sensitive about my generally "meh" reaction to it (and distaste when pushed) but I actually have no problem with its nomination here in comedy. But that it should be the one chosen over the impeccably odd combo of razor sharp pathos and cool comic timing of Moonrise? And then bump out the action stylings of Skyfall? Me no understand.

Seamus McGarvey photo courtesy of the IECThe DPs
Likewise I forgot to mention the American Society of Cinematographers who chose Seamus McGarvey from Ireland  for Anna Karenina, Danny Cohen from Britain for Les Misérables, Claudio Miranda from Chile for Life of Pi, Janusz Kaminski from Poland for Lincoln, and Roger Deakins from Britain for Skyfall. All of these men went on to Oscar nominations but for Cohen who was replaced by Robert Richardson of Massachusetts for Django Unchained.

The Gays
Another group that waited to announce their nominees until Oscar time was The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association or "GALECA" who hand out the Dorian Awards. Full disclaimer: I became a member this year. I'm happy to be a part of it but, as with my BFCA membership, I don't always want to be associated with the results ;) That said, I joined this group because I like the presence of groups who, by their very nature, are forced to step outside the Oscar pool. You can't exactly nominate Argo and Lincoln for your LGBT FILM OF THE YEAR prize you know? Well... maybe 'Argo Fuck Yourself' and Lincoln. (haha. i'm here all week) But of course they also have a FILM OF THE YEAR prize which finds room for the titles you'll be totally sick of by Oscar night.

LGBT FILM OF THE YEAR 

• Any Day Now (interview!)
• Cloud Atlas (I can't escape this movie. Argh. That's the true true)
• Gayby (interview!)
• Keep the Lights On (capsule)
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower (interview)

I assume Keep the Lights On can't lose since it's the only LGBT film that's also nominated for Film of the Year but I'm personally trying to decide between Gayby and Perks for my vote. Both are so adorable I just want to cuddle with them. 

Complete Gayness after the jump...

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Djackman Unlinked

Hugh Jackman was honored at the Museum of the Moving ImageReviews Under the Influence on Pitch Perfect. I LOL'ed. Hence the share
Movie|Line talks to Christopher Nolan at the tribute to Hugh Jackman at MoMi
ET Amanda Seyfried on Channing Tatum "everybody wants to have sex with him" and her own reputation. Amanda is fun!
/Film Clint Mansell will score Noah for Darren Aronofksy - YES
Ultra Culture hates on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and its drip-fed storytelling; only nine hours until the protagonists meet the antagonist!
Hollywood Reporter Sean Penn is mouthing off again. Not that he isn't partially correct. He just doesn't have enough of a sense of humor about his self-seriousness to always pull it off.
Advocate Our beloved Sir Ian McKellen's long battle with prostate cancer.
Gawker Hunger Games themed reality tv is on its way. Without the death. But still, i don't think we're that far away from a Series 7 world, do you?

Today's Watches
Quentin Tarantino's epic introduction to Django Unchained here in NYC. Courtesy of Gothamist.

Tarantino from katie sokoler on Vimeo.

and Amy Poehler & Tina Fey's first promo for the Golden Globes

List Mania
Eric Kohn at Indiewire Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning & Amour. Yes, they can co-exist on a list
Film Doctor chooses his worst films of the year from Savages to Battlefield (poor Taylor Kitsch!)
Stale Popcorn on the best movie posters of the year from The Paperboy to Gayby
New Yorker terrific year-in-review via Anthony Lane. Love the shout-out to Eva Green in Dark Shadows

Awards Mania
Split Sider The Globes ignore all your favorite comedies again
In Contention looks at category fraud. I'd love to believe I coined the term and maybe I did since I've been the loudest voice complaining about it for 11 years but who knows.
In Contention Sony still thinking Amour is going to happen. Me too.
Oscars the 104 eligible Motion Picture Scores and some composers have multiple chances including Alexandre Desplat (4) and Danny Elfman (4), and James Newton Howard (3)

Where My Girls At? Susan, Tilda, Uma, Sir Ian

The Man Who Loved Actresses Too Much. That's the title of my forthcoming memoirs. Because I love too many actresses I often lose track of their upcoming film projects so let's look at some recent casting notices (by recent I mean I'm sorry I didn't mention them earlier this month!) involving ladies I, and hopefully you, love. 

Susan Sarandon, currently co-starring in Cloud Atlas, has been working consistently since her career peak (1988 through 1995) but her parts haven't been so great or the films have left one wanting. Can The Last of Robin Hood reinvigorate her career or spark passion in her fanbase again? The Hollywood bio film is from the indie directing team of Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland (full disclosure: I used to be friendly with Glatzer) who previously made The Fluffer and Quinceanera. It's about Errol Flynn's (Kevin Kline) affair with a 17 year old actress at the end of his life who he first seduced when she was all of 15. Sarandon will play the young actress's stage mother. Here's why I'm hopeful - the mother Sarandon will play actually wrote a book about this love affair called "The Big Love" so her role could be substantial -- though I'm unclear as to whether this film is based on that or wholly original.

Julianne Moore is a screen queen I never lose track of, per se, but sometimes the projects disappear! Does Being Flynn really exist? Did Shelter? What happened to that period-noir-detective-with-addiction-issues series she was going to star in for HBO? Given the populist genre of her next project, it's less likely to disappear. She's about to reteam with Liam Neeson as screen husband for the thriller Non-Stop. Neeson is an US Air Marshall and they're fighting a mysterious enemy who is texting him. Oh please let it be Amanda Seyfried! #AwkwardChloeReunioin

The ginger goddess will also co-star in Dan Fogelman's directorial debut, a dramedy called Imagine.  Fogelman's credits include writing one of Julianne Moore's best screen jokes for Crazy Stupid Love, well, and the rest of the movie, too. The film stars Al Pacino as a former rock star who discovers he has an adult son (played by Jeremy Renner). Julianne Moore will play the hotel manager where Pacino lives. 

Uma Thurman needs a strong director -- nothing wrong with that if you're great when you get 'em -- and she's had a rough go of it, screen-wise since the Kill Bill series. Wising up now, she's joining Lars Von Trier's increasingly star-studded "porno" Nyphomaniac.  There's no word on what her role will entail (though most believe it's the same role that Nicole Kidman vacated) but it's not the title role. That would be Charlotte Rampling, who isn't shy about onscreen eroticism (see: The Night Porter or Under the Sand). update: LOL. My wishful thinking substituted Charlottes Charlotte Gainsbourg, who is a von Trier favorite (Antichrist, Melancholia). Uma doesn't trade on her own erotic appeal nearly as often but she should. Beyond Tarantino's oeuvre I'd argue that her best performance is in the very libidinous Henry & June. To this day I'm still certain she caused the NC-17 even though she (mostly) kept her clothes on.

Uma's been low key enough lately that I blinked and missed the news that she had her new baby in July and named her "Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence Thurman-Busson"! Take that, Gwyneth.

Tilda Swinton is supposedly filming the new Terry Gilliam film The Zero Theorem right about now. The film is about a computer genius (Christoph Waltz) seeking the answer to whether life has meaning or not. I can solve the puzzle for him. Tilda Swinton exists and that is an inexplicable miracle so life obviously has meaning. The meaning being TILDA.

Sir Ian McKellen, who we'll soon see reprise his Oscar-nominated Gandalf role, is the star of the most hilarious news you'll read all week: Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi will be co-starring in a British sitcom about two senior gays living together called "Vicious Old Queens". This seems like it couldn't be true but it is, hunty, it is! The title and stars alone make it a must-see but -- even better -- British series tend to be short which still leaves plenty of time for the drama queens to make their film appearances, too. If the show is half as good as the casting and title, we all win.

Are you excited about any of these projects?

Which actress have you recently lost track of?

Yes, No, Maybe So: "The Hobbit" and "Prometheus"

Just a short time after similarly DRAMATIC (!) black and whiteish teaser posters for the new Batman and Spider-Man movies arrived, posters for the two other 2012 event movies, Prometheus and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey also emerged. Each poster gives us a character's back spotlit as they enter the fantastical of their movie which awaits us too. It's easy to project yourself into the image as you walk into the bright light of... the familiar unknown?

The weird thing about event movies is that they're promoted as if there was only one ONE MOVIE TO RULE THEM ALL but they all seem so interchangeable from a distance. Maybe that's because they're always sequels so the journey we're about to take isn't so unexpected. Even Prometheus is a sequel. Sort of.

The movies all seem interchangable until the trailers arrive to differentiate them. So let's break down Prometheus and The Hobbit after the jump with our "Yes, No, Maybe So" Expectation Management System.

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