A Handful of Link

Pop Elegantarium Alexa's Rosemary's Baby costume she was hinting at the other day in her Curio column. Well done!
/Film new images from Django Unchained
In Contention interviews the production designer of Moonrise Kingdom Adam Stockhausen
Big Thoughts From a Small Mind has a mea culpa about Sidney Lumet in 12 Angry Men. Confession: I myself have never seen this movie but I have seen productions of the play so I am unschooled in the furious dozen

 

Unreality reminds us that with that Star Wars purchase, Disney now also owns a certain fedora wearing archaelogist adventurer 
Monkey See predicts several headlines that will appear when the new Star Wars film is released in 2015. Hee
Awards Daily wonders if the lack of the DGA before Oscar nominations, might throw off the usual correlations
Vimeo if you're already missing Halloween -- it was kind of unsatisfying here on the East Coast without the usual festivities -- here's a creepy impressive 30 second short called "Rot" 

And we end with a very well cut fan vid 'James Bond Death Match,' all six Bonds fighting it out for supremacy.

I demand another rematch.

Princess Leia "I'm Going to Disneyland!"

she'll fit right in.

The news travelled 'cross the web faster than hyper speed earlier tonight. Princess Leia has found a new home at Disney, the Mouse House having purchased all things Lucasfilm for a wee $4 billion and stock.

One day Disney will own the entire world but it's okay because corporations are people. And you'd totally be okay if one person owned the entire world, right??? Pray that your future corporate overlord will be a benevolent dictator... who giggles a lot and wears mouse ears.

Star Wars Episode VII: The Quest For More Billions, or whatever they'll eventually name it, is aiming for a 2015 release. That's quick. I hope they have a screenwriter already typing away. And I hope that screenwriter's name is not George Lucas.

The best part of this news is the Star Wars ride possibilities at amusement parks are endless. The worst part of this news is that the Star Wars franchise is already so over-exposed and now it'll be even worse! What Disney's done to Tinkerbell depresses me virtually every day and what horrible ubiquitous personality-changing fate might lie in store for Leia or the Ewoks or Jabba the Hut or (gasp) Jar Jar Binks.

If the new film is not set too far into the future following Return of the Jedi, will Princess Leia resurface and if so who on earth could play her? Let's do an impromptu Cast This! Ideally though, they'd go with all new characters and let Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford do cameos as their classic trio many years on.

The Link Squad

The Film Stage Gangster Squad, with its machine gun in the movie theater moment -- already revealed in the trailer --  may be delayed or reedited now in the wake of Aurora Colorado tragedy. (I figured this was coming)
i09 Lt Ellen Ripley and Child, painted. Other sci-fi women also iconized. 
Telegraph RIP Actor Simon Ward of The Tudors, Three Musketeers, Supergirl, and Young Winston fame. He was 70 years old.
Rope of Silicon is wondering about the Oscar chances of Beasts of the Southern Wild now that it's expanded well.

My New Plaid Pants Quote of the Day via The House of Kermit
Pajiba Dustin recounts his single most humiliating experience as a critic. Curse you, Taylor Lautner!
The Broadway Blog celebrates musical theater's belters: Sutton, Babs, Lupone and more
Hollywood Elsewhere has lunch with the Criterion Blurays of Rosemary's Baby and Sunday Bloody Sunday
Vanity Fair says goodbye to The Dark Knight Trilogy with a behind the scenes slideshow 
Vulture looks at the dissolution of the TomKat marriage
NPR this is sweet, actor Donald Faison (Clueless, Scrubs) on the movie he has seen a million times: The Empire Strikes Back
The Film Doctor discusses The Dark Knight Rises with a film major at Waffle House. Cheese, eggs, raisin toast, and spoilers.

P.S. Yes, yes. I did start a review myself and I hope to have it up today but I'm moving in slo-mo this week.

Twins: Luke & Leia

twins daily at 2:22 pm (while we're in Gemini)

Like most people of my generation I grew up with the Star Wars franchise (1977-1983. It ends there, right?) as the single most defining pop culture event of youth. I did not, however, feel any particular need to have it as a continuing Force (heh) in my life, afterwards. By the time I was a teenager I had already moved on to the collected works of dramatic actresses as The Single Most Satisfying Form of Entertainment. So I'm kind of amazed still that in any given month on the internet you can find dozens of new articles or tumblr items or deviant art sketches or nsfw riffs or ANYTHING at all about the franchise. It just doesn't stop... even after George Lucas tried to kill it cluttering up the beautifully sparse frames of the originals with merciless revisionism and CGI accessorizing.

Yet despite my lack of continued love for the franchise to end all franchises (or, more accurately, the franchise to start all franchises -- that's all we get now!) I will admit that Luke & Leia still have a very special place in my adult heart. 

More on Padmé & Darth's twins after the jump...

Click to read more ...

That Linking Feeling

Go Fug Yourself riffs hilariously on a photo of Noomi Rapace & Charlize Theron at the Prometheus premiere. Guldbagge!
Film Studies for Free "all that pastiche allows" looks at Far From Heaven, All That Heaven Allows and other examples of pastiche
The Kid in the Front Row discusses "the scene that made it all worth it" in Friends With Kids. I still haven't seen this one but love the cast. Same deal with Salmon Fishing... What's keeping me?
Liz Smith on all that's riding on the product known as Jeremy Renner who'd rather be "a good human" 

The Guardian Darth Vader and son. Tee hee
Indiewire wonders if Matthew McConaughey could be an Oscar contender for Magic Mike. I wish I had done a post about this last week. It occurred to me and I even wrote a wee note about it on the supporting actor page but my then original thought will now be lost in groupthink.
Clutch have you heard this shady catfight rumor re: Michelle Obama vs. Kerry Washington?
Metro on Kathleen Turner still touring with the play High. Love this quote from her on her many health problems and continuing on through all of them. I wish one of my other favorite actresses [ahem] felt similarly committed to her gift:

There has been a lot of work that had to be done to be able to continue and carry on and I can’t imagine not being able to act. It’s what I set out to do when I was a kid and I love it so much... I know that I would find another work for myself if I really couldn’t (act), but until I’m completely, physically incapable of acting. I am not giving it up.

Cinema Blend has a gallery from the digital artist TXE (name?) which illustrates 93 (!) characters from the Game of Thrones franchise
The Mary Sue has a piece on actors who have starred in multiple franchises. "Get Over It"... I know most people enjoy this but I can't be the only person who hates hates hates the same actors starring in everything? I am too much of a polyamorous film slut? I need some variety up in here! I really do. I don't like the idea of Storm being Catwoman and Iron Man being Sherlock Holmes and so on. 

Randomness: Here is the new poster for Rust & Bone. J'adore Jacques Audiard movies. I mean Read My Lips, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, A Prophet...

What a roll, huh?

If Rust & Bone is as good as those it'll be one of 2012's highlights for sure.

offscreen just for kicks
Monkey See "I died on the Titanic" a personal memoir 
Boooooom shows you impossibly tinyfood sculpture
The Mary Sue animal mating rituals described in humanoid cartoons. Isabella Rossellini is surely sporting wood reading this.