Live Blog: Your In-Flight Movie "The Avengers"

The following was written on the flight from New York City to Utah last week as I left on my vacation (and awesome people took over). When I returned home I discovered that The Avengers was reopening on a ton of cinemas for one week only -- Happy Labor Day Weekend -- so I ought not to have strained my neck.

Somewhere in flyover country...

my craned neck view of "The Avengers"

I can't decide which screen to look at. The first one is right in my face (ouch my neck), the other too far from me for its pocket-square size. And another so far it's like looking across the row at someone's cel phone in a bout of nosyness - that won't get you anywhere. This three screen option is one kind of 3-D at least. I have plenty of time to decide which screen to look at because the opening few minutes of The Avengers were never its strong suit. 

The sound mixing is atrocious on airplanes. Also I just realized that I'm listening to the movie in a Spanish dub --  Damn you channel 2. I've switched over to English just in time for meaningless human exposition on Earth. It's not like I would have understood the aliens in any language.  

The Tesseract is misbehaving!"

Samuel L Jackson intones this silly sentence for $500k (he's in so little of this I figure each line delivery is worth ½ a mil) because, you know, everyone understands how a cosmic cube should behave so we all get when it's being a naughty teenager.

Cosmic Cube Rebel ! © Nathaniel R

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Linkomaniac

My New Plaid Pants asked a very smart question of Vera Farmiga. What is her deal with playing mother to murderous children? She'll play Norma Bates for a Psycho prequel tv series.
Playbill Megan Hilty continues her Marilynization with the cast recording of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes "Little Girl from Little Rock" ...♥ Hilty!
Advocate Evan Rachel Wood considering the lead in a girl truck driver drama. Although honestly, I can't imagine what a cross between Smokey & The Bandit and Thelma & Louise, as its described, would possibly be like... tonally speaking.

Movie|Line god bless Ryan Gosling. Hollywood was slow to hand Christina Hendricks the leading roles she deserves but her Drive leading man is now providing one. The film, his directorial debut, is a noir called How To Catch a Monster. Now that that problem has been resolved... can someone hand her the Emmy she also deserves?!
Stale Popcorn reacts to the news that his beloved Jamie Bell will appear in Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac. 

i09 on the desperation Warner Bros / DC must be feeling having let Joss Whedon get away (via their Wonder Woman squashing). Now what to do with The Justice League movie? What to do. Meanwhile...
Vulture Joss Whedon is beginning work on S.H.I.E.L.D. your weekly televised dose of the Marvel Universe and is married to Marvel indefinitely on multiple projects
CHUD apparently Rachel Weisz has been cut out of Terence Malick's To the Wonder entirely. Oh Malick. You're so unpredictable and predictable simultaneously. 
Empire Online Charlize Theron may star in a Marie Colvin biopic. Maybe she wants a second Oscar? Biopics are the way to go. 
Vulture Matt Zoller Seitz on Louie's brilliance

Retro
Advocate Barbra Streisand's next album -- just one month away -- is a collection of unreleased material, including "I Think It's Going To Rain Today". That's such a great song but I can't live without Bette's version from Beaches so nothing else will measure up! Do you think this winter holds a major Babs revival what with this CD in the fall and The Guilt Trip coming to movie theaters for Christmas?
Broadway Blog uncovers an old performance duet between Liza Minnelli and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Tom @ The Broadway Blog finds so many wonderful thing.
Interiors on the great Lost in Translation (2003)

Sofia Coppola creates an impossible scenario using the space of the hotel room; she brings two married people, puts them in bed together, and somehow makes their entire encounter feel innocent.

That film sure is aging well, right?

Link Out Your Dead

My New Plaid Pants a funny exchange between David Cronenberg and Robert Pattinson regarding Cosmopolis' prostrate exam scene
Pajiba 7 performances that changed our minds about actors this year
Movie|Line hey girl, it's the Ryan Gosling coloring book 
Serious Film chooses his Oscar ballot for Best Actor if the awards were only once an... ever. 

Hollywood Robert Pattinson will play TE Lawrence (of Arabia) in a new movie about Gertrud Bell which will star Naomi Watts. She's really, suddenly, fighting for that Oscar again what with all these biopic roles.
Movies Now A Mary Pickford revival is on the way
Arts Beat Raiders of the Lost Ark gets a week on IMAX screens in September. Yay! That'll be fun.

Sad News About Dead Projects
/Film says that Eastern Promises 2 is probably dead. Ugh. I so needed more Viggo as Nicolai in my life. I really did. 
Empire Henry Selick, who did such an excellent job shepherding Coraline to the screen had been working on another stop motion film for Disney. They've pulled the plug. God, hadn't they seen Coraline or The Nightmare Before X-Mas? This man is an amazing talent.

Happy News About Dead Projects
Finally Fox has turned the rights to Daredevil back over to Marvel (who'd like all their characters back, thank you) after not getting it together for a reboot (Joe Carnahan had been mapping one out). Daredevil was obviously Fox's sacrificial lamb because they didn't want to give anything Fantastic Four related back and (contractual) time was running out on both properties. It's really too bad that Marvel can't get all their characters back because they're better at the superhero movie making than the other studios are. Plus, imagine the crossover possibilities. This might be shortsighted on Fox's behalf though because Daredevil is not a bad franchise concept at all. It was just that Fox did a T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E job translating it to screens, with horrible casting, horrible movie making, horrible visualization of Daredevil's radar (he's a blind superhero, remember) and horrible everything. Worse yet they sullied the property by pissing away its best story arc on a subpar movie. The Daredevil vs. Bullseye vs. Elektra arc was nothing short of classic scary exciting unnerving in Frank Miller's hands in the comic books. On screen not so much... or rather not at all. If I were in charge (lol. I'm *so* not!) I'd give up trying to reboot Daredevil as a movie but relaunch him with a TV series, part legal procedural, part organized crime drama, part superheroics.  You'd only get to Bullseye and Elektra once the series had found its voice and sure footing because you don't wanna be fucking that storyline up; it's gold.

And the LINK said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the Blog

<-- Look it's Russell Crowe as Noah in Darren Aronofsky's hopefully insane biblical epic. I hope he's nicer to the CGI tigers than he was in Gladiator.

Links
Vulture Will now middle age Bill & Ted have another excellent adventure?
Pajiba whoa. Darlene Cates, the nearly immobile obese mama from What's Eating Gilbert Grape (the movie that brought us baby Oscar nominee Leo DiCaprio) has lost 244 lbs.
MNPP Shia Labeouf joins Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac
Towleroad Lady Gaga vs. RuPaul. Fierce x 2? 
Cinema Blend looks at the rumors and facts about Warner Bros plans for a Justice League movie. Warner Bros still doesn't get it though, since so many Green Lantern people are still involved. Wake up WB. Green Lantern was terrible. The Avengers would not have become a beloved mega hit if everyone hated the movies that led to it.
Coming Soon Oooh, track listing for Tim Burton's Frankenweenie remake. Karen O has an original song (will Oscar notice this time? They so screwed up with Where The Wild Things Are and Winona Ryder is on the CD too.  

Just 4 Fun
3 things that made me LOL this morning when I most needed to.
Olympic Booty Appreciation I ♥ the titles so much
Call Me Maybe ♫ Chatroulette version
"Pile of PeeWees" from the Crazy 4 Cult show. Scotty C. is the best

Catwoman and Marie Antoinette Would Just HATE Each Other

Shortly after writing about The Dark Knight Rises I got all frustrated remembering how audiences are ignoring the bracing terrific French drama Farewell My Queen so I couldn't resist doodling about them together. Enjoy!

That arthouse drama about The Terror would make for an eye opening double feature for fanboys, an educational footnote if you will, for Chris Nolan's awkward political metaphors about the unruly 99% and how hard they are on those put upon benevolent 1%ers!

Speaking of bags upon bags of money and who's got it... this weekend's box office charts.

Box Office Fifteen
01 THE DARK KNIGHT RISES $64 (Cum. $289) Review
02 ICE AGE 4 $13.3 (cum. $114.8)
03 THE WATCH $13 *new*
04 STEP UP REVOLUTION $11.8 *new*
05 TED $7.3 (cum $193.6)
06 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN $6.8 (cum $242) Review
07 BRAVE $4.2 (cum. $217.2)
08 MAGIC MIKE $2.5 (cum. $107.5) Review
09 SAVAGES $1.7 (cum. $43.8) 
10 MOONRISE KINGDOM $1.3 (cum. $38.3) 

11 MADEA'S WITNESS PROTECTION $2.5 (cum. $62.7) 
12 TO ROME WITH LOVE $4.2 (cum. $12.9) Review
13 BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD $2.5 (cum. $4.1) 
14 MADAGASCAR 3 $4.2 (cum. $209.5)
15 THE AVENGERS $2.5 (cum. $616) Review

Just outside the top 15, French import and international feel good hit The Intouchables is really rising. It's about to hit $5 million in the US and still expanding. Outside of TDKR, the most crowded theaters (i.e. per screen average) were for two indies in very limited theatrical release: NC-17 rated Killer Joe (with Matthew McConaughey and Gina Gershon based on the Tracy Letts play) and Ruby Sparks with Paul Dano as a writer and Zoe Kazan as his creation. 

What did you watch this weekend? Besides The Olympics of course.