Links: Refn Gosling Love, Tang Wei Wins, Green Lantern Bile

Alt Screen rounds up takes on Martin Scorsese's New York New York (1977) now that it's freshly released on Blu-Ray. Liza Minnelli is so great in that movie. I'm so excited to see it again. The Blu-Ray is still in its wrapping though. Must get to that soon.
Film Dr "12 notes comparing a purple bottle cap with Green Lantern" (One thing I deeply appreciated about dumbass movies like Green Lantern is the creativity they inspire in critics.)
<--- Movie|Line goes to the LA Premiere of Drive (2011) and enjoys Nicolas Winding Refn's freewheeling intro speech including this bit.

Now, I want to thank Ryan Gosling, because he gave me the opportunity to come to Hollywood and do this movie with him. It all started on a very strange blind date between us that led to a very strange, notsexual encounter, but it led to a mental creation between us. And of course, we couldn’t have done that without Jim Sallis’s book called Drive, which I highly recommend. 

i09 great find: an old "Equal Pay Act" PSA starring Batgirl from the Batman tv series.  ♥ 
Twitch has a series of neon movie posters from artist Mr Whaite. Here's Pulp Fiction.

I said god damn.

Pajiba "how homophobia lost its cool" good piece from a hetero man which kicks off with the homoeroticism of Michael Fassbender & James McAvoy in X-Men First Class
The Awl really lets loose the bile with Green Lantern and what's become of a too dominante subgenre of movies. (Note: We all know that reviews do not exist in a cultural vacuum so will the mass hatred for Green Lantern help or hurt Captain America reviews next month? It could go either way...) 
IndieWire Vera Farmiga hits Provincetown to promote Higher Ground 

FINALLY...

I'd like to personally congratulate Tang Wei, who many fine actress connoisseurs have been rooting for ever since her startling debut in Ang Lee's Lust, Caution (2007). In the past two months she's picked up not one but two awards for recent performances in the romantic films Crossing Hennessy and Late Autumn. To make those rewards more impressive, one was from China (and remember they forbade her from working for a time after the sexual explicitness of Lust, Caution) and the other was a Korean Award which had reportedly never gone to a Chinese actress before. You can see her winning that one in this clip below. (She starts in Korean, switches to English, and then moves over to her native tongue.)

Will Crossing Hennessy and Late Autumn ever make it to US or European theaters? Stay tuned.

Beauty Break: Tang Wei & Takeshi

Tang Wei! We're just so happy the Lust, Caution star is working again. Here she is in Cannes for her Wu Xia (2011) photoshoot.

Photographed by Andreaz Rentz for Getty

She also walked the red carpet and hit the parties with another of our favorite Asian actors, Takeshi Kaneshiro.

He's the man Hollywood SHOULD be calling if they really want to skew older for the live action version of Akira as all of the casting reports indicate that they do.

46 year-old Keanu Reeves recently turned down the lead role in the live-action version of the classic anime. We've already griped about the casting, but mostly due to the white washing. That they're ignoring the film being about teenagers doesn't bother us as much since it's so rare that Hollywood decides to go older instead of younger. Takeshi is half Japanese, a decade younger than Keanu, has movie star appeal, and looks superb in action sequences (see House of Flying Daggers among others) so why not him?

Links Episode #2,011

Tang Wei acting againPop Matters Jane Fonda is here to talk fitness -- not the movies! Though the first question does both. Interesting interview from Matt Mazur.
Carpetbagger Sundance has a new 'it' girl Felicity Jones
Asia Scene visits Tang Wei on the set of her new film
Nicks Flick Picks kicks off his Best of 2010. Yay!
The Hollywood Reporter Anthony Hopkins for the Hitchcock bio? Ewww.
Pop Matters "10 things i'm already sick of in 2011" heh. some people can't ever be pleased.
Kenneth in the 212 Jake Gyllenhaal on the Q train. I love seeing celebrities in the subway. It's so rare. One spots them far more frequently above ground here in NYC.
Your Movie Buddy what... you don't wanna stay in the Star Gazer Suite from Blue Valentine? Why the hell not?

Finally, have you been reading all the pieces about whether or not The King's Speech can defeat The Social Network? Some subjects just take on a life of their own whether or not they're yet relevant. Some say it can, some say it can't but you know what I think it all comes down to? What their nomination tallies are like come Tuesday morning and how large The King's Speech's box office (and roughly parallel, the audience fervor) grows. These are the principle reasons why I haven't jumped into the debate. The competition for Oscar is an entirely different race, after the nominations. Don't you think?