22 Link Street

actually there's only 15 links... 15 link street. Lots of reads for you today, here and elsewhere

My New Plaid Pants has a wonderfully incisive review of Joe starring Nicolas Cage and Tye Sheridan
The Film Doctor nostalgia in the Smithsonian. Notes on Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Empire brilliant stage actor Mark Rylance will play Johnny Depp's father in Eyesore in Wonderland's sequel Through the Looking Glass
The Wrap Matt Damon planning to go solo on Mars in the sci-fi thriller The Martian about an astronaut marooned there. Remember when Matt got lost in the desert in Gerry? That was intense. I'm so ready for Matt to impress me again but honestly he's been a little dull onscreen of late. Needs a role that will shake him up.
Cinema Blend 22 Jump Street gets a final red band trailer

The Front Row on dream projects and Darren Aronofsky's Noah
Theater Mania Bullets Over Broadway opens on Broadway today in the effort to make the Great White Way an all 90s film adaptation monopoly. (Seriously there are so many) 
The Wrap The Truman Show (my #1 of 1998) which was about a reality tv show starring a man who didn't know he was the star of a tv show may well become a tv show. The levels.
THR Taylor Kitsch talks about his, uh, crotch in his pants on The Normal Heart. Costume design by Daniel Orlandi
Coming Soon the posters for How to Train Your Dragon 2 have arrived. I love that first film muchly but I worry about a sequel as I always do
Pajiba Mae Whitman (Parenthood, The Perks of Being a Wallflower) inexplicably cast as Designated Ugly Fat Friend in new comedy
The Wire has done a smart thing, surveying where we've been with each crucial Mad Men characters these past six years as we begin the final season this Sunday 
Vanity Fair Kierna Shipka (Mad Men) can't promise she won't break our hearts 

Anniversaries
The Wire Joe Reid ranks the cast of indie hit Go (such a good one) long after that road trip movie on its fifteenth anniverary. My favorite part was always the subtitled cat. 
Film School Rejects looks back at Shaun of the Dead on its 10th anniversary. What does it teach us about relationships?  

Today's Watch
Jon Stewart educates the Christian Right / Fox News axis of evil on the Bible and Noah. I seriously would lose my sanity dealing with the news if it weren't for Jon Stewart

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

Late Night Link

The Wrap the new triangular Oscar logo
French Films About Trains "Category is: 2013 Realness" 
i09 Paul Rudd to play Hank Pym aka Ant Man in the future Marvel movie for Edgar Wright
Digital Spy... and Edgar Wright shares his ten favorites of 2013 (and Short Term 12 is on it so I love him even more now)

Cinema Blend Hugh Jackman to play the villain in the new Peter Pan film for Joe Wright... but he's not Captain Hook
Deep Cuts the best music scenes in movies this year
Film School Rejects 3 films getting Oscar rereleases and 3 that deserve to get the same treatment
Variety 'how American Hustle conned the critics' a scathing review of... um... either the movie or its reviews. 
Vanity Fair David O. Russell's last minute decision to cast Jennifer Lawrence
Vulture Taylor Kitsch on The Normal Heart, Lone Survivor and his resistance to doing a Friday Night Lights movie
Cinema Blend Superman heirs still seeking back the rights. So much drama with superman. (Shouldn't he be in the public domain soon anyway? Damn corporate America and its perversion of copyright laws!) 

National Film Registry
Finally, the Library of Congress announced the 25 new titles they're adding to their list of culturally important films. The honor is mostly symbolic since nothing actually happens to the films in question. It doesn't grant them funding for cleaning of their negatives or restoration or guarantee a Blu-Ray release or any some such but it's still a lovely tradition. Mary Poppins is included this year which only prompted "that wasn't already in there?!?" from me followed by a 'well, that's suspiciously good timing for its 50th anniversary Blu-Ray release and the Oscar campaign of Saving Mr Banks." But I love Mary Poppins (here is evidence) so i'm thrilled.

The 25 Films:  Bless Their Little Hearts (1984), Brandy in the Wilderness (1969), Cicero March (1966), Daughter of Dawn (1920), Decasia (2002), Ella Cinders (1926), Forbidden Planet (1956), Gilda (1946), The Hole (1962), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), King of Jazz (1930), The Lunch Date (1989), The Magnificent Seven (1960), Martha Graham Early Dance film (1931-44), Mary Poppins (1964), Men & Dust (1940), Midnight (1939), Notes on the Port of St. Francis (1951), Pulp Fiction (1994), The Quiet Man (1952),The Right Stuff (1983), Roger & Me (1989), A Virtuous Vamp (1919), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966), and Wild Boys of the Road (1933)

Which ones that you haven't seen are you most curious about? I'm thinking I should finally get around to The Quiet Man because Maureen O'Hara. And though I've seen it already I should probably revisit / write up The Right Stuff because it's so good and people just don't talk about it enough.

Lone Surviving Open Thread

What's on your cinematic mind? What movie are you thinking about? Do share!

What's on mine? Well, I just got back from Peter Berg's Lone Survivor which I had to watch through my fingers it was so violent. Proud wuss in the movie house! If you want to see Mark Wahlberg, Ben Foster (mvp), and Emile Hirsch just totally brutalized with makeup effects - burns, bruises, bullet holes, broken bones -- have I got a movie for you. Also if you share my fear of monster trapeziuses, please be warned that Taylor Kitsch's totally wants to grow up to be Tom Hardy's. 

Review: "JOHN CARTER"

This review was originally published in my film column at Towleroad.

Let's begin with a man and his dog. First, the dog. Woola is an unsightly creature but oddly endearing. He's the size of a pony but he looks more like a lizard or a toad albeit one with six visible legs and hundreds of sharp teeth. He reads all dog though -- a mutant pug. His assignment and then devotion is to guard the human prisoner John Carter (Taylor Kitsch).

John Carter of Virginia has been magically transported to Barsoom (aka Mars)  and the green martians who discover him don't know what to make of him though they love his mad jumping skill. Mars' gravity makes John Carter the Earthling a superman, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. When John Carter tries to escape his prison early in the film, he finds it impossible to elude Woola whose multiple legs carry him across the Martian desert in super sonic zig-zag fashion, clouds of dust trailing behind him like a Road Runner cartoon. The adorable mutant pug always appears wherever bouncy John Carter is about to land. Neither man nor beast are moving in a circular fashion but they're not getting anywhere. Eventually they'll be right back where they started.

Points of origin are important. Home, and our journeys to and from it, are at the heart of John Carter's multi-limbed adventure.

MORE...

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Beauty Break: Taylor Kitsch of Earth

I'll tell you how I feel about John Carter of Mars this weekend but since we're midway through the week let's pause for a breath, a sigh, and to absorb the beauty of Taylor Kitsch of Earth.

He started out as a model and after breaking through as an actor playing Tim Riggins on television classic Friday Night Lights, he proved he could pop on the big screen with his cameo as Gambit in the otherwise execrable X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Now he's getting true showcase parts in blockbuster films. John Carter hits this weekend and Battleship arrives in the summer.

I read A Princess of Mars (the first in an 11 book franchise, and the basis of this film's plot) when I was a little boy. Literally the only two things I remembered about it as an adult were that:

1. the green martians had six arms
2. John Carter and his princess were totally naked!!! 

These are the things a little kid commits to memory. Since I remembered nothing else I thought it would be amusing to test my memory and I Kindled "A Princess of Mars"... BEEFCAKE & BOOKS after the jump

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