I, Linkenstein

Big Screen
Artsbeat Alfonso Cuaron talks us through a dizzy-making scene in Gravity
Flick Filosopher "Hollywood, you are 300 movies away from making me want to marry you" The manic pixie dream guy bit is fab. It's so hard to imagine... which is the point. 
Guardian Olivier Hirschbiegel reacts to the terrible reviews to his Diana biopic 

David Poland 22 weeks to Oscar. He correctly sees that there are very few locks but bizarrely thinks Forrest Whitaker is a lock for Best Actor for The Butler
BuzzFeed live action footage (and actors) that helped created The Little Mermaid 
i09 thinks I, Frankenstein might be the most insane movie of 2014
Movie City News asks a great question about Amy Adams in American Hustle 

Small Screen
Salon interviews Adam Scott on his television breakthroughs and his new film A.C.O.D.
i09 Honestly I did not see this coming. Halle Berry, whose big screen career is still going well (consider how much her ermegency call center movie made), will headline the tv series Extant about an astronaut whose baby might be half alien

Look! A new Halloween opening for The Simpsons courtesy of Guillermo del Toro so naturally there's a fair amount of Pan's Labyrinth up in there. Lots of movie referencing but the funniest bit I think is that misanthrope naughtiness of the Alfred Hitchcock cameo via The Birds. 

Finally, can I just say "amen" to this Vulture piece requesting a moratorium on anti-heroes as the leads of television series?  I mean you're not going to top Don Draper, Tony Soprano, Walter White, Carrie Bradshaw (yeah, she was one. deal with it) and Nurse Jackie... so let it die a natural death now instead of death from ubiquity. Mark Harris has also wisely noticed that this trend has now poisoned the broadcast networks without the antidote of the artistry that made this type of protagonist so popular on cable television in the first place.

NYFF: World on Fire in The Czech Republic's Oscar Submission

TFE's 51st New York Film Festival continues with Jose on Burning Bush

The morning of January 16, 1969 seemed like it would be a regular Thursday in Prague, that is if there was anything "regular" about living in a country that had been occupied by the Soviet Union. On that day, 21 year old student Jan Palach decided it was time to remind his countrymen that they were being demoralized by the occupying forces, his mean of protesting was to set himself on fire in the middle of busy Wenceslas Square. Palach's self immolation was part of a collective protest, which warned the government that more young men would repeat his actions until the Soviets left Poland. 

Renowned filmmaker Agnieszka Holland was a college student around the time and the event left such an impression on her that she chose to make it the starting point to build the epic Burning Bush. The four hour long film (it was broadcast as a miniseries in Europe) is one of the most impressive chronicles of modern history captured on film and it was rightfully chosen as the Czech submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Holland talked about the making of the film during a press conference at the New York Film Festival. 

 

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Seven Notes on "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."

It wasn't long into the pilot episode of Agents of SHIELD last night that I realized something unflattering about myself: loving Joss Whedon was so much more fun and pride-inducing when it was a subculture and not the culture. If you loved Buffy The Vampire Slayer AS IT WAS AIRING you were, in point of fact, a very awesome person. Everyone loves Buffy now so loving it is expected and the only reasonable thing to do. Yelling "first", which is stupid trolling when it happens virtually on the internet, is actually deeply pleasurable when rooted in real life. So writing about SHIELD now feels a bit lame since I know everyone will be doing the same. "It doesn't need your opinion!" you try to reason with yourself to prevent the babbling, knowing that talking about something that literally everyone is talking about is roughly the same ROI as talking about something that literally no one is talking about. In both scenarios no one notices in the din/silence. (But then you end up having one (opinion!) anyway because you always do. And it's Joss Whedon and you can't help yourself.)

Seven notes on the pilot after the jump...

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Emmy Predictions. Who Are You Rooting For This Weekend?

Giant all caps disclaimer coming at'cha: I AM NOT A TELEVISION PUNDIT. I have never claimed to know what I'm doing with predicting Emmys though occassionally I try. I watch way more TV than I did a decade ago mostly due to the invention of the DVR and also probably because TV got more cinematic and thus better. I am not a TV pundit but I like to watch and you know I like to opine. It's an action verb. 

Herewith my poorly informed predictions regarding Sunday nights award's. Plus a few comments and trivia notes.

DRAMA
The Nominees: Breaking Bad, Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, Homeland, House of Cards, and Mad Men
I'm Rooting For: Mad Men. Always. It's literally the only show I've ever watched as it aired that I'd hand the best series prize to for each and every one of its seasons (thus far). For example: I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer like life but I would've handed the top prize to a couple of different things and different times during its 7 year run.
Prediction: Given Emmy's prospensity/habit to repeat winners, you have to consider Homeland a threat for a second consecutive win even though you'd be hard pressed to find one person alive who thinks the second season measures up to the first. Downward sloping quality both true (Downton Abbey) and perceived (Mad Men isn't as "enjoyable" as it once was but it's still challenging meaty triumphant television) rules them out as well. Which leaves us with House of Cards and Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad, the latter of which I think is winning the internet the Emmy for the first time.

comedy series and 8 acting categories after the jump...

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Creative Arts Emmys: Lily & Melissa & Liberace

The Emmys have 5 bajillion categories so they can't announce them all on their PrimeTime ceremony (next Sunday! We'll live blog or something?) so last night they did their 'not ready for primetime' prizes for shows on... uh... primetime

And the winners are...

Guest Actress, Comedy: Melissa Leo as "Laurie" on Louie
Guest Actress, Drama: Carrie Preston as "Elsbeth Tascioni" on The Good Wife
Guest Actor, Comedy: Bob Newhart as "Arthur Jeffries/Professor Proton" on The Big Bang Theory
Guest Actor, Drama: Dan Bucatinsky as "James Movack" on Scandal
Voice Over: Lily Tomlin, An Apology to Elephants (HBO) 

File it under "if only it were a triple crown". Before 30 Rock popularized the notion of the "EGOT", the only multi-prize haul that the general public cared about by nickname was "The Triple Crown" (Oscar, Tony, Emmy) which still makes more sense as an aspirational haul for celebrities. Anyway, Lily Tomlin adds another Emmy to her trophy haul which includes 2 Tonys and a Grammy so the only thing preventing her EGOT is that she lost the Oscar for Nashville... (sniffle).

The LEOgend, Liberace, and more more more after the jump

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