Catching Up With the Linkses
Saturday, December 14, 2013 at 4:45PM The Wire a definitive ranking of the hair in American Hustle. Elizabeth Röhm's Dolly Polito and that awesome bathroom showdown between Amy & Jennifer are not high enough!
NY Post gives you more background on The Wolf of Wall Street's Jordan Belfort and how filthy rich he still is. So much for penance!
Vulture interesting piece on Inside Llewyn Davis and discrepancies with actual folk music culture as it was experienced at the time
Cinema Blend first images from Transcendence with Johnny Depp
Movie City News 12 weeks to go in the Oscar punditry game. Why is so little changing?
MNPP renames Hercules "The Legend of Pecules" which is all well and good since Kellan Lutz beefcake will surely be the only reason to watch it
LA Times looks at the quiet subversive Oscar campaign for James Franco in Spring Breakers (oh I so wish the Globes had had the guts to go there
List-Mania
Alan Sepinwall's top ten TV of the year including Southland and Top of the Lake (yes times two) and I really co-sign the comments on both Mad Men and Masters of Sex
Matt Zoller Seitz's top ten TV of the year
Stephen Holden's top thirteen of the year. So much capitalistic anxiety
Cinephiled this podcast gives you a peek inside the voting for the Los Angeles Film Critics Awards. I meant to share this last week but it's very much worth a listen: Starring James Rocchi, Karina Longworth, Alonso Duralde, and Amy Nicholson
A.O. Scott's top ten of the year with love for the Coens and the McQueen but I'm most enthralled by #10 which goes like so:
10. ‘The Great Gatsby’/‘The Wolf of Wall Street’/‘The Bling Ring’/‘Spring Breakers’/‘Pain and Gain’/‘American Hustle’ Six variations on the big theme of our times: “Just look at all my stuff!” It’s capitalism, baby! Grab what (and who) you can, and do whatever feels good. We’re all going to hell (or jail, or Florida) anyway.
Slant individual top 10s from their team. And...
Slant top 25 films of the year (collectively) with lots of love for Museum Hours, Her, and Inside Llewyn Davis.They also loved two films I hated: Bastards (to me Claire Denis' nadir) and Upstream Color
Off Cinema
The Advocate on the gayest responses to Beyoncé's surprise album release.
Gawker 'Beyoncé is just like everyone else only much better'
(I'm not really a music person but I definitely admire a capable surprise and in this day when most entertainment WILLFULLY spoils itself before it premieres I am so proud of this woman I don't even care about! I can't imagine how a celebrity that big kept all of that a secret when other celebrities and their teams were involved)
Playbill it's hard to imagine an odder pairing than avante garde performance artist Taylor Mac and Broadway legend Mandy Patinkin but here they are co-starring in The Last Two People On Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville which starts performances today! Hope I get a chance to see this one.
Reader Comments (9)
Hear, hear, re: Bey. The gulf between the release of the first single from an artist's new album and the album itself has never seemed more ludicrous. (I'm looking at you, Britney, Gaga, and Katy Perry!) Better to just drop it all at once, like an atom bomb.
I am genuinely shocked by the amount of praise "Spring Breakers" gets. It has to be the worst film I've seen all year. If any of you like it, can you explain why you like it? I enjoyed the score, but other than that...
"Where's Django When You Need Him?"
And that would be my tag line for The Wolf Of Wall Street.
Really loved the inside baseball podcast about the LAFCA voting on Cinephiled. All four of those critics have such distinctive tastes in films but there is an admitted politicking. Such as the case in that it appears that 3/4 critics loved Franco in Spring Breakers but admitted to also voting for him in Supporting Actor to primarily attempt to block Jared Leto from winning.
You disliked Bastards? :( That's in my Top 5 of the year. Love me some Denis and yeah, I was in on the Robert Towne-inspired neo-noir elements. Her kind of nasty streak is always way more interesting than her male contemporaries. Lola Creton has one of the best silent performances too.
A.O. Scott responding to people critical of why he stacked #10 on Twitter was hilarious.
Tyler: I loved Spring Breakers because I found it had a lot to say (about gun culture, girl culture, "the youth") and presented it in a really interesting way.
However, if you disagree with that - i.e., that it had nothing interesting to say and presented it poorly - I can see how it would be unbearable.
A.O Scott's #10 is perfect -- I loved all those movies and I'm sure I'll love Wolf of Wall Street, too.
@Mike - I think that is a VERY generous read, but I appreciate your reply. :)
Beyoncé plays the game like no one since Madonna. If ever there was an argument for auteurism in pop music, Beyoncé IS the argument.
Loved that podcast! Love the lists! This has been such a good year for pop culture, so all these typical end of year things feel so much more celebratory than usual.
I am in love with Beyonce for doing this. I've always been somewhat of fan but she has really matured musically and visually with this album. Also, her release strategy (out of nowhere, no hype etc) is a breath of fresh air.