Are You "Divine"? On Recent Divas, Heroes, and Sexpots

A NOTE BEFORE WE BEGIN: I am aware that you're impatiently awaiting 2014's April Foolish Oscar Predictions but please to note: I am aiming for April 13th but they definitely won't be here today and that's no April Fool's Joke.

With 2013's best films all soon to or already arrived on DVD, let's wrap up the Film Bitch Awards which are getting later and later each year, damnit! I'm leading with "the most beautiful woman in the world" to your left, Divine, who also went by the alternate title "filthiest person alive." Can't they both be true? If you haven't caught up with the documentary I Am Divine, you should. It's really fun. I saw it about a year ago at the Nashville Film Festival at a late night screening in which two of our fellow moviegoers, utterly sloshed girls we accidentally befriended at a festival party, got lost in the theater looking for each other and tumbling down stairs in the dark (no one was hurt). It was a memorable midnight screening let's just say.

I'm never sure if I should include documentary figures in our extra special 'character-specific' awards but sometimes you just gotta have it. And by it I mean the mad brilliance of Divine. She famously inspired one of Disney's all time greatest villains (Ursula the Sea Witch) but she's competing for the gold in Best Diva this time with another instantly iconic character: Queen Elsa from Frozen.

On the new Film Bitch Awards chart (We've only one page to go and we're done woo-hoo) you'll also find movies like The Heat, Stoker, Man of Steel, in our choices for Best Hero, Best Villain and Diva and Sexpot of the Year. Scarlett Johansson (Don Jon & Her) and Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and American Hustle) both managed double nominations this year so have a looksie.

And please do comment away - I don't relish solitude like Elsa.

Animal Pairs I'm Hoping To See in "Noah" This Weekend

I'm off to see Noah. No, I don't know how or why I missed the critics screenings (boo) but don't tell me which animal pairs get screen time or cameos. I love animals muchly and want lots of screen time for them. Except for maybe mice. Mickey and Minnie aside, I never want to see them and am really pissed that God made Noah take them.

I'm hoping to spot the following couples in the massive march, slither, hop, swim (or wait, maybe he didn't have to worry about the swimming animals?), scurry, swing, and run to the ark.

A full gallery at the jump...

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The Story of Noah's Duck

Tim here. Tomorrow, Darren Aronofsky’s longstanding passion project Noah finally opens, continuing the unexpected trend which has found 2014 turning the Year the Biblical Epic Came Back (what with Son of God in February, and Ridley Scott’s Exodus set for December). Compared to a lot of the A-list Bible stories, Noah and his ark haven’t been seen in the movies too terribly often, but there have been filmed versions of the tale stretching back at least to 1928, when Michael Curtiz directed a part-talkie version that contrasted the traditional story with a tale of soldiers in World War I (I haven’t seen it, but it sounds kind of terribly amazing).

But the whole history of Noah movies would be too daunting to talk about in one short post, so I’m just going to focus my energies on the last time that a major studio turned their attention to the story. As good luck would have it, this was a Disney cartoon: the “Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1, 2, 3 and 4” segment from Fantasia 2000, in which the story of Noah was turned, rather weirdly, into a slapstick vehicle for Donald Duck...

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Dinner with... Joel & Clementine & Link Roundups

November 19th, 2003. Dinner at Kang's again. Are we like those poor couples you feel sorry for in restaurants. Are we the dining dead?"

How did i forget this shot of Joel playing with his food. Food product smiley faces forever

I will definitely be 'the dining dead' tonight... slowly chewing on my food from the same restaurant I always order from. I can already feel the numbness kicking in. Long day. Best to send you off running to other blogs. 

Eat Links Instead
New Now Next is hosting a funny daily March Madness tournament for the "Gayest Cartoon Character of All Time" - I voted already but some of these face/offs are striking, silly, and super. I had to use a lot of "s" so pronounced tha sentence with a sibilant s please. 
YouTube the new Maleficent trailer - same as the one we covered extensively but for more of Elle Fanning and a backstory about Maleficent's wings (!) I am even more intrigued now but I wish movies would save surprises for the theater 
Gawker Landmark theaters invites you to bring your child to see Nymphomaniac Pt. 1. LOL (Hey, it'd be healthier for them than those slasher movies I always see parents dragging their kids into)

Buzzfeed not so insane fan theory about the interconnectivity of Disney kingdoms in Frozen, The Little Mermaidand Tangled. This is trippier than anything Chris Nolan ever dreamed up
The Playlist in addition to just being a mediocre actor Aaron Johnson is also a fussy one and didn't want to have white hair as Quicksilver thus further ruining the character for me in Avengers: Age of Ultron 
The Wrap Tilda Swinton and Barkhad Abdi join Bill Hader and Brie Larson in Judd Apatow's comedy Trainwreck  

Eternal Linkshine
If you aren't yet sick of the 10th anniversary party after all those Best Shots here...
Huffington Post talks to Kate Winset about her memories of the film
Cine Munch for those of you who have more creative energy for a dinner tonight or tomorrow this new blog offers menus and recipes to go along with great movies like this one . Complete with a drink: The Blue Ruin Mind Eraser with my favorite: Curaçao
People Mag 20 elusive facts about the movie - I didn't know a lot of these

New Pixar sequels announced, one more incredible than the other

Disney announced today that Pixar has more sequels in the pipeline after Finding Dory in 2016. For our sins, one of them is Cars 3, because as long as the company can make the GDP of several small nations by selling Lightning McQueen lunchboxes, there's no compelling reason to stop making Cars films, apparently. The good news is that Cars 2 probably sets the bar low enough that the next film in the franchise ought to be able to blast right over it without much trouble.

By far the better news, though, is that the studio is also gearing up for The Incredibles 2, a sequel to the one Pixar film that seems rich with possibilites to have its plot expanded upon. And Brad Bird is on hand to write the screenplay, at least, which is pretty much the only thing they had to say to keep me, for one, more than a little optimistic.

No dates are announced, but the studio has a full slate through Thanksgiving, 2016, so we likely have a solid three years of alternating hopefulness with troubling stories about last-minute director replacements or more.

Anyone besides me genuinely excited for The Incredibles 2? Can anyone muster up something even a little nice to say about Cars 3?