Sex & The Linky

Sound on Sight has a massive post about famous ongoing director/muse collaborations: Liv & Ingmar, Lynch & Dern, Fassbinder & Schygulla, etcetera...
Empire Chris Evans is becoming a director with 1:30 Train, a romantic caper about a woman trying to catch the 1:30 train (with the help of Chris Evans, who will co-star)
Pajiba celebrates the release of 2 Guns. "Boom, you've been Denzel'd"

In Contention 15 awards players still looking for distribution including one I hadn't heard of Tracks with Mia Wasikowska crossing the desert with John Curran (The Painted Veil) directing. I've been thinking that the Best Actress chart is leaning a little 'woman of a certain age' for Oscar's taste (if not for mine) so maybe Mia and are peers are just in hiding right now? 
David Poland says that the bullshit myth is that originals don't make big money at the box office and it's only sequels that did. He backs it up with titles.
Variety Whoa. are the Weinsteins going to get Miramax back. A merger may be in the works
Cinema Blend on the list of possible Bale/Batman replacements for that Superman/Batman team up movie. Surprisingly they're not all super famous with Richard Armitage (The Hobbit) and Max Martini (Pacific Rim) both on the list. Weirdly there appears to be little thought of Joseph Gordon-Levitt despite that The Dark Knight Rises Robin set up.

You guys, I can't decide if this "What if Woody Allen directed The Wolverine" is funny or not. Help me decide.

I think I'm in the place of LOL without the OL part. So, maybe not? I like it in concept!

/Film Warner Bros is still trying to get that Akira Without Japanese People abomination made.
MNPP The Golden Girls dollhouse? Amazing!
Signs and Sirens hates on Blue Jasmine. My review will be up tomorrow.
Coming Soon Josh Trank says the rumors about Miles Teller being Reed Richards in the Fantastic Four are not true. Good -- I like Miles Teller a lot but he's about 90% wrong for that role -- but it's going to be terrible anyway. Why must Fantastic Four movies be so terrible? 

Finally, I feel I've been remiss in not linking up to Emily Nussbaum's great great rescue piece on "Sex and The City" in The New Yorker. People have been discussing it online for a few days but I hadn't mentioned it. I'm so glad that a writer as scalpel-sharp as Nussbaum is a fan and performs this reputation resuscitation operation. It's too bad that the show's rep suffered after the two theatrical features drifted towards becoming what people always accused the show of being. Which it never truly was. I especially love her (correct) assertion that Carrie Bradshaw was the first female anti-hero on television. Carrie was of course reviled for it whereas her male counterparts in terrible behavior are regularly championed by fans and critics. I know people probably think I harp on gender politics too much here at the blog but what's happened to Sex & The City is a classic example of sexism at work. Canons are one of the best places to see the power of the heteronormative patriarchy thrown into obvious relief. "The greatest this!" and "The greatest that!" lists and the people who make them like critics organizations and awards shows and such often dismiss "feminine" identified films, tv, genre or entertainments as lesser than merely be excluding them from the conversation. But if you can't include "Sex and the City" as one of the shows that was instrumental in ushering in television's golden age -- just as crucial as "The Sopranos" -- you just weren't watching closely enough.

You're Gonna Need a Bigger Link

Super Cafe Batman and Supes argue about the title of their upcoming duo movie (Batman's voice is perfect)
Pajiba 25 celebrities you didn't realize were related by marriage 
Angry Nerd has Pixar's number with the brand debasing. NO PREQUELS
Empire Director Zhang Yimou may helm the umpteenth remake of The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Josh Brolin as Quasimodo. I'll only be satisified if Brolin sings "Out There"
Guardian looks at Nollywood (Nigerian cinema) and its depiction of LGBT people
Cinema Blend Sarah Michelle Gellar on a possible movie version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and, essentially, why there won't be one) 

MNPP "we three films of disorient argh" wins my vote for best blogpost title of the month and it's only August 1st! JA pontificates on The Grandmaster, Blue Jasmine, and The Call
Tim Brayton thinks its been a rough summer at the movies and in this August preview it's not looking any better
i09 Frankenstein poster sets new record for movie poster at auction
TV Blend Rob Lowe and Rashida Jones are leaving Parks & Recreation. Time to wrap it up, Pawnee. The 6th season is usually when great television starts a downward slide to ungood anyway. (See: too many examples to mention)
Coming Soon Aaron Taylor Johnson talks Quicksilver. He wants the part in The Avengers: The Age of Ultron 

Today's Watch

Our favorite couple of yesteryear filmmaker/genius Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master, Boogie Nights) and musician/genius Fiona Apple have reunited for this music video "Hot Knife". This is my favorite track on her latest "Idler Wheel" and I'm happy it brought them together again... at least for an afternoon to shoot this. Maya Rudolph is cool with it I'm sure. 

Coda
Finally, as follow up to Michael's piece about the Broken Blockbuster culture in Hollywood, /Film is warning us that the enormous grosses for Despicable Me 2 have convinced Universal that their all franchise all the time credo is the right choice. But mostly I want to suggest that you read this piece in The New York Times Magazine about Jaws (1975).

...from that point forward, the tiniest splash of a minnow could set the audience shrieking.

This is really what “Jaws” was about: Not sharks, but fear. Not action, but suspense. That’s what made it possible for the story of a single shark to scare millions of people into avoiding 71 percent of the earth’s surface.

They're right, you know. We really should stop blaming that excellent character-driven film for the terribleness of today's disappointing character-free blockbusters... even if it did make Hollywood obsessed with gobbling big profits each summer.

"I Am Legend" Predicted Meeting of Superman and Batman

Glenn here. Long before it was announced at Comic-Con that the Man of Steel would join forces with The Dark Knight, Superman and Batman were already joining forces on the big screen...

That's a shot from Francis Lawrence's 2007 apocalyptic zombie flick I Am Legend. The timeline proved to be a little off - Legend is set in 2012, but the Superman/Batman flick won't reach cinemas until sometime in 2015 - but that's still pretty good foreshadowing, don't you think? Even the artwork they revealed is virtually identical.

What do we think of this news, anyway? Rash damage control after audiences proved less enthused about Man of Steel than initially hoped (I very much enjoyed it for whatever that's worth), or genuinely exciting meeting of the brawn ala The Avengers? And was Warner Bros just being cheeky when they inserted this fake billboard easter egg into I Am Legend or was it their sly their plan all along?

Twins: Electro & Mr Freeze

Have you seen the first official still of Electro (Jamie Foxx) from The Amazing Spider-Man 2. This is it, albeit quite, um, altered by my photoshoppin' whimsy.

Can The Amazing Spider-Man 2 be as terrible as I want it to be? I mean please please please for the love of all that is holy in comic book cinema please don't be just dull and bland and redundant like The Amazing Spider-Man reboot. Please be just straight-up terrible so that you're fun to hate! Like Batman and Robin (1997)!

What Would Superman Do? A Superhero's Guide to National Security Crisis

[Editor's Note: Please enjoy this guest post from the recently Reader Spotlighted Andy Hoglund. We haven't said much about Man of Steel (Nathaniel hasn't even seen it yet!) so here's Andy to do some thinking about it for us!]

Life is about choice, particularly in America. Coke or Pepsi. Elvis or Beatles. Biggie or 2pac. The choices we make engulf us, setting course for the lives we lead and informing the men and women we are to become.

No choice is more indicative of who we are than a decision made by most early in life. Though perhaps aided by circumstances out of our control – marketing, household income, geographic location – I feel nothing better defines a person’s character than their answer to this simple question:

Batman or Superman?

Sure, at first it’s a distinction without a difference, maybe even a little inane. After all, both are superheroes owned by the same parent company, originated in the same decade of American pop culture and, indeed, arguably the two most beloved superheroes in the country (sorry Iron Man).

But, in a rare streak of bipartisanship, politician fans of both characters have crossed the aisle to support their favorite superhero. Their endorsements may underscore nothing less than our continued capacity for a broad political discourse. [more...]

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