Links: Thrones, Ratings, Floridians

Ultra Culture has a great post on the British ratings board featuring 10 amusing nuggets from their annual report. Conclusion: at least they're better than America's sex-hating violence-loving MPAA.
Boy Culture is British actor Luke Evans (left) going back in the closet, on the eve of his double-feature blockbuster breakout (The Immortals, Three Musketeers)? Strange story.
Cleveland is very excited to have The Avengers film and wants Ohio to become a big movie-making draw. Between Ohio and Michigan's efforts, the Midwest is really trying to up the "shoot your film here" game.
Google interviews author George RR Martin on his Dance of Dragons tour. It's an hour long but you Game of Thrones junkies will probably want to give it a listen.
Playbill The King's Speech is headed to Broadway in 2012 just as we feared. Ha ha. Not really on the fear part. It's already practically a stage play so it should be fine. 
Inside TV Mad Men is finally shooting again. Woooohoooo
AV Club reports that Friday Night Lights has won a "program of the year" honor from a group called the Television Critics Association (which I'm unfamiliar with but it's a different group than the Broadcast Television Critics Association). Mad Men and Modern Family took home the regular "drama" and "comedy" series prizes respectively and Game of Thrones took home the "best new series" prize. Congratulations to all.

Finally here is Nicole Kidman on the set of Paperboy again. 

Whoa Nelly! and by Nelly I mean up and coming costume designer Caroline Eselin, whose previous credits include Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, Ballast and Leaves of Grass. Eselin apparently isn't shy about a riot of color... but then this murder investigation drama does takes place in Florida. 

Review: Captain America The First Avenger

Exhausted by superpowered heroics yet? The summer has already brought us Norse gods (Thor review), dangerous mutants (X-Men review), and intergalactic policemen (Green Lantern review) and we still haven't reached the finish line. Here comes Captain America: The First Avenger, the last superhero to storm the box office beach. Summer's end goal: total world domination by the spandex nation. 

Cappy might be arriving a month too late for his own good, if he was hoping to be greeted by cheers and patriotic parades. The new would be blockbuster would've made a great fit for Fourth of July opening -- damn those giant robots! Given that the studios like to frontload the summer they didn't do this on purpose but I'm pleased to report that they saved the best hero for last. No, really. Cappy is just swell. 

And not just because of that spectacular literal swelling that you've already seen in the TV spots when Chris Evans emerges newly muscled from that sci-fi silly metal cocoon.

... read the rest at Towleroad

P.S. OSCAR POSSIBILITIES?
I didn't discuss this in the review but Oscar hopes for genre pictures are always based on the perceived merits of said pictures only after they're multiplied by box office success. If the film isn't a substantial hit, you can probably count only on Best Original Song, a fun pastiche "Star Spangled Man" by Oscar favorite Alan Menken, which I've included below for your listening pleasure, and some random technical nod. But if it is a hit AND they prefer it to Thor (which I'd bet they will given the World War II period angle IF it's a hit) you could see Make Up due to the Red Skull (that category though... anything goes... impossible to know from year to year what they're actually looking for), Visual Effects if they like Chris Evan's transformation and the shield action... and maybe Sound or even Costume Design. Anna B Sheppard is a true wizard with this time period -- though they weirdly ignored her for Inglourious Basterds -- and the evolution of the good Captain's look is well handled. Can't wait to see how they update this look for The Avengers next year. "Avengers Assemble" and so on. Carry on.

"Star Spangled Man"

Stray Emmy Observations (and Supporting Actress)

Raising Hope is Wacky. So is the definition of "GUEST ACTOR"Now that this morning's Emmy nominations have sunk in here's a few things we didn't cover earlier or didn't dig deep enough into in the earlier rundown, largely inspired by your comments.

Guest Actress in a Comedy Series
This is where we are reminded that the Emmys have too many categories and category fraud adjusts to include all of them. How on god's green earth is Cloris Leachman a "guest actress" on Raising Hope when she's a member of the main family and in every single episode? I see her winning with that unfortunate advantage given that the Glee nominees (Gwyneth Paltrow, Kristin Chenoweth, Dot Marie Jones as "Beiste") may cancel each other out and Tina Fey (as host of SNL) is already buried in Emmys. Since I am adamantly opposed to category fraud and since Gwynnie's follow up Glee visits paled in comparison to her first and since Cheno had virtually nothing to do this season, my vote would have to go to Elizabeth Banks for 30 Rock.

Guest Actor & Actress in Drama Series
These categories usually belong to the Law & Order franchise but this year we're blissfully absent of rapists, perverts and victims. Unless some of the characters I'm unfamiliar with qualify and who knows. Three Mad Men made the grade including Cara Buono's jilted businesswoman, Robert Morse ("Cooper" of Sterling Cooper) and everyone's favorite dead woman "Miss Blankenship" (Randee Heller). 

"'Who got an Emmy nod for mouthing off and getting Lafayette laid proper?' I DID, HOOKER"True Blood's Troubles
True Blood which we've been writing about generally gets 3-5 Emmy nominations but last year it added a surprise "Best Drama Series" to its tally. This year it was demoted again with only four nominations for its third season, the one about the V addicted werewolves and the King of Mississippi. The weirdest bit of awards trivia for True Blood though: It has never been nominated for any acting prizes with Emmy (it's won Globes) until now and the person who did it for them is Alfre Woodard who basically only cameo'd in Season 3 as Lafayette's crazy homophobic mama.

Click to read more ...

O Canada, we stand on link for thee!

Pajiba celebrates the hottest Canadian celebrities for Canada day. I didn't even know that Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) and Helo  (Tamhoh Penikett) were Canadian.
Movie|Line opts for "badass Canadians" like Carrie-Anne Moss and Nathan Fillion. 
unexamined / essentials Lovely review of Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. (I hadn't considered Gil's insomnia before.) Hey maybe when Woody is done with Rome he should continue his world tour in Canada. Maybe Montreal? Winnipeg?
Guardian a new book of private candids of Elizabeth Taylor and famous friends. Fun fact: Liz married Richard Burton (the first time at least) in Canada. The second time they were married in Botswona. Obviously.

Brando & Liz, so candid its almost demystifying.

Rants of a Diva Halfway Report: best rentals, hot boys, best films, and more...
CHUD Why there's no sequel to Spike Lee's Inside Man and what might be next for him. 
Awards Daily They're now calling The Invention of Hugo Cabret, "Hugo" only. Gah, DULL. Audiences are so dumb. Or Hollywood thinks they are. It amounts to the same thing.

Telegraph Whoa. Tim Robey kinda likes Transformers Dark of the Moon. I love this bit especially...

If you wonder why it had to take a spirit-taxing two and a half hours about this, it’s because Bay’s ego clearly considers it logically irrefutable that the longer one of his films is, the better it must be.

You can say the same, unfortunately, for many far greater auteurs. Length -- one might say dick-measuring --almost always comes with the territory of being a respected auteur, whether you're respected for your art or your money-generating craft... the same thing tends to happen.
My New Plaid Pants meanwhile JA fears he'll go see it this very weekend "like some sort of brain-damaged masochist." hee.

 

Finally, Clothes on Film has a fine piece on Kate Winslet's omnipresent floral housedress in Todd Haynes' remake of Mildred Pierce (which should be cleaning up in the Emmy nominations in a couple of weeks -- I'm most curious to see if/how many supporting actress nods it manages since I suspect Brian F. O'Byrne and Kate Winslet are givens). Ann Roth was the costume designer for that miniseries. You can see an interview with Ann Roth about her designing process (not a Mildred interview) here.

The Academy's Production Design Database

Did any of you catch that AMPAS has opened up a Production Design Database? It's just got two sample searches right now "Science Fiction" and "Wedding Clothes" and many of the items you still have to make appointments to actually see but what they do have up gives you a taste of their rich history. (It's better to search more generally -- like say by picking a year -- than to search for a specific film). Since I didn't do as much as I intended for the June Wedding theme here at the blog, I thought I'd share a couple of their illustrations for one last walk down an aisle (and to give you a taste of the type of stuff they have.)

The wedding search is more Costume Design than Production Design but those two departments are usually tight. In the picture above you see illustrations of stars Elizabeth Taylor and Olivia De Havilland in gowns they wore in real life (Liz's wedding to Nicky Hilton) or on film (that's Olivia's gown from My Cousin Rachel).

My favorite thing in their "wedding" database was this: a storyboard of one of the most hilarious scenes from Funny Girl (1968)

Fanny: I ask my looking glass what-is-it? That makes me so exquisite?
Chorus: The answer to your query, is come back dearie.
His love makes me beautiful, so beautiful. You are so beautiful
Fanny: I am so byootiful.

That scene makes me LOL every time, how about you? Barbra Streisand totes deserved that Best Actress statue.