Some thoughts on David Fincher's 60th birthday
Today, The Academy tweeted this image of David Fincher's filmography and asked which three you'd choose to watch in a marathon.
But even before they did we were thinking about David Fincher...
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Today, The Academy tweeted this image of David Fincher's filmography and asked which three you'd choose to watch in a marathon.
But even before they did we were thinking about David Fincher...
Fight Club is an exhausting film. Years of heated discourse and malicious fandom have made it so, its miscalculations laid bare by the legacy it has earned. Inheriting the pulp narrative of Chuck Palahniuk's source novel, the movie is a failed satire, critique made incoherent by cinematic idioms where the visceral appeal of style is at odds with necessary intellectual remove. The love many feel for it is still easy to understand, whether it's masked by irony or proudly defended. David Fincher's bravura filmmaking makes toxicity seem cool, kinetic and self-aware. Though, Fight Club seduces too well and, in the end, is unable to bat away its lovers with some feeble pretension of dissected masculinity.
If 4chan had a cinematic embodiment, here it is, as gloriously enraged as it is putrid and entitled, shallowness dressed in a costume of depth. Quite frankly, it's even exhausting to write about the thing. Maybe because so much has been written already. After so much discussion of its theme, intent and Mephistophelean stylings, I propose we discuss an element of the picture that's rarely examined – the art of acting Fight Club…
10 random things that happened on this day, October 15th, in showbiz history
1888 A letter written "From Hell" was postmarked on this day for the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. Was it actually from Jack the Ripper? The letter is now lost and the murders were forever unsolved. The story has fascinated Hollywood forever. Anyone remember the movie From Hell (2001) with Johnny Depp and Heather Graham?
1917 Exotic dancer Mata Hari is executed in France for espionage. Many films have been made about her.
More after the jump including Joan Crawford, Penny Marshall, Michelle Pfeiffer, a missing hunk, and "You Light Up My Life"...
by Nathaniel R
Octavia Spencer announced on Halloween that she'd be dressing up as an actor "instead of a cat with boobs."That's a perfect nonsense funny to make while sharing a photoshopped portrait of yourself, don'cha think?! But the girls who won Halloween on the internet were these three adorables in this widely circulated photo of Hidden Figures costumes. Little mini Tarajis, Octavias, and Janelles, yaaas.
Some celebrities actually did dress up for the holiday -- and not for an acting job -- this holiday so we're sharing the pics we could find. Patricia Clarkson, Zoe Kravitz, Samuel L Jackson, Busy Phillips, Kristen Bell and many more after the jump...
Before we get to the link roundup a bit of Oscar Housekeeping. There are no significant changes to the rules this year so we're stuck with "somewhere between 5 and 10 nominees" in terms of Best Picture (I'd been hoping for a set number, no matter what that set number was, as I like the awards to have proper comparative pleasures in the grand scheme of history). Wisely though in minor changes, the visual effects category gets an expanded finalist list before nominations (smart), and the shorts category get longer finalists lists to choose from and the number of nominations per category is set at a concrete five (it's usually five but sometimes it's less depending on how voting goes, currently). I do like the consistency but I wonder why they're still holding out on Makeup and Hair -- EVERY FILM USES IT which is more than you can say for a lot of categories. The makeup branch should get 5 nominated slots like every other Oscar branch category. Sucks to be them.
Links
MNPP Flaunt and Jason try to convince us to love Aaron Johnson. Hey, no one else will.
A Fistful of Films reviews Inside Out from a parental perspective and cries all the way through it
Dissolve David Tennant takes over a Robin Williams voice role in the animation adaptation of Chew. I didn't actually know they were making this but that comic, which a friend of Anne Marie's turned me on to, is SO good and weird. So I'm excited for this
Towleroad somehow I missed this Magic Mike XXL clip of Matt Bomer singing. When perfect gets more perfect it's just so not fair, you know?
Kenneth in the (212) RIP Dick Van Patten. Remember "Eight is Enough"?
Mike's Movie Projector looks back at Dirk Bogarde in 1960
Movie Mezzanine looks back at The Blues Brothers (1980) -- I knew so many people who loved this movie growing up but I never "got" its appeal
The Hot Blog David Poland talks Inside Out's "Bing Bong"
Screen to... Other
Theater Mania 45 years after Love Story (1970) Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neal are working together again -- they'll tour with the play "Love Letters" which had a short run on Broadway recently with rotating older celebrities
AV Club Fight Club (1999)... for kids?
Playbill Michael C Hall (Dexter) will star in a new Off Broadway David Bowie musical based on The Man Who Fell To Earth this fall. It's called "Lazarus"
Deadline Emmy winning Laurie Metcalf, so brilliant currently on the underseen sitcom Getting On has replaced Elizabeth Marvel in the upcoming Broadway adaptation of Misery (1990). So she does the Bruce Willis hobbling honors now
Showtune to Go...
The first photo of Taye Diggs as Hedwig has been released to excite you for his theatrical run in one of the great roles! So naturally our Showtune to Go this time is a Hedwig toon.