"The Link! The Link!"

My New Plaid Pants Meet Brienne, who'll be very important on Game of Thrones. Eventually.
Critical Condition asks what it will take to get Ewan McGregor an Oscar nomination? We've been asking this for years. He ought to have at least two by now (Moulin Rouge! and Trainspotting)
Tom Shone makes a sound ExPat confession about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Heh.
Frankly My Dear remembers Richard Linklater's Slacker for its 20th.
Pajiba Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) will play Hervé "the plane! the plane!" Villechaize in the biographical My Dinner With Hervé. Like Pajiba I don't see a resemblance at all but Dinklage is a great actor so we wish him all the best in the role.
Sunset Gun recommends Over the Edge with Matt Dillon as a great time capsule and timeless rebellion teen film. I haven't seen this one but I'm now intrigued.
PopMatters I'm not going anywhere near Zookeeper but I'm finding the reviews somewhat interesting in a staring through thick glass kind of way. This one wonders which voice actor has the worst job in the film. That's a good question! 

Several blogs have been noting the revision of the Straw Dogs poster -- the original version is to your right where Alexander Skarsgård is mysteriously inside of or ramming into James Marsden's eye (ouch!) rather than reflected in his glasses. Poster design is so half-assed these days, right? It looks much better (to your left) now all black and white and reflected. BUT while they were revising shouldn't they have come up with their own design rather than just recreating the original poster from the 70s Dustin Hoffman film?

Poster design is just so frustrating in Hollywood. The internet reminds us every single day --  and usually several times an hour -- that there are abundant graphic artists out there with the talent to make this another golden age of movie poster design and it just never quite happens. Hollywood, which runs on images, doesn't trust the visual literacy of its clients.

Maybe they shouldn't. I mean I'm sure you've all heard someone look at the rare illustrated movie poster and say "is that a cartoon?" but it's still sad-making.

Quickies: Window Women, Green Guns, Dendro Disciples

Superheroes and their phalluses. I swear.Quick Pet Peeve: I haven't seen it yet but why is Hal Jordan so unimaginative with his power ring in Green Lantern? I mean, you can create anything with it so you're just going to make a machine gun? Dullzzz-ville. Is this going to be like that time when vampires and werewolves were suddenly fighting with guns, draining them of all their supernatural mojo?

Quick Note: Tonight's episode of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" will air tomorrow at noon instead. This day is crazy busy so I won't be ready in time. To prepare why not watch Fritz Lang's 1944 noir WOMAN IN THE WINDOW on Netflix Instant Watch.

Quick Poll: So many people are [ahem] tree-inclined these days. There's more than just hugging going on. From Justin Vivian Bond to The Stark Boys, who wins Dendrophile of the Week?! Vote.

poll by twiigs.com

Quick Question: Salt sequel with Angelina Jolie is a go. Have you any interest at all?

Links Unchained

Twitch is following the tweets on the casting of Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. I have to say it's a little disappointing to hear the name Leonardo DiCaprio. One of Tarantino's greatest gifts is finding A list ready performances from B and C listers and if it's DiCaprio AND Will Smith...
Deadline They're always threatening it but it's actually happening again. Craig Brewer hired to reboot Tarzan. I will be crushed, crushed I tell you, if they don't hire an unknown for the ape man.
Pajiba has an open letter to Blake Lively's publicists concerning the nude pics. Very funny. Love the ending.

Awards Daily I was going to post a "Cast This!" game for the proposed Liz & Dick movie from Martin Scorsese, but Sasha beat me to it. I kind of love her second choice: Charlize Theron. Charlize, with dark hair, would make a FAR  more convincing Elizabeth Taylor than Angelina Jolie would, I must say. Just because Jolie is the closest thing we have to Liz in terms of global icon or wealth and glamour with fascinating love life does not mean she really looks like her.
Stirred Straight Up With a Twist Friends of Dorothy (Malone). Teehee
Antagony & Ecstasy on Terrence Malick's Badlands
My New Plaid Pants Quote of the day: Bradley Cooper on Wet Hot American Summer
Stale Popcorn asks a question that does haunt me on occasion: which is the better Marilyn Monroe performance: Bus Stop or The Misfits?
Serious Film I was late linking up to this in the Moulin Rouge! post but it's definitely worth a read. Michael has a push/pull love/hate relationship with Baz Luhrmann's polarizing musical... still!

Off Cinema
TV|Line Mad Men Season 5. The writers are back in the room. Ugh, such a long wait.
Winter is Coming Bitches Hilarious Game of Thrones tumblr
TV|Line Jane Lynch to host the Emmys. 5 things we want to see. I would like to co-sign on #4 (Best in Show related gag) and hoist it up to #1.
Sketchy Details surveys the "Original Score" contenders at the Tony Awards.
Boing Boing which keys on your computer do you hit the most?
Playbill the Spider-Man musical on Broadway owes Julie Taymor tons of funny. See, this is why you pay your bills on time... how embarrassing to have to pay someone who made it such a fiasco after the fact! ;)

And here's the new Robyn video simply because we love her. So should you. And we also love anything that reinforces the potency of the unbroken take; you don't need to cut every .5 seconds to generate visual energy!

There's just something about Robyn's voice. It was created in a beeker labelled "perfect pop star pipes"

Miscellinkia: Beatty-ful Summer, Vampiric Tilda, Gamey Thrones,

Links
Ultra Culture Cannes Abuse Checklist. An invaluable chart!
Boy Culture scores the first Val Lauren interview post Sal Mineo / James Franco casting.
Scanners Opening Shots: Woody Allen's Another Woman
IndieWire wonders if winning the Palme D'Or equals box office revenue. Well... it might if any Palme D'Or were released immediately after their win. But by the time they're released summer prestige glory is usually a footnote. Take Uncle Boonmee. No, it was never going to be a "hit" but wouldn't it have played better if it had a normal curve of buzz, release, discussion? Instead of opening 10 months later?

Tilda, Ezra and Lynne Ramsay at the WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN premiere

Movie|Line wonders if a slow burn favorite might win the Palme D'Or instead of The Tree of Life. Cannes Jury predictions crack me up each year because everyone assumes its done deals (just like the Oscars)... but it's often far from predictable.
Towleroad GLAAD Awards. Kim Cattrall's acceptance speech is quite funny. 'I played a gay man on a popular tv show'
Slash Film Tilda Swinton and Michael Fassbender for a Jim Jarmusch vampire flick? Curious and possibly awesome. I guess this means that Countess movie with Tilda isn't happening though. I can't see her doing two vampire films in a row.
Film Doctor steals notes froms the Mrs for Bridesmaids

Gagging on Game of Thrones
I know that my initial impression of HBO's Game of Thrones was far less favorable than most critics and fantasy fans, but can I at least get an amen that the casting of both "fourth in line" Renly Barantheon and his lover The Knight of Flowers, who are often described in the book as intensely charismatic, is terribly off. The casting does not reflect either The Knight of Flowers legendary beauty or Renly's reputation as the most charming fellow in the Seven Kingdoms. They both come across as whiny slightly-bitchy wimps which is about a 180 from the books wherein The Knight is someone you'd NEVER want to meet on a battlefield he's so deadly physically and Renly is someone everyone wishes were king. I really am not pleased with this. And I did not to hear those campy sound effects for well, MOVING ON... But I'll admit that for all my reservations, the series is hooking me just like the first novel did. That first novel was so brilliantly plotted but I really must stop watching this before it goes off the plot horse never to remount in any subsequent books or, uh, seasons as the new case may be.

A Beatty-ful Summer
Tonight in New York City at 92 Street Y, elusive actress/writer/director Elaine May will be showing her cut of the infamous 80s flop Ishtar starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman. May will discuss the movie afterwards which she rarely does. I'm totally going. Tickets are still available. And then in June, the man himself will be appearing at a Dick Tracy screening in Los Angeles to discuss the movie. Tickets for that are $30 but it's a rare opportunity to hear Beatty talk about his work and see that comic flick on the big screen. If I were in LA, I wouldn't dream of missing it. But then I have an unheathily attachment to Beatty and his Mrs.

Quickie Poll

What? Hollywood always goes so phallic in the summer.

poll by twiigs.com

Tweet

Thor, Bridesmaids, Game of Thrones  Kristen Wiig