A Handful of Link

Pop Elegantarium Alexa's Rosemary's Baby costume she was hinting at the other day in her Curio column. Well done!
/Film new images from Django Unchained
In Contention interviews the production designer of Moonrise Kingdom Adam Stockhausen
Big Thoughts From a Small Mind has a mea culpa about Sidney Lumet in 12 Angry Men. Confession: I myself have never seen this movie but I have seen productions of the play so I am unschooled in the furious dozen

 

Unreality reminds us that with that Star Wars purchase, Disney now also owns a certain fedora wearing archaelogist adventurer 
Monkey See predicts several headlines that will appear when the new Star Wars film is released in 2015. Hee
Awards Daily wonders if the lack of the DGA before Oscar nominations, might throw off the usual correlations
Vimeo if you're already missing Halloween -- it was kind of unsatisfying here on the East Coast without the usual festivities -- here's a creepy impressive 30 second short called "Rot" 

And we end with a very well cut fan vid 'James Bond Death Match,' all six Bonds fighting it out for supremacy.

I demand another rematch.

Gotham Awards: Moonrise on The Loneliest Planet

Michael C. here. The Gotham Awards announced its slate of nominees yesterday. The National Board of Review and the NYFCC are generally considered the starting pistol to Awards Season, but The Gothams slip in a few weeks early with their tiny pool of voters and eclectic mix of nominees. This year's roster is no different: 

Best Feature:

• Bernie (Richard Linklater)
• The Loneliest Planet (Julia Loktev)
• The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)
• Middle of Nowhere (Ava DuVernay)
• Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)

The Gotham have proved themselves a fair indicator of which titles will end up the year's critical darlings highlighting such past films as A Serious Man, The Hurt Locker and Winter's Bone. Ever since the Best Picture category expanded at least two of the Gotham's five nominees have gone on to Oscar nominations. Last year it was The Descendants and Tree of Life. This year The Master is clearly the big dog in this category, but is it wishful thinking to hope that Moonrise won't be overlooked in the deluge of year end accolades?

As for snubs it is tough to say... [Continue]

Click to read more ...

Podcast: I Know What You Saw Last Summer (Pt 1)

The podcast returns for another Oscar season! I'm your host Nathaniel R and my ol' podcast mates Joe Reid & Nick Davis are joining me to discuss Summer Movie Season 2012. That's a wrap on summer so we're tying it off with our idiosyncratic messy multi-colored bows...

This podcast was inspired by our Summer Report Card series. Topics include but are not limited to:

• What's Wrong With Virginia? (no, really)
• Compliance
• Killer Joe 
• Best Picture Choices, Favorite Scenes, Summer Crushes
• Beasts of the Southern Wild and Oscar's Music Branch
• Hope Springs and Steve Carell
• Steven Soderbergh pros and cons & Magic Mike
• Sparkle
• Joe's hilarious ongoing obsession with Oliver Stone's Savages
• Bachelorette
• Moonrise Kingdom and  Red Hook Summer Double Feature
• Lesbian longing in Farewell My Queen
• Michael Fassbender as the next Ed Norton?

You can download the podcast on iTunes or listen right here at the bottom of the post. There's more coming in Part Two tomorrow!

I Know What You Saw This Summer (Pt. 1)

Linkrise Blogdom

Rex Pickett, the author of Sideways, writes an open letter to Virginia Madsen. As a writer I get why he's pissed but I do think he's undervaluing the depth of her contribution to that movie.
Playbill Peter O'Toole is retiring from acting, on both stage and screen. 
Ginger Haze awesome Spider-Man vs. Lizard cartoon
Variety Chris Cooper has joined the August: Osage County. It's an Adaptation reunion... let's just pray that Mr. Cage doesn't show up. 

Movie|Line Robert Pattinson talks bullshit about playing James Bond. Wouldn't it be so weird if your every wandering train of thought spread all over the internet? 
The Cooler beautiful essay on Wes Anderson's Noah Ark motif in Moonrise Kingdom 
The Film Stage a preview Nathan Johnson's futuristic Looper score.  
Encore Entertainment Clothes Horse. Can you guess where these costumes are from?
Shock Til You Drop displays the Carrie (2013) banner from San Diego's Comic Con. The hashtag the P&A team is pushing is #WhatHappenedToCarrie ... um, well... She got pointlessly dug up from her grave for starters. To be played by the least meek least shy least awkward teenager on the planet.

Oh and yes, I heard about all the Catching Fire casting news and the splitting Mockingjay into two movies and all of that but I do not care.  I was mildly interested in the Hunger Games franchise until today. I mean, I definitely didn't hate it like that other YA franchise. Now I think I'm done. Now it proves, like too many franchises before it, that it has no interest in storytelling, only an interest in feeding Hollywood's gaping maw. I think, no exaggeration, that this split up final books into two movies to make an extra billion even if it means barely anything happens in the movie is the worst thing that's happened to mainstream cinema in the past five years. Even worse than 3D!

Tweet o' the Day: This Games of Thrones funny is from Scott

Basic Link-stinct

Never Mind Pop Film lists "rules of the cinematic universe" and they're really so true
Tom and Lorenzo Sharon Stone is still a star
The Oregonian theories as to why festival hits do such middling box office 
Empire The Hobbit Parts 1 & 2 have finished filming. 
/ Film How ridiculous is this? A new Aliens related video game won't include any playable female characters? Fans are up in arms. This is after all the franchise that starred Lt. Ellen Ripley and now Dr. Elizabeth Shaw. 

The Film Doctor on Wes Anderson's miniaturized world in Moonrise Kingdom
Handmade this is so cool Moonrise Kingdom Cross Stitch. This movie is aging well in my brain... and heart.
Interiors Film Journal maps out the great elevator scene in Drive
Burbanked on the trailer to Here Comes the Boom. I would only add: why is no one complaining that the plot is like a grotesque parody of Warrior (2011)? 
In Contention Tapley asks a smart question "Could Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes's divorce make The Master this year's zeitgeist movie?" 
Hollywood.com ohmygod. with headlines like this "Could Dark Knight Rises win Best Picture?" all I can say is 'Here we go again. Gird your loins!'

Off Cinema 4 Fun
Abtruse Goose "arithmetic for beginners" 
Twaggies this website illustrates funny tweets. This one has a movie connection sort of 

Today's Must Read
Listen, I know I link to Tom Shone way too much. I have a massive mancritic crush, I freely admit. I just love his writing. His new column for the Guardian "Magic Mike turned me gay!" is great... Like Mr. Shone, I am bisexual at the movie theater so I appreciate the confession. The article even veers towards the difference and sameness of the "male and female gaze," a topic we just happened to be on while discussing Kim Novak in Picnic (1955).