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Chris Sanders unused storyboards from the new animated film The Croods 
In Contention which Sundance films have Oscar potential?
CHUD What's next for David Fincher? Gone Girl or 20,000 Leagues or...
John August ooh listen here. A whole podcast on the wonderful Raiders of the Lost Ark
Empire Rosario Dawson nabs another female lead role. This time it's Queen of the Night from Atom Egoyan. To what do we owe this sudden upswing in her career? We want to thank whoever/whatever is responsible.

Awards Daily a trippy poster for Danny Boyle's Trance starring James McAvoy and Rosario Dawson
Studio Briefing 39 minutes of Cloud Atlas cut for its Chinese release. Maybe if it were 39 minutes shorter I might not have... no, never mind. Let's not go there again!
Coming Soon The Marvel Studios tv series "S.H.I.E.L.D." has begun filming
Gothamist wonders if TV's "The Carrie Diaries" (i.e. Sex & The City: the Prequel) is getting 1980s NYC all wrong
Bleeding Cool posters for 47 Ronin with Keanu Reeves getting the whitewashed leading Japanese samurai role (fwiw: Keanu has some Asian ancestry so this is kind of like the Johnny Depp as Tonto thing)
MNPP Everyone's favorite moment in Skyfall 

... or maybe you have a different one?

Finally... Have you seen this amazement? 

A dress made up of pictures of Natalie Portman crying twitter.com/milesmaker/sta…

— Miles Maker(@milesmaker) January 22, 2013

Dear Sundance: You Make Me Want To...

So please stop telling me that Richard Linklater's Before Midnight, which gives us a third precious day in the lives of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) & Celine (Julie Delpy), is perfect. It's like dangling a morsel of deliciousness outside my cage.

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Woody Comes Home: Blue Jasmine Tea Leaves

Hey folks. Michael C. here. There are few constants in my pop culture life. Woody Allen is one of them. The last time a year passed without a Woody Allen movie was 1981 when I was one year old. Like The Simpsons or SNL, I don't pay nearly as much attention as I used to, but I take a great comfort in knowing they're always there and always will be. I'd be lost if they ever went away.

The past eight years of Woody. How many did you see? Enjoy?

So I'm on board no matter how many Jade Scorpions he compulsively cranks out from now until eternity. I'm already picking through the just released details of his 2013 film, Blue Jasmine, if only in the hopes that my annual pilgrimage will be a brilliant Crimes and Misdemeanors or at very least an entertaining Vicky Christina. At this point there is no more than a title, a cast list, and a brief synopsis, but I already spot some reasons to be optimistic that this might be Good Woody Allen or at least what passes for Good Woody ever since the 00's showed just how painful Bad Woody could get.

5 Reasons to Be Optimistic About Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine

1. The synopsis released by Sony Pictures Classics reads...

the story of the final stages of an acute crisis and a life of a fashionable New York housewife.”

MORE...

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Amir's Most Anticipated Films of 2013

Ewan McGregor and I (from TIFF). What movies do you think he's looking forward to?Amir here. For most of us moviegoers the first day of January doesn’t coincide with the start of a new film year. We wait for the release of films like Zero Dark Thirty or Amour in our corners of the world. But to wish you all a slightly belated happy new year, I thought there’s no better way to semi-start 2013 than with a top ten dozen list of possible cinematic treasures that await us.

It was a tough task to narrow down but that’s the fun in list-making. I know I’ll be first in line when Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac hits the screens, or when Under the Skin, Jonathan Glazer’s long-awaited follow-up to the masterful Birth, is unveiled. And how could I not be excited about Side Effects from the always intriguing Steven Soderbergh, or Les Salaudes, the newest film from Claire Denis, one of our greatest living directors? James Gray’s Nightingale almost made my list, as did Park Chan Wook’s Stoker and Edgar Wright’s The World’s End. Joachim Trier, whose last film Oslo, August 31st was my favorite of 2011 (2012 for many US critics) is working on an English-language debut called Louder than Bombs,  too. I’ll be there for all of them, but if I had to pick only a dozen films to watch this year? Here they are....

12. I’m So Excited
An apt title for a film on a list of this kind, but that’s definitely not the only reason I’ve included it here. Pedro Almodovar, everyone’s favorite Spanish auteur, is going back to the realm of comedy with this story of intersecting romances and dancing gay flight attendants on an airplane.

I’m So Excited stars a whole lot of Spanish stars like Javier Camara, Cecilia Roth, Lola Duenas, Paz Vega and my biggest crush of the moment, Blanca Suárez. Almodovar’s regulars Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas are apparently in for small roles. 

more after the jump...

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Chloë Moretz is Ruining My Life

It's been so long since I had a cinematic arch-enemy: Daughter of Tippi who haunted my youth is rarely onscreen; The Swankster is hibernating (it can't be long before a "comeback" though, right?); Zeéeeee has receded so suddenly that it's feeling like Meg Ryan 2.0 (and Meg never deserved the sub zero shoulder she got so abruptly); and Nicolas Cage has marginalized himself into the peripheries of bargain bin movies... though he still has an uncanny ability to find ways to co-star with my most beloved leading ladies of various eras (Turner, Cher, Streep, Moore, Kidman).

Enter Chloë Grace Moretz.  

It's been so long since I had a cinematic arch-enemy maybe I should try to enjoy this. In a "boo hiss" sort of way, mind you. In addition to Chloë's general smug ubiquity and her sacriligeous miscasting in the Carrie remake alongside my goddess Julianne Moore (who should know better post Hannibal) she has now decided to double down on forcing me to look at her; she's attaching herself like a parasite to my all time favorite actress. She's already played Michelle Pfeiffer's daughter once in Dark Shadows. She's doing it again in Tim Robbins next directorial effort. The film, which Robbins will also star in, is called Man Under.

Variety describes it like so:

In the vein of "American Beauty" and "The Royal Tenenbaums," pic follows a Yonkers family whose lives are changed forever when a photo of them ends up in the Museum of Modern Art.

Now, there's no word yet on if they're officially mother and daughter again this time but considering it's a movie about a troubled family, it's a safe bet.

The silver lining? At least this means Michelle Pfeiffer wasn't lying when she said she wanted to get back to work. If filming gets under way soon on this one, we'll have two Pfeiffer pictures in 2013! See also the crime comedy Malavita.