Link Jr.

Vulture psychologically astute piece by Kim Morgan on Lindsay Lohan's reality show 
The Front Row on the lost generation of indie film and filmmakers from the 1990s
New York Times Rubin "Hurricane" Carter dies at 76. Did you ever see that Oscar nominated Denzel performance in The Hurricane?
/Film Quentin Tarantino continues work on The Hateful Eight, his "leaked" first draft of a Western

imgur fascinating compilation of screenpaps from Captain America: The Winter Soldier. That list of culturally important things people have told Captain America to google and how it changes in each country 
Variety we haven't checked in with crazy Takashi Miike lately. He's making a Yakuza Vampire flick now 
i09 Wonder-Con happened this weekend which means fun creative cosplay photos. (I miss loving geek culture which I haven't for a long time really... I loved it before "geek" became a compliment).
i09 Dudes in distress, saved by damsels from Wonder Woman's Steve Trevor to The Hunger Games Peeta
Variety Cannes Critics Week sidebar revealed
Film School Rejects on the anniversary of Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr and audience resistance to movies that comment on moviegoing
Out Matt Bomer talks The Normal Heart 
Variety The Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon sequel Green Destiny - is happening later this year. But since it doesn't have Ang Lee or any of the original stars (through necessity plot-wise, really) other than Michelle Yeoh... how much of a sequel will it feel like to people. 

Thoughts I Had... While Watching The "Lucy" Trailer

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Maria Full of Grace if it had been a Luc Besson picture bankrolled by a major studio

That part with the eyeball is cool but I don't understand how increased brain capacity allows you to make your eyes change color and your hair grow super fast and change colors? These are brain functions of which I was not yet aware.

Yes, No, Maybe So: Jupiter Ascending

For April Fools Day a Yes No Maybe So on a trailer promoting a movie that could well be a folly.

Though I am on record at having loathed Cloud Atlas I appreciate movies that operate from the outer edges of sanity. I'm always curious when the Wachowski Siblings make a movie despite a despairing qualitative free fall: their first was their best (Bound), their second their second best (The Matrix) but it's been a precipitous drop each and every time so at this rate they'll make the worst movie of all time soon. Will it be Jupiter Ascending? 

I realized this trailer arrived a week ago but it's been busy chez moi. I made a wee bit of time today because... well, you'll have to see why in the Yes column after the jump. 

Click to read more ...

Review: Divergent

This review originally appeared in my column at Towleroad

Erudite. Dauntless. Abnegation. Amity. Candor. Doesn't have quite the same ring as "Charisma. Uniqueness. Nerve and Talent" does it? But it's with the awkwardly titled five factions of DIVERGENT's world that we begin. In some future Utopia young citizens must choose their faction (a fancy word for tribe) on their 18th birthday after taking an aptitude test that reveals where they truly belong. They have the option of any faction but most, we are led to believe, choose either the tribe they grew up in or the tribe of their aptitude and these are often the same. Nature vs. Nurture and all that, you know.

Our heroine Tris (Shailene Woodley) lives with her parents in Abnegation, the "selfless" tribe that runs the government -- your first clue that this is total science fiction! They also feed the homeless (aka the "factionless"), dress like monochromatic fashion-forward Amish and eschew mirrors. Beatrice is played by Shailene Woodley and her parents are Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwyn (Scandal) - our first clue that this is actually a Dystopia*; how long could any of them survive without mirrors?

Tris is ready to jump and we continue after ours...

Click to read more ...

Linkomaniac Pt. 1

The Daily Beast talks to Uma Thurman about Lars von Trier and gender politics
Five Thirty Eight parses Shakespeare and finds that Romeo & Juliet have a relationship that's not totally based on getting to know one another. Duh!
The Wire reviews Doll & Em, a new miniseries starring Emily Mortimer 

Playbill Katharine McPhee has landed a series lead gig in a CBS show called Scorpion. (I guess they never saw Smash?)
Salon on the eve of the release of Divergent, a reminder that not every YA best-seller aiming for Hunger Games phenom status succeeds: Beautiful Creatures, City of Ember, The Host and more...
The Guardian Brittany Murphy's final film, Something Wicked, is completed four years after her death
Vulture 294 "issues" Glee has addressed in its first 99 episodes
Variety they went really young casting Peter Pan for that self proclaimed "international" and "diverse" Pan film which keeps casting white people in all the roles (so I guess what they mean by diverse is international and all ages). The boy's name is Levi Miller

Today's Long Read
The complete short story "The Birds" which inspired Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 classic and will inspire the remake (argh) which might star Naomi Watts and be directed by Diederik Van Rooijen -- which I keep hoping will be cancelled -- is available online if you've never read it. It's from Daphne du Maurier who Hitchcock obviously liked as she also wrote Rebecca. (Thanks to Sasha for pointing it out.)