She's Gotta Link It

Deadline Happy news! Billy Magnussen, who is fabulously funny on Broadway in Vanya & Sonya & Masha & Spike (I reviewed it) will play Rapunzel's Prince in the film version of Into the Woods
Variety I started with happy news because ABC Family cancelled Bunheads which is just killing me right now. Another singular piece of entertainment shuttered too soon because networks don't have the guts to support shows that aren't entirely formulaic and interchangeable with other shows concurrently airing. They say "we took extra time to try and find ways to bring the series back for another season" but I see no evidence that they did that. 
Signs and Sirens a provocative think piece on Melissa McCarthy's aggressive rise to the top of film comedy

Los Angeles Times RIP Actor Dennis Farina (Get Shorty, Midnight Run, Law & Order)  
AV Club bless them for publishing this list of 22 Best Picture winners that were released in the first six months of their years. This topic is dear to my heart and I'm always trying to sell it to Hollywood and nobody seems to believe me. Maybe people will believe the AV Club? 
New York Times on Woody Allen's gift with vivid female characters 
Cinema Blend The Freddie Mercury biopic is falling apart because surviving Queen members want it to be PG clean? Oy. Best that this project falls apart!
Movie City News David Poland does some thinking aloud about Netflix. I love reading about this even though he loses me once he starts getting into a fast food analogy. But I wish someone would address the issue of accessibility. I really am having nightmares about this post-Netflix world when suddenly it's so complicated to find movies again. For a short while, the first few years of Netflix it seemed like ANY movie was available for watching and for only one monthly price. It was heaven. Now it's constricting again and you have to really search for movies and pay per view instead of subscription fees. I hate it! I do not want to have to look at Hulu, Amazon, iTunes, and Netflix and godknows what else every time I want to seek out a piece of Oscar history. Each new technology change we lose pieces of the history of the movies. It happened with VHS to DVD and it's happening now with DVD to the splintering market of Streaming. It saddens me. 

Finally...
Another day, sorta disingenuous Kickstarter plea to get a rich celebrity funding for a movie that they claim they couldn't make within the system even though they got a lot of shit made through the system in years past!  Spike Lee is the latest millionaire asking his fans for cash. Now, I respect Spike Lee as a filmmaker far more than the guy who popularized this trend - Lee has made several provocative ballsy movies outside of and within the system that only he could have made. Some of his joints are even incredible movies (Do the Right Thing, 25th Hour) and even his failures tend to be interesting!

This is a mothafuckin body of work right here 

I like Spike Lee and  I am not against asking for money as my sidebar reminds but asking for money is for people who don't have it ;) People who earn a substantial living doing what they do -- should they really be the same ones shaking tin cans on the street? It's a distortion of the point of crowdfunding. The people who can't get movies made within the system are the ones that Hollywood doesn't know exist, not the ones Hollywood already supports with paychecks. I wouldn't find this trend so distasteful if even one of these celebrities would just speak the truth which is this:

'I COULD get the movie I wanted to make made within the system and get paid for it but it might take a longer time than I'd like and I heard this is an easy way to do it and I don't want to part with my own money  -- remember when Francis Ford Coppola went bankrupt with 'One From the Heart'? So just give me some, okay?

You know?  

Reader Spotlight: Troy Hopper

We're getting to know the Film Experience community with reader spotlights once or twice a week. This may take awhile! Today we're talking to Troy from Maryland.

What's your first movie memory?

My first movie memory is seeing Annie in the theater with my mother, aunt, and cousin. I recall being thoroughly drawn in as everyone's favorite redhead clings to Punjab for dear life toward the climax of the film. I also have a vivid recollection of viewing Pinocchio when it was re-released in the early 1980s. I guess that makes me one of your elder readers.

Aw, we have readers of all ages. It's just the younger readers seem way less shy. When did you start reading TFE?

Oscar race 2001 after a link from Sasha Stone's site. As someone who was not a fan of A Beautiful Mind, I was impressed by your incisive dissection of the movie's glaring flaws. My continued reading of your blog showed me someone whose love, passion, and knowledge of all facets of cinema quickly became contagious.

You have a goddaughter, right? How do you plan to educate her cinematically.

My oldest is nearly seventeen, so unfortunately, my time has passed with him. As for my two goddaughters, if they learn nothing else from me, they will at least be taught that the medium is too broad in scope for them to be myopic in their taste. They will also realize that Tyler Perry is an enemy whose total annihilation is essential for the progression of blacks in film.

LOL. Okay, three favorite directors?

Aw, man! I was hoping to get the actresses. Ha. With the one-two-three punch of The Fountain, The Wrestler, and Black Swan Darren Aronofsky unquestionably earns a place on that list. Too much of Spike Lee's filmography is indellibly imprinted in my mind for him not to be included as well. I also wish that Jonathan Demme worked a great deal more, especially considering how adept he is across genres.

If Troy ran Hollywood, they'd all get more work!

If you ran Hollywood what would you greenlight?

Because of my background in musical theatre, the intial order of business would be the production of more musicals with the stipulation that Rob Marshall, Adam Shankman, and Bill Condon have absolutely nothing to do with them. In addition, I would grant Angela Bassett approval for any project of her choosing, provided it would give her a chance at another meaty starring role. Any talented auteur hoping to get his or her film made would have to find quality parts for Sharika Epps, Nicole Beharie, and/or Christina Hendricks. Finally, there would be a mandate for intelligent, adult thrillers and horrors that harken back to the time when studios didn't merely perceive them as an easy, relatively cheap way to make a quick buck.

Does "background in musical theatre" mean "actor" and if so, any dream roles?

I am indeed an actor-singer trying to finally break free from his day job. I've already taken on so many good roles -- Jimmy Early in "Dreamgirls," Mitch Mahoney in "Spelling Bee," Benny in "RENT," Belize in "Angels in America: Perestroika" -- that it's difficult to say what I would like to do next. I'd love to tackle something else non-musical, maybe an August Wilson piece, and I wish there were a role in "August: Osage County" for me.

Troy and Ron Giddings performing "I Don't Do That Anymore" this past November

!!! Your voice is so good. Okay, final question. You live in Maryland which begs the question: what's your favorite John Waters movie?

I have honestly never seen a single John Waters movie in its entirety. Though the man himself is quite the character, his aesthetic as a filmmaker has never truly appealed to me. And with that revelation I will probably be banished from Charm City forever!

previous reader spotlights

Dlink. The D is Silent

Mandatory the 100 funniest tweets of the year. Some of the movie folk who get punchlined: Liam Neeson, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp.
Nicole's Magic Scans from Paris Match -- Nicole Kidman looks great as Grace of Monaco
E! Anjelica Huston is PETA's person of the year
i09 Futuristic predictions that came true this year
The Lost Boys farewell to Peter Knegt's long running blog.
Slate I've been talking a lot recently about people being hideous jerks when it comes to the topic of Les Misérables so here is a negative review from Dana Stevens which I think is completely fairly written and actually pretty clever in some of its digs. I've only ever asked that people be fair about it and state their biases if they have them (Stevens doesn't like the source material).

Unreality looks for gender flipping of Star Wars in the cosplay community. Sadly the gallery has no Prince Leia Lee. WTF?
Cinema Blend Quentin Tarantino wants to make a third revisionist history revenge flick called Killer Crow. This saddens me as Tarantino hasn't made a non-revenge themed film since Jackie Brown. That's a long time to be working one kind of narrative template, even if you do it extremely well.
Shadow & Act the actress who plays "Coco" in Django Unchained, a slave in a French maid's uniform, speaks about her experience on the film. And while we're on the topic ...

Spike & Quentin
I feel bad for Spike Lee. I really do. Even when people are trying to be fair to him, they end up dissing him. Press Play's Steven Boone wrote an excellent provocative piece on Django Unchained that has measured compliments for Spike Lee's work but it's still basically a slap.

Not to say that Django is an exceptionally subtle piece of work. Both Spike and Quentin have a Sam Fuller tendency to go all-caps, tabloid large when staging bits of provocation that would be juicy all on their own. But let's just lay it on the table: Tarantino is the better filmmaker, by many miles.

Meanwhile We Are Respectable Negroes reviews the movie (Quentin's) that does exist but still ends up critiquing an imaginary movie that doesn't (Spike's). And though the article is really interesting and makes strong points about the imaginary movie that's maybe still wildly unfair once you stop to think about it.

Meanwhile Quentin and others like Sarah Silverman are defending the controversial rampant use of the "N" word in the movie on the grounds that it's a period piece set during the time of Slavery. Which is a basically a solid defense. But I think the reason Quentin sounds like such an asshole spelling that out is because he's always used the word rampantly in his movies, even when that excuse was nowhere to be found.

ANYWAY... Spike really was in a lose-lose situation with Django Unchained. If he spoke against it without seeing it he'd be dissed. If he made anything like it he'd be crucified whereas Tarantino is celebrated (hi, double standards). If he hadn't said anything people would have surely kept asking him to. So he said that Slavery wasnt a Spaghetti Western but a Holocaust (which is true, duh) and now everyone is pissed at him. Would they still be pissed at him if he saw the movie and still said that? I think so. 

Today's Must Read
The Vote discusses the biggest problem with Oscar this year: the early voting deadline. Jon concludes with the message I'm always trying to send to the Academy which is basically this: Stop worrying and just be you. I'm glad others are starting to carry this message because my voice was lonely and choruses are louder. The Academy is Goliath. There is no David. And yet they're constantly changing to dodge the phantom slingshots. 

The Deep Blue Link

Awards Daily Spike Lee won't see Django Unchained "slavery was not a spaghetti western" and Sasha is right that if he made the film he'd be crucified in the media that's now celebrating Tarantino.
E! It's a third marriage for Kate Winslet who could now legally change her name legally to "Kate Rocknroll" should she want to.
Michael Murray's hilariously inappropriate interview with Rust & Bone's "Marion Cotillard" 
Movie|Line a good interview with Tom Hooper on his Les Misérables direction... and the controversial choices he made

Coming Soon the cast of Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom follow up The Grand Budapest Hotel is revealed. I'm sad that there's no Anjelica Huston (I need her in my Wes movies) but it's fun to know that some regulars will return and the newbies Ralph Fiennes, Jude Law and Saoirse Ronan, who has, according to the man himself "quite a big part" are exciting gets.
/Film wonders if Famke Janssen has a cameo in The Wolverine. Ooh, that'd be sweet.
My New Plaid Pants If I had an award for "Best Reaction Shot" I'd also give it to Kiki Dunst in Bachelorette

Today's Must Read
McSweeney's "Answers to Rhetorical Questions Posed by Movie Titles". I died. 

Rachel Weisz for Vanity Fair. Photographed by Craig McDean

Year in Review
IndieWire interviewed the 37 indie film breakthroughs of the year including our friend Leslye Headland (Bachelorette) to Gayby's Jonathan Lisecki and Middle of Nowhere's Ava DuVernay 
Towleroad Michael Musto does impressions (Angelina Jolie among them) for Village Voice's 2012 to do
Vanity Fair shares their best celebrity photos of the year
Cracked says goodbye to 13 unusual and unusually awesome creatives who died this year from Ralph McQuarrie (Star Wars wouldn't be Star Wars without him) to the guy who co-created many of Batman's villains.
Movie Screams surveys the year in horror related releases

Is a Spike Lee Comeback in Store?

Amir here looking back into the non-fiction pool. With so many films still left to watch from this year’s crop, I haven’t yet had the chance, or in fact the desire, to sit down and sift through the list of 2013 releases. But there are a few titles that I’m sure will pop up on my eventual list of most anticipated films and chief among them is the remake of Oldboy; not just because the Korean original is one of the most divisive films of the past decade, but also because I’ve been waiting for a long time to see a real comeback by Spike Lee.

In the late 80s and early 90s, Lee became one of America’s most influential cinematic voices and directed two masterpieces that remain among his very best work to this day: Do The Right Thing and Malcolm X. But I think it’s fair to say that none of his recent films, at least since the 2006 double punch of When the Levees Broke and The Inside Man, have been able to enter public conversation or the awards race. Fiction projects like Miracle at St. Anna were coolly received and documentaries like If God is Willing... didn’t make a dent either. [more after the jump]

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