Tattooed Lady & Gent

The Film Experience does not endorse tattoos. That shit is crazy permanent and who wants to wear the same thing every day of one's life? But tattoos can sometimes look good in a photo shoot, with the right body, or work well in dramatic or comic context. Two current magazine covers remind us of the ink fad which shows no signs of abating. (When I was a wee bairn the only tattoos I ever saw were on bikers and Popeye the Sailor Man. Now every third person on the street is sporting them.)

Ass dimples forever!

You guys. I got the best swag in the mail yesterday. A copy of Veep Season 2 along with Vice President Selena Meyer's book "Some New Beginnings - Our Next American Journey" which I hope is a plot point on Season 3. The jacket is very funny, with choice pull quotes, and a lot of vague meaningless inspirational double speak.

Here is just one excerpt...

In "Some New Beginnings - Our Next American Journey", Selina Meyer sets out her vision for a journey that could start now, or in the not-too-distant future, with a single step, taken by us all, together. America, she says, is "both a nation of journeys and a journey in itself."

This is an invitation to be a part of that journey. A journey from an old New World to a new New World. A journey from USA to "USA Plus." "

The book, like the content of Meyer's brain, is blank inside. 

Those are some ugly tats but "ugly" is not a good word to use in a sentence with Tom Hardy. So glad he's slimmed down. I'm glad Esquire saw fit to add the question mark after "The Greatest Actor of His Generation" because, really, as much as I love him and he's impressed on a few occasions. He hasn't yet come close to proving that. He even has tough competition within his birth year alone which also brought us Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Édgar Ramirez, and Matthias Schoenaerts. 1977 was an extraordinary vintage.

JA has a comment about an interesting quote from Hardy in the cover story. Hardy is currently headlining the solo act film Locke and soon we'll see two gritty crime dramas The Drop and Child 44. In 2015: the long delayed if not necessarily long awaited Mad Max reboot, Mad Max: Fury Road. And then a possible Oscar grab in 2015 or 2016 as Elton John in the biopic Rocket Man.

World's Linkiest

The Guardian a deleted pre-coronation scene between sisters Anna and Elsa in Frozen
Antagony & Ecstasy Tim on Muppets Most Wanted. I liked the movie more than he but this is why I hired him for TFE. Such an incisive film critic.  
Pride Source interviews Elaine Stritch about Rock Hudson, The Golden Girls that might have been and her gay fandom
Playbill offers up "top ten reasons why we love Sutton Foster" I cosign on all of them except for maybe #10 since I didn't see that one.

In Contention Exodus, that new Moses picture with Christian Bale, gets a new title
NPR on the recent spate of bible movies
Kotaku Joss Whedon already apologizing for Avengers Age of Ultron filming chaos
Pajiba you haven't forgotten about Tom Hardy have you? 
The Playlist ranks 20 great continuous shots in film history from The Earrings of Madame D (1953) through the opening of The Player (1992) and on to Gravity (2013) with many stops inbetween
GroupThink a guide to YA Dystopian novels. (I'm surprised how many of them have yet to be filmed but I guess they're publishing them as fast as people can write them) 

Today's Must Watch
Filmmaker IQ has created an informative 15 minute short on the history of the movie trailer in all its forms

The History of the Movie Trailer from FilmmakerIQ.com on Vimeo.

P.S. Very good news: Richard Linklater's Boyhood, which I reviewed at Sundance, will be hitting US screens proper on July 11th. Not too long to wait for this 12 years in the making movie. 

Beauty Break: Actors & Pups

I am a crazy cat lady but I like dogs in short doses and I especially like seeing movie stars with their pets. Seeing people with their pets (or other people's pets) adds a level of adorable realness that you just can't get any other way. Even movie stars pick up poop and clean catboxes!

Tom Hardy and puppy kisses

This dog doesn't need to watch movies to know how kissable Tom Hardy is! 

Brad, Leo, Josh, Clark and more after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Cast This: Young Hillary & Young Elton

There's a lot of talk going around about the casting of a young Hilary Rodham Clinton in a bio with big star names like Reese, Jessica and Scarlett floating around though all seem too sexy if you ask me -- though Reese's steel could be interesting. Pajiba has one off-the-path brilliant suggestion in Eden Sher.

Another hot casting topic: the Elton John biopic Rocket Man which is currently courting though not married to Tom Hardy. He has shown a willingness to uglify for roles so his masculine beauty might not be a problem but his lips, his defining feature, are in every conceivable way not a match. Still, he's a fine actor so they could make it work outside of the closeups of the singing. Elton John originally wanted Justin Timberlake - who took over in a great music video some years back -- to do the film. But I have to ask: was Philip Seymour Hoffman not available or was he deemed too old for the role?

And if the biopic is decades spanning one, who is going to play David Furnish. And will this eventually be retitled Behind the Candelabra Pt 2? And why is no one talking about the casting of the other roles? At least in Elton John's case that's just as (potentially) interesting.

Who would you in cast any these roles?

Young Hilary?
Young Bill Clinton?

Young Elton?
Bernie Taupin -Elton John's other (musical) half
Renate Blauel -Elton's wife in the 80s
Old Elton?
David Furnish?

<--- Oh lookylol, David Furnish has a picture of himself with Hilary on his facebook! Keeping things on topic we are.

Linky Brown

Vulture "How to Hug a Puppy" by Tom Hardy
Cinema Blend one man Disney Princess meets real world musical... after the ever after part
Pajiba best performances from SXSW films 

CHUD Veronica Mars and the invention of "pay to pay for play" 
i09 producers "notes" on Blade Runner... which they hated 
NPR on real life Ginger & Rosas in the 60s  
Empire on the latest big project director shuffle - Ang Lee considering a Spielberg drop and Tom Hooper looking at the Sacha Baron Cohen Freddie Mercury biopic
Coming Soon star portraits from the final day of The Wolverine production. Hugh Jackman and the ladies
Guardian the writer of the fake Haneke twitter account on Michael Haneke

Finally, if you're in Gotham, you should know that PAM GRIER, Jackie Brown and Foxy Brown herself, is getting the weekend festival treatment at the Walter Reade right now. She'll be appearing tonight for an interview before the screening of Jackie Brown (coming up on "Hit Me") and also making a midnight appearance at Scream Blacula, Scream. On Sunday she gets a full hour interview with film clips. Tickets are still available for some of the shows. And if you haven't seen any of her 70s blacksploitation movies, you owe it to yourself to see at least one.