Eight Links: Unhinged Women, Union Protests, Unctuous Celebrity

Awards Daily "Women Unhinged" fun piece on all the bat-shit crazy lady characters fighting for Oscar recognition. We're glad to see Lesley Manville (Another Year) getting some attention in her week of snubs.
Movies Kick Ass sees and loves Paprika Steen in Applaus. What a performance that is.
Disney Blog I hadn't heard of this but apparently there's a union protest against Toy Story 3 outside of Academy screenings. Ruh-roh.
I Need My Fix whoa mamma. Check out this slit in Gwynnie's Country Strong dress.

DListed is thrilled that Tom Cruise still has hard nips. Um... okay. You know what I think is the real disturbing fountain of youth magic? That head of hair. Cruise is bothersome in so many ways but that hair? Still perfect.
Towleroad Kevin Spacey still refusing to come out, "never" will. Makes unconvincing case that asking him to do so is equivalent to bullying gay teens. Even threatens to record an "it gets better" video. (Please don't. Kinda too ironic like). Ah well, at least we have better braver less selfish celebrities emerging each year to change the world.
Sociological Images Have you been wondering what Geena Davis' organization "Institution on Gender in Media" has been up to?  Here are some charts about gender imbalances in family movies.

Just Him and His Shadow

GQ Cover boy Ryan Gosling dresses like a movie star. I love this bit on why he got a regular ol' job briefly after The Notebook

" 'I'd never had a real job,' he says. The problem with Hollywood, he goes on, is that nobody works. 'They have meals. They go to Pilates. But it's not enough. So they do drugs. If everybody had a pile of rocks in their backyard and spent every day moving them from one side of the yard to the other, it would be a much happier place.' "

I always thought this was a problem. I always find myself wondering how some famous actors who rarely work, kill time. You know they're not working at delis.

Say What? (Tom is so Impossible)

Amuse us. Caption or add dialogue to either of these photos in the comments. They're taken from the set of Mission Impossible 4. Jeremy Renner and Tom Cruise have gone for a swim. [src]

"Respect the Link. Tame the Blog. Tame It!"

Flow TV a structural analysis on Glee, why some episodes don't work and others do.
Examiner Would Tom Cruise's career be different today had he won the Oscar?
Pullquote You can draw a line from Prince through Laurel Canyon and on to The Kids Are All Right.
Just a Cineast looks at Olivia de Havilland's first released movie Alibi Ike, 75 years ago.


Socialite's Life I hadn't heard this rumor about Taylor Lautner taking on Hugh Jackman's role in X-Men First Class and now I want to die a little inside. See also: every post where I lament franchise actors playing in multiple franchises. Don't mix up my film worlds!
Cinematical interviews the great cinematographer Wally Pfister from Inception
Twitch Film Christopher Nolan's little seen first film Following is now available on demand.
Dear Old Hollywood visits the sites visited by one Joan Crawford in Possessed. I always wish that someone would do them with NYC movies. Don't say "do it yourself." You don't wanna know the depths of my inability to know which way is up let alone north south east west.
Film Business Asia Gong Li & Andy Lau to star in remake of Mel Gibson movie What Women Want.
i09 reminds people of flops promoted heavily at past Comic Cons. A bit of reality to preface the annual uber-hype fest.
Chateau Thombeau "Is it Wong?"
Awards Daily The NY Post endorses homophobia in a piece on The Kids Are All Right

another thinkpiece on Inception

Roger Ebert linked to his latest piece from Twitter with a "you are allowed to dislike "Inception". While my initial reaction was to scoff 'Uh, thanks (?) for giving people permission.' I realize that a lot of the same mob who demand agreement from every critic (missing the point of criticism by 100%) worship Ebert as a God so I'm glad he wrote this article. It's a good one with lots of civility. I shan't scoff at the 'permission' given.

It's so weird that Christopher Nolan films always put me in this position.

• Truth: I have never disliked a Nolan film. I think they're all good... "thumbs up" in Ebert parlance. Yay for consistency!
• Weird Secondary Truth & Conundrum: The reviews of Nolan films always make me crazy. After each release and the attendant flurry of raves, I always end up disliking his films more than I did while watching them. In each and every case, the hysterical praise makes me feel uncharitable towards [insert film title] that I liked a lot. More than perhaps any other acclaimed filmmaker, I feel that people don't actually discuss the merits of his movies so much as shoot big blurb loads on them, bukkake style. Yuck!
  

Finally...

via Twitch we can see the teaser for the Tran Anh-Hung's adaptation of the modern classic Norwegian Wood starring Rinko Kikuchi. The official site is also up.



We need to read the novel soon, having heard only awestruck love vows to it. But the film looks pretty from these teasing glimpses.
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More on Knight and Day

I already shared my 7 word review but here's a few more thoughts...

There is a recurring bit of banter in the new romantic action comedy KNIGHT AND DAY in which Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise size up their chances of survival together and apart. "With me," they say with hands lifted up past their megawatt faces, "without me" hands lowered down warily. It's an apt description of what two waning movie stars may accomplish together that one alone cannot. Both stars may be struggling with bankability at the moment, but they're not struggling for chemistry.

Read the rest @ Towleroad

7 Word Movie Reviews: Knight & Day, Winter's Bone

Knight & Day
Diaz' ditz mode delights. Good visual gags.
B/B-


Winter's Bone
Fine ensemble chillier than milieu. Great music.
B+

La la la la la la, Smurf the whole link long.

/Film a remake of Citizen Kane? This satiric trailer savages our cinema today.
popbytes Hugh Jackman trains giant robots to box in Real Steel. This sounds so terrible that I desperately want it to be a Bad Movie We Love.
USA Today first look at The Smurfs (speaking of bad movies waiting to happen)
Movie|Line alerts us to a new Chen Chang movie on DVD called Parking. We love Chen Chang.
Towleroad something for the prurient among you: Kellan Lutz costume fitting for The Immortals.

CHUD & The Flick Filosopher are worried about movie geek tastes becoming so dull and unadventurous. What's happened? It's simple. Everyone became a geek. And once something's mainstream...
Silly Hats Only hosted a White Elephant blog-a-thon yesterday. Participating blogs gifted each other with odd movies to write about. See the results.
Low Resolution "She Should Work More Vol XXVI: Amy Madigan" Well stated, Joe. She should. My guess is she's not "soft" enough for what Hollywood wants even in "hard" women.
Broadway Buzz under the 'life is unfair' umbrella add: I missed this Sutton Foster show. Why must I love artforms that are beyond my socioeconomic reach?
Tabloid Prodigy an oral history of Showgirls. Heh. You said 'oral'.
popbytes Taylor Lautner wants to model his career on Tom Cruise's huh. I have a number of problems with this and they are 1) Tom Cruise 2) a role model??? 3) Didn't Taylor want to be Matt Damon last year? Make up your mind!
The Fug Girls commemorate the most awkward moment (ScarJo + Liev Schreiber and Ryan Reynolds) we saw at the Tony Awards with their infallible lip reading skills.
Movie Addict a radio discussion of the funniest movie actresses of all time. The assembled panel is a wide mix of age ranges and the list they come up with stretches over the decades too all the way from Myrna Loy (who gets a ton of love) through Madeline Kahn and on to newbies like Tina Fey. Fey as an all time movie actress? Er... I love Fey but she's very TV. Not that there's anything wrong with that. If you ask me, though, a list without Carole Lombard in the upper rungs is insanity!

Finally if you choose to click on this link, a warning. "Now a warning?" That link will take you to the most horrifying thing you will have seen in weeks months. It's like Nathaniel's nightmare film world, visualized. Proceed at your own risk.
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