Down in Fraggle Link

the classics
The Film Doctor '10 things I learned about Breakfast at Tiffany's...'
Birth of a Notion well, well. Batman's Boy Wonder just turned 65. Who knew?
Okinawa thinks Olivia de Havilland's Melanie is a badass in Gone With the Wind.


of the moment
popbytes True story of my Lady Gaga moment in the supermarket today. Plus news on Madonna's second feature W.E.
The Big Picture Inception backlash coming in 3...2...1...
AV Club strangest news of week: Rob Lowe may be buying Miramax to become 'the next Harvey Weinstein.'
Film Business Asia The Golden Horse Awards have added a "new director" prize for the next generation of Asian filmmakers.
Empire Captain America Chris Evans talks about his costume for Captain America

"I think everyone that’s going to see it is going to say, 'Okay, well done. Well done. I think they got the costume right. The casting they completely ruined, but the costume they nailed!'"

You gotta love self deprecating celebrities.

Movie Dearest I love reading about bizarre off cinema projects from cinema faces. Seems that god fearing Esmeralda from Edward Scissorhands (aka actress O-Lan Jones) is directing an complex possibly travelling opera.
I Need My Fix Lindsay Lohan sentenced to jail time. Incidentally in case you were worried. That porn biopic is going to wait for her release. That's loyalty!
Topless Robot True Story: Watching The Twilight Saga: Eclipse can kill you. Oh my god how depressing. Can you imagine if that's the last movie you were ever able to see?
Pop Hangover's Celebrity Headswap. These images are disturbing BUT for the first time ever a Twilight image made me want to see a Twilight movie. Kristen Stewart androgynized? Way sexier.
Collider Tree of Life gets an MPAA rating but distribution still looks shaky to me.

You Bent My Wookie has a lengthy interview up with the director of the upcoming Fraggle Rock movie. Seems the Weinsteins are giving him trouble. Quelle surprise. I have no special affection for Fraggle Rock (not that familiar) but I do love puppets and his heart seems to be in the right place

...time and again, I will run into people – and I’m talking about anyone from a fan boy sitting at a coffee shop to someone in the industry – everyone seems to long for an analog performance, a live performance, a real performance.

I loved Avatar, and I love what Andy Serkis does with motion capture as Gollum. There’s magic there, too. But I know that people have a hunger for tactile characters right now. I think the pendulum is swinging in a direction where people want to know they’re watching something real on camera, something that they can reach out and touch.

Though I would love desperately for this to be true, as I too miss tangible things and I love in camera effects and such, but I'm pessimistic that it actually is. CGI has conquered.

Let's Link Together, yeahyeahyeah, think of all that we could sha-are.

Tyler Coates shares my favorite personal anecdote post of this past week. Yay, Parent Trap.
Peel Slowly offers up several examples of movies recreating paintings. Neat stuff.

Material Girl Yes, it's true. Madonna's firstborn is now a (fashion) blogger. She loves all things 80s apparently like 4realz. Believe it or not I threw a first birthday party for Lourdes (aka Lola) in 1997 with my roomie at the time who was also a Madonna man. Our apartment was packed -- anything Madonna themed you know -- and we gave all the donations to a local children's hospital. So, see, one can use celebrity obsessive powers for good.
Movie|Line "9 dates that will shape the rest of 2010."
I Need My Fix Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green are now married in case you hadn't heard or cared.
In Contention Tree of Life is Apparition's sole 2010 release now. "And who knows if we'll even see it in 2010," Nathaniel the cynic adds.


Anita Kunz She's one of my favorite illustrators and she drew 100 nude male celebrities for an artshow in Toronto. How funny. This is but a 3% sample. But if you're in Toronto, go see it. Report back.
Eye Scoop Excuse me, how had I not heard that Christophe Honore was doing another musical with Ludivine Sagnier and Louis Garrel (from Love Songs)! So excited. That film just grows on you.
Cinematical Peter Sarsgaard goes Bluegrass.

A Blog Next Door suggests you watch TiMER on Netflix Instant Watch and so do I. Anya!
A BlNYT Wonder Woman has a new look. I'm sure this will be applauded widely but I can't help but worry that it's one more step in completely genericizing all superheroes. Watch it turn into black form fitting armory leather for the movie which all superheroes seem to be wearing ever since they held a mass costume designing conference in 2000 and decreed that The Matrix and The X-Men were the new standards for f/x costuming.
The Awl a conversation about The Twilight Saga: Eclipse that has to be more entertaining than the movie.

Finally, Towleroad alerts us to a rare moment of levity in the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Elena Kagan. The "Edward vs. Jacob case"



I don't even know what to say...

*
P.S. If you've been following me on Twitter, you already know that I met Julianne Moore today. Yes, yes, I'll tell you all about it soon enough. I have to process first. [gulp] I reached out my hand to shake hers and... she hugged me!

The Beginning of the End of Harry Potter

Apparently yesterday marked quite a milestone. According to /Film, the Harry Potter series concluded filming just yesterday.

(How cute. They're at the cinema!)

I've never been part of Hogwarts mega-legion of boosters but it's still an historic moment that I thought we should mark here. I only wish that the series -- which has already earned more money than anyone could ever count or need -- hadn't popularized the greedy "split the last film into two" grab that every studio will now employ for all popular franchises. We haven't seen the results yet but one assumes the filler-to-substance ratio will be off the charts and you know it won't end with The Twilight Saga and Potter. I couldn't get through even the first Twilight book (my god the whining) so I can't speak for Breaking Dawn but Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows definitely doesn't need 300 minutes to tell its story, especially since the middle section of the book is filler itself. I wouldn't worry if these films were 90 minutes but you now they'll stick with the traditional Potter length which, six films going, average out to 150 minutes or 2½ hours exactly. I did the math. When the series is over Harry Potter will have lasted about 1,200 minutes... or roughly the length of two seasons on a pay cable drama. And isn't that what all these multi-film stories essentially are, ginormous television series that you have to pay for?



All that said, I hope the last two films miraculously turn out great for the fans and I also hope that there's enough of Maggie & Helena and such to get me through before the movies pull an Avada Kedavra on me with their bloat. And on that note I should quit typing. If I'm claiming that nobody needs that extra 150 minutes of Potter or another 378 minutes of Twilight in their lives than I probably shouldn't whine so much that I'm mistaken for Bella Swan.
Maggie Smith Helena Bonham Carter

20,000 Links Under the Sea

Daily Transom Ebert to pen memoir in high six figure deal.
In Contention looks at how Robin Hood (2010) got all mucked up in development.
Guardian an explicit erotic drama starring Emmanuelle Béart and her husband shunned by Cannes. Ugh. How will we ever see it now? They are so so pretty.
Movie|Line suggests that executives pounce on the Cannes hot ticket 101 year-old Manoel de Oliveira.


The Atlantic a tale of two comebacks: Mickey Rourke and Robert Downey Jr.
Cinema Blend Lana Wachowski and Andy Wachowski (of The Matrix fame) may be making a hard R gay military romance drama? Interesting.
Just Jared Tarsem Singh on Henry Cavill (in his new picture The Immortals) "Hey, I'd f*** him."
A Socialite's Life Tom Munro's celebrity portrait book. If I had a gajillion dollars I'd always have these big glossy photo books lying around.
Quiet Earth nsfw clips from the new Gregg Araki flick Kaboom.
i09 Every time i even see a new clip from a Twilight movie I want to see them even less. How is this possible? Here's Dakota Fanning all red eyed and quietly evil if you're into that.

Finally, The Hollywood Reporter shares yet another project for David Fincher. This time he'll be remaking the adventure film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. 20,000... brings Fincher's future features in development to a grand total of 12 (according to IMDb). I guess that $125 domestic gross for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button got Hollywood all horny. The first of the dozen we'll actually see is the Facebook story The Social Network which should be completed anytime soon. Remember when David was still making music videos. Or when people thought his feature career was doomed before it began due to Alien³'s reception (so underrated) or when he couldn't get arrested at the Oscars despite making films as good as Zodiac and Fight Club. Ancient history!


Wonder how much money the studio will give Fincher for the octopus alone? Water movies are notoriously expensive to make (Waterwold... Titanic... The Abyss...) so I bet this gets an even crazier budget than Button to begin with and then we'll hear endless internet reportage about it's ballooning disastrous budget during production.

By Odin's Link!

Awards Daily yes, everyone is already obsessed with Summer 2012 now that we know Chris Nolan's Batman will return. It's a franchise world we're living in.

So... let's get this over with.


The mighty Thor is coming before the next Batman. In approximately 369 days. And we're thinking about this primarily because the internet is insatiably interested in superheroes and they are thus impossible to ignore. The Almighty Internet has actually declared this photo of Chris Hensworth as Thor be posted from the rainbow bridge of Asgard to the wide streets of Harlem, New York and beyond. Offending blogs and sites shall be struck down.

Dutifully I post though I'm still struggling to care. Whenever I think of Thor I only think of that little girl in Adventures in Babysitting and how weird it was that someone's favorite superhero was Thor!?! And once I'm done thinking about that I can think only of Alexander Skarsgård's magical hammer. Or the Mjöllnir one imagines him to have.

I know I should let it go -- that he didn't get the part -- but even his name reminds one of the home of the Norse gods.

what were we on abou---oh, yes, yes...

LINKS
Coming Soon Esteemed director Bill Condon shares his reasons for taking on The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn and never once mentions money! Liar liar pants on fire ;)
Just Jared Scarjo in DC with her twin brother for the White House correspondents dinner
Guardian Burnt by the Sun 2, the sequel to the foreign film Oscar winner, flops in Russia. Interesting article on the Why of it. Maybe this isn't a sure thing as Russia's Oscar submission?
/Film Hank Azaria as Gargamel for The Smurfs. I have an inexplicable desire for this movie to be good but the odds are most decidedly against it I think
In Contention wonders if Jim Carrey is ok
The Daily Beast on why David O. Russell's political comedy Nailed is still in limbo. I normally find it difficult to enjoy stories about the business side of moviemaking: contracts, insurance, unions escape me. But this is interesting. I like his films so I'm hoping they find a way to finish it.

Randomness! Just because it amuses
Instructables Gummi Bear surgery
situated laundry Johnny Weir vs. Evan Lysacek summarized
MTV Movies "my name is Talky Tina and you better be nice to me" I can't tell you how horrified I was of Talky Tina as a little boy... though I remember her as "Talking" Tina

Stage Craft?
Tony Predictions from Michael Reidel, Just Shows To Go You, while Time Out New York offers up only who *should* be nominated. The big question mark might be how Addams Family fares given the critical drubbing. I'm currently rooting for Everyday Rapture because even though I haven't seen it yet I am in love with Sherie Rene Scott. I have every note of The Last Five Years deeply embedded in my brain and vocal chords. I'm also rooting for Valerie Harper in Looped because I have seen that one and she was great. As is often the case these days there are a ton of big and small movie/tv names who might be in the running including: Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Daniel Craig, Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Alfred Molina, Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, Kristin Chenoweth, etcetera... The Tony nominations are announced on Tuesday.