Utah & Phoenix Film Critics: 127 Inceptions For the King

It's so cute that film critics circles are so interested in "their own" as it were. Boston is always accused of rallying behind Boston-set films (in their defense they often have many of them to choose from) and a few days back Utah, where 127 Hours takes place, really handed that film some water in its moment of need. Not that the Academy voters are actively debating Utah's choices before filling out their ballots this week... they're more likely to be swayed by James Franco's grandma (see video after the jump).

But given that 127 Hours has been slipping down a thin rocky crevice away from sunny awards heat (AWKWARD METAPHOR ALERT) it'll take every honor it can get. Will AMPAS go for it or do we have another Into the Wild (2007) on our hands i.e. lots of preseason heat, little to show for it on Oscar nom morn?

Christmas Greetings From the Franco's from James Franco

The prizes from Utah and Phoenix.

Utah Film Critics
Best Picture (tie) 127 Hours and The Social Network
Best Director (tie) Christopher Nolan for Inception and David Fincher for The Social Network
Best Actor James Franco in 127 Hours
Best Actress Natalie Portman in Black Swan
Best Supporting Actor Christian Bale in The Fighter
Best Supporting Actress Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom
Best Screenplay Aaron Sorkin in The Social Network
Best Cinematography Enrique Chediak and Anthony Dod Mantle for 127 Hours
Best Documentary Catfish
Best Foreign Feature (tie) Micmacs and A Prophet
Best Animated Feature Toy Story 3

• They had an even number of critics attending on voting day, hence all the ties. What, no tiebreaker system???
• Nice to see some love for Catfish which has been mostly ignored since many critics groups seem to be voting directly from the limited pool of Oscar documentary finalists. 

Meanwhile, Phoenix honored no films set in Arizona... though they came as close as they could with Let Me In. And they almost became the only critics group to ignore The Social Network. Instead they went 'cross the Atlantic for both of their big ones: The King's Speech and Inception.

The King's Inception: What will Cobb find inside Bertie's dream?

Phoenix Film Critics
Best Picture The King's Speech
[top ten: 127 Hours, Inception, Never Let Me Go, Shutter Island, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, The Social Network, True Grit, Toy Story 3, Winter's Bone]
Best Director Christopher Nolan for Inception
Best Actor Colin Firth in The King's Speech
Best Actress Natalie Portman in Black Swan
Best Supporting Actor Christian Bale in The Fighter
Best Supporting Actress Melissa Leo in The Fighter
Breakthru Performance (on camera) Chloe Moretz in Kick-Ass
Breathru Performance (off camera) Debra Granik for Winter's Bone
Best Youth Performance (Male) Kodi Smit-McPhee in Let Me In
Best Youth Performance (Female) Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit
Best Screenplay (Original) Inception
Best Screenplay (Adapted) The Social Network
Best Live Action Family Film Eyesore in Wonderland
Overlooked Film of the Year Never Let Me Go
Best Original Song "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" Burlesque
Best Cinematography Roger Deakins for True Grit
Best Score Hans Zimmer for Inception
Best Editing Inception
Best Art Direction Inception
Best Visual Effects Inception
Best Stunts Inception
Best Costume Design Eyesore in Wonderland
Best Documentary Restrepo
Best Foreign Feature Biutiful
Best Animated Feature Toy Story 3

• Remind me to never move to Phoenix. You know why.
• Okay. Normally I don't take well to those annual gripes that go something like "if this movie didn't have the best ____, how is it the best picture? yadda yadda", ignorant as they sometimes are to the fact that voters are supposed to be voting on different criteria for each category. But seriously. How do they explain this one? Inception has a better screenplay and better direction than The King's Speech and it's "best" at just about everything (it won 7 categories) but it still loses Best Picture to The King's Speech? I guess Colin Firth's performance is Best Everything in order to lift the Speech up out of reach of Inception's dream invaders.

Box Office Blather: Unstoppable Potter and the 127 Tangled Swans

No, not that BOB.

Box Office Blather. Let's call it "BOB".

One should probably discuss it weekly (and not on Wednesday? Shut it. I'm late.) if only to be more "in the world" and less hermetically sealed in one's own bubble, he said to himself while gazing at his navel in his 360º mirror.

In all seriousness this is a problem. I sometimes stare at box office charts and think "'The Warrior's Way'?  What the hell is that?" And, bear in mind, I think and write about movies 7 days a week so these blind spots can be problematic. And yet, when you live in a big city and you have options you don't always notice what's playing in thousands of theaters when you can obsess over something like Black Swan which is playing in just over a dozen. Thus one stays sealed in one's bubble.

Box Office Blather Bakers Dozen
("Bobbed!"...why do I need names for everything? It's a sickness)

1. Tangled (2nd week) $21.6 [cumulative: $96.5] -55%
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 1 (3rd week) $17 [cumulate: $244.5] -65 %
3. Burlesque (2nd week) $6.1 [cumulative: $26.9] -48%
4. Unstoppable (4th week) $5.9 [cumulative: $68.7] -47%
5. Love and Other Drugs (2nd week)  $5.6 [cumulative: $22.5] -42%
6. Megamind (5th week) $4.9 [cumulative: $136.6] -60%
7. Due Date (5th week) $4.1 [cumulative: $90.8] -42%
8. Faster (2nd week) $3.9 [cumulative: $18.2] -53%
9. The Warrior's Way DEBUT $3.0
10. The Next Three Days (3rd week)  $2.5 [cumulate: $18.3] -45%
11. Morning Glory (4th week) $1.6 [cumulative: $29] -54%
    
12. 127 Hours (5th week) $1.6 [cumulative: $6.6] -5%
13. Black Swan DEBUT $1.4

A few random or obnoxious observations about that chart [src] come after the jump




Let's start off by alienating all of you! Wheeeee. Back in 2001 and 2002 I was incensed with Hollywood for being so lame / literal when the first two Harry Potters emerged and they were like books on tape only the tape was film. Then, through sheer force of ---FULL STOP. We should save this for the "Year in Review, Cinematic Shame" section later in December.

About 127 Hours... should it or shouldn't it be doing better business? It's a matter of perspective I suppose. One of my friends shared this on Facebook and said I could share it here. It's just too amusing while also illustrating a box office obstacle to the movie.

My parents' review of 127 HOURS (they went with another couple): "We all really enjoyed the movie a lot. But we didn't see the one you wanted us to see. We got to the theater, and Rhonda didn't want to watch the arm-cutting, so we saw 'Morning Glory' instead. It was adorable."

lol.

I'm sad that Burlesque isn't a smash. Now, we'll never get the sequel Burlesque 2 that Joe Reid pitched like so...

Burlesque 2, where Cher and Xtina must deal with a rival burlesque club that moves in across the street, run by a wizened Madonna and her protégée Britney Spears.

I would pay a month's wages to see that movie.

Moving on... Black Swan's $77,000 per screen average is a feat (a record for Fox Searchlight) as is the #13 status when it's only on 18 screens. But it remains to be seen how well that ballet thriller will transfer once it widens. "Weird" movies don't tend to play all that well at the box office, no matter how brilliant they are. You could counter with Inception but how weird is that? It explains the weirdness to you to make sure you don't get confused and the dream imagery, for all its gargantuan f/x thrills, isn't surreal like actual dreams. I'm trying to think of a strange movie that did well at the box office and I'm coming up blank. Do bizarre movies -- even the thrilling ones -- ever make a splash at the box office? (Post 1970s I mean.) Think of the fervor for Mullholland Dr (2001) and remember: it only managed $7 million in the States. My friend who I was discussing this with thinks I'm underestimating the accessibility of Swan but agreed that there's still going to be a ceiling; maybe Precious sized grosses? Help me out in the comments. What do you think the ceiling is for the high/low mix of psychological ballet thriller and camp horror hallucinatory artistic metaphor? 

Argh! And there I go again with the bubble. 127 Hours and Black Swan are only 451 screens between them and that's immediately what I start talking about. Perhaps this will be a project for 2011. Go to more mainstream movies. Experiment. (Didn't Tim Brayton agree to review anything that opened at #1 at the box office. Or did I imagine that? Think of the things you'd have to review!) My point is this: My brother called last week wanting to talk about Skyline which opened on 2800 screens and Megamind which opened on nearly 4,000. I hadn't seen them. Total bummer because I don't talk to my brother enough and he called about movies, sniffle, my favorite topic.

Tangled has nearly equalled the entire The Princess and the Frog gross
in its first two weeks.

So outside the bubble... Tangled. Do you think Disney will attribute its success to that misleading obnoxious ad campaign positioning it as a Shrek-like affair or to the fact that it's a throwback to their late 80/early 90s musical princess heyday. Or will they attribute it to both and advertise all future movies as the opposite of the type of movie they actually are?
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Monty the Film Critic

Despite being named for a movie star, my furry son rarely pays any heed to movies. The only thing he enjoys about DVDs is the reflected light they throw on the walls.

But this morning his paws sifted through a stack of Fox Searchlight screeners and he was suddenly all opinionated. He immediately claimed Danny Boyle's 127 Hours for his own. Moments later -- my god how I wish I had been filming -- he pulled that flick closer, then shoved Hilary Swank's Conviction right off the couch!

I am not making this up.

Later he used Never Let Me Go as a mattress which is as good a use as any for the movie.

all recent oscar articles | return to main blog
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Takk Takk Link Link

Nathaniel + Layers
in Frozen Iceland

Believe it or not -- but you should believe it! -- I made it a full week without the internet. Go Nathaniel! I didn't even use my iPhone but for texting to make sure the catsitting was going okay.

I'm glad to be back online but a detox was in order. The last time I went a week without staring at computer screens was... well... um... I... errrrr.... unh let's see now...

never?  

This was a strange challenge to give myself in Iceland of all places which prides itself on its connectivity; reportedly 97% of the population uses the internet which makes them the #1 country percentage wise, if not in total users. By contrast the US claims 77% penetration and the UK 82%.

But now I'm back to my life made by for through around inside fused with enslaved to and on the internet.

LINKS. Here's a couple handful to read while I write some new posts. And yes, I'll tell you 'bout my trip soon. I'll try to make it cinematic. And if not, I'll make it brief.

AV Club "Lights! Camera! Deconstruction!" on films that double as film criticism. Some unexpected choices but really interesting write-ups.
Tribeca Film "Awards Season Begins... When?" Some thoughts (from moi) on the always amorphous beginning of the season. FWIW, the NBR makes their announcement on December 2nd, just 15 days from now.
Awards Daily Palm Springs puts a checkmark in the Firth & Portman awards chart columns.
Pop Elegantarium dressed up her daughter for Halloween in a way you cinephiles will just love. Get those babies started on loving movies early! I meant to link to this weeks ago but isn't it awesome?

Multitudes of Harry

 Forbes "Highest Earning Female Entertainers". These lists always freak me out partially because the numbers seem so absurd. Most people could live quite comfortably for their entire life on 1/10th (or less) of what any of these women make in a year. Which is why it's kind of funny/surreal that online coverage of these lists is usually along the sympathy-seeking lines of "if only they could earn as much as the men!" Sandra Bullock is the only actress on the list, the rest being pop stars and TV hosts.
Stale Popcorn reviews Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 but more importantly, he expresses relief that a lot of very talented people will soon be free to explore new worlds: Stuart Craig and Jany Temime, you're about to be sprung from Azkaban!
My New Plaid Pants likes 127 Hours with the same approximate muchness as I.
Serious Film has some issues with some readings of Clint Eastwood's Hereafter.
In Contention looks at Jennifer Hudson in Winnie.

And y'all know I'm excited about The Return of Cher. Here she is -- it looks like she's about to lick her lips and break into song -- at the Burlesque premiere.

I know a lot of people think Burlesque will be terrible but I don't much care. Don't care how I get her. Just want her. It's been way too long. I'd link you to her new song "Welcome to Burlesque" but the links keep breaking.

Finally... Since I am now getting back to work
I must thank my two handfuls of guest bloggers who did a fine job while I was away. So thank you to TFE's regular weekly columnists: Robert, Michael, Craig & Alexa; frequent well loved guest stars JA and Jose; returning subs Timothy, Glenn and Erich; and first-timer Kurtis from 'Your Movie Buddy' who I interrogated about Iceland before I left. A warm round of applause for all. If you click on their names, you can visit their own wonderful blogs.

Cher Hits a Brick Wall

Over at Towleroad, I've done a brief review of 127 Hours.  I enjoyed a lot even if I don't think it's the masterpiece many are claiming. I also talk about the new dvd set Cher: The Film Collection. More on that collection later here at the blog. (I can't wait to watch these movies again.)

This is an actual cel phone snapshot from Soho here in NYC. They painted the Burlesque poster on a brick wall.
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LFF 2010: Zero Hours Remain

David from Victim of the Time with one last report from the 54th BFI London Film Festival.

Craig gave you a packed wrap-up earlier today, but I couldn't let you go without getting in another word myself. I caught near to 50 films during the past month (give or take a couple I, er, nodded off during), and I'm happy to say there were an abundance of highs and a general lack of lows - maybe I just chose well, or maybe the programmers did. My standout film remains Kelly Reichardt's menacing Meek's Cutoff (review), while the festival practically brimmed over with stunning female performances, from Michelle Williams' two-hander in Meek's and Blue Valentine (capsule), to Jeong-hee Lee's damaged optimism in Poetry (Nat's review), to Lesley Manville's jittering sorrow in Another Year (capsule). Huge thanks to Nathaniel for hosting Craig and I, huge thanks to the festival for putting on such a great show, and huge thanks to you for reading.

For my final post, let's stick with the positivity, since the year's closing film proved a surprising package from a director I usually dislike...

127 Hours may give you a headache, but Aron Rolston had to hack his arm off, so maybe you I should stop complaining. Danny Boyle rather pre-empts the inevitable intensity of witnessing someone detach their arm with a blunt penknife by assaulting your senses from the very first moment; it’s all split screens, fast edits, impossible pans from inside kitchen units, close ups of taps dripping, and so forth. This is all rather disorientating and it barely lets up, but the film is enclosed in some vague, meaningless allusion to the speed of modern life with shots of commuters that resemble Koyaanisqatsi, and so the headrush of Boyle’s direction is a very straightforward interpretation of living in Rolston’s world. Once he gets trapped in the crevice, these stylisations barrage instead into his mind, continually taking us on flights of delirious imagination and memory.

Trapped in a limited space, this approach cracks open the film to a freewheeling, if no less intense than you’d expect, experience. The ‘realer’ scenes are kept vital by a dynamic use of sound to express the physicality of the situation. 127 Hours is a rather aggressive experience, but even if the schizophrenia of the visuals makes you put your head between your legs, the generous sense of irony and humour the script exudes, and that the playful James Franco expresses so engagingly, keep the film alive. Though maybe cover your eyes when he removes his contacts. (B+)

Coming-of-age dramas are ten-a-penny, yet the festival threw up a fair share of superbly imagined gems of that specificity. South Africa’s Oscar entrant this year is Life, Above All, where the adolescent Chanda deals with a useless, drunk stepfather, an ill mother, a rebellious friend and the judgmental gazes of her entire neighbourhood. Khomotso Manyaka is a vibrant, perceptive anchor for the film, never characterising Chanda either as burdened by or martyring herself, and importantly maintaining a sense of innocence and childlike fun in her gait and attitude. The script’s heavy emphasis on social judgment is intriguingly endorsed by the intensity of the style in these sequences, hammering home the point to such an extent that it takes on an extra layer of the camera’s judgment; it doesn’t merely observe, but judges the judgers. But specially, Life, Above All is a nuanced, powerful and engaging drama that eschews the ‘poverty porn’ that most African exports seem to engage in, without severing itself from the depiction of the nationhood that inspired that stunted idea in the first place. (A-)


More literally coming of age is Anna (Clara Augarde), centre of Katell Quillevere’s intriguing Love Like Poison. It initially seems set up as a reticent period story, in the 1.33 aspect ratio and dangerously cosy country settings. Very rapidly, though, we see that this is a modern story, with a handily unjudgmental and open attitude. Familial dynamics are skewed – Anna’s mother ashamedly confesses to being jealous of her daughter’s burgeoning sexuality; and Anna reveals herself to two very different males with markedly different intentions – and their tangle with the essence of religion is a set of thematics dealt with by the script on an unpredictable, deeply complex level. More essentially, Quillevere’s film has an innate sense of what the realisation of sexuality is like, and the repercussions it has on the people closest to Anna prove amusing, surprising, depressing, and memorable. (B+)

7 Word Reviews: Made in Dagenham, Stone, 127 Hours, Etc...

Can you feel Oscar precursor season gearing up?

Left: Aron Ralson as himself.
Right: James Franco as Aron Ralston

The mountaintops are a-rumbling. To delude myself into thinking I've "caught up" before the avalanche, herewith seven word reviews on a bunch of movies I haven't got around to talking about just yet. More to come on three of them.

127 Hours
In which James Franco plays Aron Ralston who is pinned under boulder in southern Utah.
7WR: Nervously tricked up storytelling, but gripping nonetheless. B/B+


Made in Dagenham
Sally Hawkins leads fellow factory women on a strike for equal pay in late-60s England.
7WR: Engaging nuanced star turn elevates predictable story.  B

Stone
A parole officer who is about to retire (of course!) gets mixed up with an inmate and his wife.
7WR: Weirdly acted, overcooked presentation of undefined 'whatthefuck?'ness. D

Norton: What the fuck are you looking at?
Nathaniel: Honestly, I have no idea. You should tell me since you made it. 

Salt
In which Angelina Jolie is an American spy accused of being a Russian sleeper agent.
7WR (Angelina): An unactable enigma, so Jolie charismas instead. B+
7WR (Movie): Endearingly absurd but sadly disposable. Lame ending. B-

Soul KitchenFatih Akin's comedy about second chances, a flailing restaurant, and two German-Greek brothers.
7WR: Slow burn silliness and lusty adult appetites. B+

Leaving
Kristin Scott Thomas gets the f*** of her life from Sergi Lopez, then loses her cool.
7WR: Feverishly horny portentousness. Somehow Kristin sells it. C+

I Am Love
Tilda is the matriarch of a rich Italian clan whose family business is changing hands.
7WR: Mouthwatering visuals, melodramatic verve, subtextual theme;  Masterpiece?  A/A-

(big article forthcoming now that it's on DVD. Probably in a week's time.)

Mic-Macs
(From the man behind Amélie.) A man with a bullet in his brain seeks revenge on arms dealers.
7WR: Inspired (But Exhausting) Hijinx Setpieces 'R Us B-

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If you've seen any of these, do share your feelings. I lift the restrictions on word counts for the comments. You may use more than 7! (If you're ever in doubt about whether or not to comment try to think of comments as little crumbs and The Film Experience as a zoo. Here you may should feed the animals because they don't eat otherwise.) 
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TIFF Capsules: Passion Play, Black Swan, 127 Hours and The Conspirator

My friend txt critic is completing his Toronto journey soon but he sent another batch of thoughts for your perusal. He starts by taking an against consensus stand.

PASSION PLAY
By far the most loathed and eviscerated film of the festival, Mitch Glazer's brazenly out there, 20-years-in-the-works labor of love is extremely slow paced, unafraid to be laughed at for its sincerity and ridiculousness, and -- though I seem to be alone on this -- perpetually interesting. The plot basically boils down to "Mickey Rourke falls in love with circus-freak-with-giant-wings Megan Fox, and has to fight to protect her from violent gangster Bill Murray," so yes, it's silly, but I admired its audacity. Rourke is very very strong, Murray is always fun to watch, and... dare I say it? I thought Megan Fox was *gasp* pretty good (though, again, alone on this). Based on the response, though, who knows if this will ever see the light of day outside of the festival circuit. (B)

That is the sad thing about festivals, even if you're wise enough to mostly see films without release dates (I've never understood why people see things that will be out within in a few weeks) some of them will remain things that only you have ever seen.

SUPER
Basically a rougher, sloppier, darker version of "Kick-Ass," James Gunn's homemade super 'heroes' flick has some moments of madcap dark humor, and a surprisingly solid central performance from Rainn Wilson, but it suffers from a severe imbalance of tone, bizarre flourishes that don't add up to much, and a perpetual mean-spiritedness that left me with a sour taste in my mouth. Ellen Page steals the movie with her childlike ADD energy and karate moves, but Liv Tyler and Kevin Bacon are squandered and seem like they wandered in from another movie. (C-)


127 HOURS
Danny Boyle's true story of survival has been received raputurously on the festival circuit so far, but while I liked it overall, I can't really jump on the bandwagon of fervor. Boyle's energetic directorial style and a bravura physical performance from the normally boring James Franco go a long way towards keeping us involved; But at the end of the day, a guy with his arm pinned under a rock just isn't an inherently cinematic or compelling story, and the jittery editing and flashbacks and hallucinations -- while understandable on a conceptual level -- almost seem like a betrayal of the realities of the situation. Also, as good as Franco is, we never (or at least I never) feel like we know anything about this guy, or why we should have vested interest in his fate. That said, Boyle and Franco do keep us wrapped up in the goings-on, and there are about a half-dozen sequences (including the insanely intense climax) that are pretty remarkable... at least until the epilogue steps on the "uplifting" pedal a little too hard/disingenuously to try to push this into Slumdog territory. It's a solid effort, and will likely go over big with audiences, but I was only intermittently feeling it. (B / B-)

Interesting take. Especially in regards to the betrayal of a gut wrenching terrifying monotony of the experience as it must have been to live. I'm nervous about this one primarily because I thought Slumdog was only OK and it actively started annoying me when people wouldn't shut up about it. Will we see a repeat of that mass hysteria? And if so does that mean Boyle will get to do anything he wants from now on?

And finally txtcritic disputes the positive notices for Robert Redford's Oscar bait and joins many in loving Darren Aronofsky's latest.

THE CONSPIRATOR
Robert Redford's dull as dishwater History Channel re-enactment depicts the true but little known story of Mary Surratt, the mother of the accused collaborator of John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. While it's admirable that Redford would like to teach us all about a oft-overlooked footnote in history, he sure as hell doesn't do much to make it engaging, even with a pretty fantastic cast including Robin Wright, James McAvoy, Tom Wilkinson (sporting ridiculous old-timey mutton chops) and Kevin Kline. History nuts may be enraptured, but as an actual movie, it never breaks out of its dry, dusty courtroom procedural paramaters. All I could think of during the film (especially with the presence of Tom Wilkinson) was "John Adams" and the comparison is certainly not flattering. Blech. (C-)


BLACK SWAN
I hate to pile on more advance hype, but Aronofsky's much-anticipated psychological ballet thriller is truly staggering. A tightly-wound examination of the obsessive quest for artistic perfection, the film packs in one staggering sequence after another, and never allows us to breathe easy or get comfortable. Simultaneously beautiful and grotesque, it'll likely offput as many as it seduces, but this is a movie that will still be held on a pedestal a decade or two down the line. The comparisons being made to "The Red Shoes" and "The Wrestler" are apt, but there are strong traces of "There Will Be Blood" in here as well, in regards to the extremes to which it burrows into its central character. Portman does easily her best work here, carrying the entire film on her shoulders, and Winona Ryder and Barbara Hershey are terrifying perfection. (A)

So... that's the first I'm hearing of someone really mentioning Noni. Could this be a comeback of sorts (I had assumed it was a teensy-tiny cameo since I'm purposefully not reading reviews I don't know one way or the other)? Since this film is not playing the New York Film Festival I will have to wait along with the rest of you until December 1st.

Come again?!? I can't have heard the release date correctly. I'm dying here.

Noni, Aronofsky, Natalie, and Barbara Hershey

Just for fun, here's what the Black Swan team wore to their big Canadian premiere. Mila Kunis did not attend.
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Pandora's Link and JGL's Bad Romance

Due to the long holiday weekend which put me behind and a busy screening week, I've decided to postpone this week's HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT. The series will be back next Wednesday the 15th with Pandora's Box (1929) so you have another week to watch this awesome silent classic whether on DVD or Netflix Instant Watch. Thanks for understanding and please join in the celebration of the immortal Louise Brooks next Wednesday. On Wednesday the 22nd we'll do David Fincher's Se7en (1995) for its 15th anniversary. Honestly, it's the movie I was thinking of picking -- it'd been on my mind and I had an itch to scratch with it -- and then I looked up the release date and couldn't believe my eyes. Obvs, It was meant to be.

Links!
The Big Picture George Clooney's box office pull and the fate of The American.
/Film interviews Aron Ralston. James Franco plays him in 127 Hours.
Cinematical strange stories surfacing from 127 Hours screenings. Medics called in.
MTV Movies Mulan is getting a live action version with Zhang Ziyi returning to action heroine mode. Jan De Bont (Speed) will direct. This message has been brought to you by the year 2000.
Lazy Eye Theater an important message from Machete.
Movie|Line The Verge: Keir Gilchrist. I like this regular feature at Movie|Line.
Mind of a Suspicious Kind would like you to reconsider Megan Fox... as a silent film star.


CHUD Natalie Portman offered the Gravity lead. So much for our casting suggestions last week. I like Portman quite a lot but every actor has their weaknesses and so far she hasn't shown any skill at acting with green screens. Can Cuarón take her to where she needs to go?
Movie City News a cool press kit for Never Let Me Go. Uhhhh, I didn't get this. Boo.
Rooney Mara Network They're already filming The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? David Fincher is breaking speed records he is. Perhaps he's hurrying to complete filming before the awards season long haul for The Social Network.

And finally here's another Joseph Gordon-Levitt performance. He does love singing the girl songs. This time it's "Bad Romance"



This is my favorite part OF COURSE

For those still doubting the artistic integrity of Lady Gaga, this next verse has three Hitchcock references and the use of the word "shtick"

Heh.
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