Wednesday, August 19, 2015

I Am Link

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--- Heaven Song - Over at The Film Experience Manuel's series on the LGBT history of HBO has finally made it to The Big One, aka Mike Nichol's epic and brilliant Angels In America, and Manuel's write-up is lovely, go read it. (I didn't know that PJ Hogan could have directed it! That would have been very different.) And the celebration of Angels is continuing tonight when TFE's series "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" takes it on, so head over later too. If I were participating I'd have a really hard (heh) time not picking the shot of Patrick Wilson in his Mormon underwear or when he strips naked on the beach honestly, so maybe it's better if I refrain.

--- Scissorhands Strike - I wish what few reviews there were of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's new film The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet, which Harvey Weinstein dumped into a few theaters with no warning a couple of weeks ago because he was stomping his little foot about not getting to have final edit himself, had been better so I would've been inspired to stick it to The Man (aka Harvey) and go see it - as is I make it to an actual theater so rarely these days I must choose wisely. But if you'd like to hear more from JPJ about what a dick Harvey is (and we all want to hear that) then head over to The Playlist, where they've got a few more quotes from the director. I guess I'll see it when it gets dropped with little fanfare on Netflix.

--- Period Devilry - There's no way in hell I am watching this the first trailer for the Sundance smash The Witch, which is about real scary witches (singular or plural I do not know) in 17th Century New England -- the reviews were so stellar I am insisting I go into this thing clean, not having seen anything, as well as I can. I hate that they even put this trailer out so early -- they're not releasing the film until next year! Why are you tormenting me??? It is playing Toronto next month so that's probably why, but still. That there is the poster and I love it -- goats are such creeps.

--- Millennial Monsters - I haven't had a chance to look through this list too thoroughly but Movies Films & Flix did a reader survey and came up with "The Top 21 Horror Films of the New Century" and it's a good list! I would rearrange it myself but there's nothing on it I totally dislike. Probably my least favorite is The Conjuring, but I get why it's there. I prefer the Insidious series myself. Anyway you can tell serious horror people voted because Martyrs made it onto the list (even if it didn't make it to #1 which is where it belongs).

--- Man of Melancholy - Here is a very good chat with Lars von Trier about how he's had to give up sobriety in order to start working again -- apparently this is the first interview he's given since his infamous Cannes comments (close your eyes and you can still picture Kirsten Dunst's embarrassed face, admit it). It skips around a bunch of stuff but it's nice to have him speaking again.

--- Full Metal Bitches - Dammit I wish Tom Cruise would stop making such great action movies so I could boycott him better -- I saw Mission Impossible Rogue Nation against my own word, and it was SO good. So much fun. And you know what felt like a terrific old-school throwback? I feel like there are never any casting surprises anymore - everything's so dissected online - and so the feeling of "Who the hell is this Rebecca Ferguson person?" was so great. Nobody ever sneaks up on me anymore like that. And her part was huge! And she's awesome, and nailed it, and now I can't wait to see what she does next... which turns out is a movie co-starring Tom Cruise's last action-movie female co-star Emily Blunt. It's an adaption of the book The Girl on the Train, which I guess is a big deal right now? Anybody read it?

--- Sewer Dwelling - EW touted their chat with Cary Fukunaga about why his movie version of Stephen King's It didn't happen so hard I really thought he might stick it to New Line, but he's totally reasonable, boo:

"Ultimately, we and New Line have to agree on the kind of movie we want to make, and we just wanted to make different movies. It’s like a relationship: you can try to make the other person who you want them to be, but it’s impossible really to change. You just have to work."

Come on Cary, dish! And while you're at it, take a dump on True Detective's second season! Let down your man-braids, dude!

--- And Finally over at Word & Film my friend Tom Blunt tackled on the movies of Jean Genet -- of course there's talk of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Querelle and of The Maids (all the versions) but Tom also found Genet's own 1950 film Un chant d'amour online, which I'd never seen! Wowza! 
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4 comments:

Yummy Pizza said...

Rebecca Ferguson was in a terrible Swedish soap in the late 90/early 00's and an even MORE terrible Swedish/American soap and then she dropped off the face of the earth. Imagine my surprise when she resurfaced last year as the titular White Queen on Starz (or was it AMC?). And now this?! Good on you, Rebecca.

Bill_the_Bear said...

T.S. Spivet played here in Québec several months ago. I didn't see it at the time, as it was marketed as a "Kids' movie," and it didn't particularly look interesting.

mangrove said...

You should still take a gander a 'The Witch' trailer which didn't look to me like it was spoiling anything, fear-wise.

That goat is freeeeea-ky!

Mads said...

I read "The Girl on the Train" - and hated it. Hopefully I'll like the movie a lot more. It looks promising so far, as I like both Blunt and Ferguson. Plus, it's being directed by that guy who was actually on Charmed once! What more could I want!