my new plaid pants

Jake, With And Without

2009-11-20T22:27:00.004-05:00

Okay. Sure. Courage, VO5 conditioner, whatever. (via)
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Well I'm Off To The Dentist Now...

2009-11-20T16:23:00.000-05:00

Wish my teeth (and my sanity) luck.

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Why Are You Wearing That Stupid Man Suit

2009-11-20T15:28:00.006-05:00

There really isn't a whole bunch more I can say regarding my love for Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko at this point, but I attempted to spin my love for the film into a word-salad (using a word-salad-spinner, of course) over at The Film Experience this afternoon.

See, Nat's running through the decade that's about to have been, these here Aughts, and he's up to 2001 and when I think 2001 oh I could say something about The Royal Tenebaums or Mulholland Drive or In the Mood For Love or any other of the great cineaste achievements from that year but really I just wanna think about awesome late-80s worm-hole theories by Roberta Sparrow and scream, "Chut up!" at the world.

So I did. And I didn't even get around to the part
where Jake sticks his hands down his pants!

That's respectable me over there, see. Respectable!
Classy, and junk! Not like here where I just barf everywhere.

Bardem Four Times

2009-11-20T14:58:00.000-05:00

With a new Almodóvar film out today my thoughts turn to the Pedro's films and from there to his men (naturally) and from there to Javier (even more naturally). All roads lead to Bardem! Except for unfortunately the one to my bedroom. Or bathroom. Or kitchen floor. Or taxicab backseat, laundromat closet, alleyway, bell-tower... the point being, Bardem. Yes.

But back to Broken Embraces: when did this film stop being a priority for me? Word's been pretty mixed and there are a lot of movies out right now that I've got to get to, but an Almodóvar film is always, even with the lesser ones, something to be seen in glorious color on a big screen. Alas.

But speaking of "in glorious color on a big screen," I got to see Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1948 film The Red Shoes "in glorious color on a big screen" just last night! See my previous post devoted to that movie here. It was the last night of a remastered print and I just wanted to lick the screen.

Well this post was all over the place and I didn't even get around to discussing how great I think the name "Emeric" is and how it ought to make a comeback. But I do, and it ought to. So there.
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Well Hello There, Dave Franco

2009-11-20T13:16:00.002-05:00

This is James Franco's younger brother, Dave Franco. I sort of remember seeing him in one of those Funny Or Die videos that James did awhile ago. But I don't think I really saw him, if ya know what I mean, like I am seeing him in the above photograph.

poll by twiigs.com

In related news, Franco the James finally and at last popped up on General Hospital yesterday! Yes, this is a thing, that happened. Watch it! (via)

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Sorority Boys 2: Puttin' on the Titz

2009-11-20T12:32:00.007-05:00

So this is the point in my life where I turn into a lowbrow madcap comedy of the sexes and don drag in order to move into a girl's dormitory then, huh? I guess I should've been expecting it. Via Gawker:

"Marble-eyed Englishman Jude Law made the mistake of moving into a condo right next door to an NYU dorm.

... Freshman NYU ladies come running to windows of their dorm every time Jude Law comes out on his balcony. The reason for this, again: Jude Law lives in a condo with a balcony that is towered over by a dormitory full of 18 year-olds."

Hmm, I just realized that nowhere does it say that this is specifically a female dormitory, the original article at The Post just talks about the females doing the viewing and only gets quotes from them. So I guess maybe I won't have to turn myself into a teen comedy about my fake boobs popping comically after all. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to fake-romance an eighteen year old NYU student to gain access to their Jude Law overlook. Doin' it the old-fashioned way.

And those catty snoops took pictures to boot!

Loving his downward-facing-dog. What is it with me sexualizing the stars and their yoga positions this week? Golly. My chakra must be all hot n' bothered. I have no idea what I just said.
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I Am Link

2009-11-20T10:48:00.000-05:00

--- Chrome Dome - Is anybody out there reading Stephen King's new one Under the Dome? It completely slid past my radar until last week when I saw Janet Maslin's rave review in the NYT and I reeeally wanna be reading it right now but am forcing myself to work through at least a few books off the massive heap that's collected on my dresser before I go and buy a new one. Even though I want that one! That one now! It's always like this - I never get any old reading done because there's always something new and flashy to play with for a bit.

Anyway! As I'm sure you've seen elsewhere by now Steven Spielberg has picked up the rights for turning the book into a TV series. Cool and junk.

--- Clearing the Eyre - As long as we're talking books, here's a lil' factoid: somehow I graduated with a degree in English without ever flipping open a copy of Jane Eyre in my entire life. So there's that. Higher education works! I've never even seen a film version. But I will have seen a film version once this one is out: DH reports that Michael Fassbender has signed on to play "Rochester" opposite Tim Burton's Alice (aka Mia Wasikowska) in an adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's classic. And as I've made clear as of late, I'm rather fond of Michael Fassbender. Rather fond indeed. Swoon.

--- The Darkest Knight - If today is a day that ends in "day" then it is a good day to look at gratuitous shots of Christian Bale playing Patrick Bateman, yes? Yes.

--- Best Boo - Also over at Billy Loves Stu is a run-down of Pax's favorite horror films of the year 2009 via their posters. In a galaxy far far away when I finally get around to even starting to think about my Best of '09 list you will see many of these movies represented, at least in the Horror categories. Mostly* good stuff! (*mostly refers to Pax's love for Grace, which we disagree upon; that movie just did not work for me.)

--- Bare Your Claus - Comic genius Mike White is writing a script called Santa Wars, which is based off of a segment from NPR's This American Life. The story's about "rival factions that developed within a union of professional Santa Clauses who became arch enemies during a Santa Claus civil war." So basically Bad Santas.

--- And finally, go wish Final Girl a happy 1000th post! Thank her one thousand times! She deserves to be slapped raw with high fives, dammit!
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Five Frames From ?

2009-11-20T10:15:00.003-05:00

What movie is this?
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Quote of the Day

2009-11-20T09:51:00.005-05:00

Or perhaps of the year. We'll have to see how it goes when the next season of True Blood rolls around. But until then, here's Alexander Skarsgard talking about what we can expect from the show's third season (via):

"I’m extremely excited to get naked!

... There’s a lot of nudity. As far as Eric goes, there’s going to be a lot violence and a lot of sex — with women and men! So it should be interesting.”

"Interesting" is one word. It has eleven letters. Four syllables. Do these pieces actually capture the essence of what that "it" is? What that "it" promises to be? No they do not.
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Happy 38, Joel McHale

2009-11-20T09:40:00.001-05:00

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Romain Duris Six Times

2009-11-19T17:08:00.001-05:00

Guess it's just A Very Duris Kinda Day today...
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Further Quotes of the Day

2009-11-19T16:13:00.007-05:00

Oh hooray, the second Twilight film has at least brought about this one good thing: it's given Roger Ebert the always-exciting task of writing up a string of hilarious take-downs. His whole review's a gas so go over and read it, but I'm gonna just go ahead and quote all my favorite bits here...

"The characters in this movie should be arrested for loitering with intent to moan. Never have teenagers been in greater need of a jump-start. Granted some of them are more than 100 years old, but still: their charisma is by Madame Tussaud."

"Edward and Bella spend murky moments glowering at each other and thinking, So, here we are again."

"Edward (Robert Pattinson) is back in school, repeating the 12th grade for the 84th time. Bella sees him in the school parking lot, walking toward her in slow-motion, wearing one of those Edwardian Beatles jackets with a velvet collar, pregnant with his beauty. How white his skin, how red his lips. The decay of middle age may transform him into the Joker."

"Long pauses interrupt longer ones."

Oh and one other thing from Roger today - his review of the just-mentioned-in-my-previous-post Werner Herzog film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans points out that Jennifer Coolidge is in that movie!

I did not know that Jennifer Coolidge was in that movie, I do not think! Awesome! He says of her character:

"Coolidge, with great screen presence as always, changes gears and plays a MI-wouldn't-LF."

So that rocks my face off.
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A Very Werner Herzog Holiday Time!

2009-11-19T15:44:00.005-05:00

Like Bob Cratchit before me, this season I have been blessed. No, not with a crippled child that won't shut the hell up, but rather a pair of Werner Herzog movies in theaters all within the space of the next few holly-riddled weeks! Hooray!

Opening tomorrow is Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (sidenote: I deserve a pat on the back because that's the first time I have ever spelled "lieutenant" right without having to spell-check it in my life right there) in which vaunted-ham Nicolas Cage reportedly stares at an iguana for several minutes. So there.

And opening in 22 days (that is, December 11th) is My Son My Son What Have Ye Done? (sidenote #2: there will be no letters left for the cinema marquees once these two movies are out at once), Herzog's story of a man, his mother, and the samurai sword that came between them. That one stars quickly-becoming-an-MNPP-fave Michael Shannon. So so there.

Anyway, Werner Herzog is by my estimations one of the best film-makers working on the planet today and I will see anything he is willing to give me and I will be happy with whatever the hell that is, amen. So thanks for blessing the season, Werner! The merriest of misanthropes, indeed!
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Quote of the Day

2009-11-19T14:41:00.004-05:00

Jarett, I'm sure you don't mind me swiping this quote wholesale from you over at PopWrap, it's just too good and too up my alley not to, ya know? So thanks for posting it and alerting me to such a thing being said. You rule. Anyway, here's Sigourney "Siggy" Weaver speaking of James Cameron's Avatar:

"People are going to piss themselves again and again and again. Because it's just one amazing scene after the other."

I mean, am I right or am I right? Sigourney Weaver and involuntary torrents of piss! Two of my favorite things! Wait, what? Uhh. Kidding! I am kidding. God.

But seriously, she could be talking about the fact that the film's apparently around three hours long, as well. Skip the soda, remember the catheter. That's my motto! Oh god make me stop.
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Deathus Interruptus

2009-11-19T14:13:00.006-05:00

Ah jeez! Jeez, I say.

For the second week in a row Thursday's Ways Not To Die will not be happening. Ugh. My apologies, again. It's been one of "those" weeks and I'd put this off to the last minute and I can't get the DVD to play on my computer here at work, so no, not gonna happen. Oh well. Next week! Next week for sure!

Hrm, here's an idea... let's just pretend this is it, for now:

I mean, this is a death scene I will obviously give bigger better love to once Inglourious comes out on DVD (on December 15th! So soon!) and I can post nice big clear crisp images of Eli and Eli's swarthy wife-beater'd big-bat shenanigans, but until then we can enjoy it thus. I guess.

Point being, Bear Jew! Bear Jew! Bear Jew! Hooray!
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Five Frames From ?

2009-11-19T11:41:00.000-05:00

What movie is this?
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Steve Zahn's Aptly-Named Plow Position

2009-11-19T10:56:00.005-05:00

Reader request! A few weeks back I did a nice hefty gratuitous post on the adorable actor Steve Zahn. Then just earlier this week it was brought to my attention by commenter Michael that there is a scene of gratuity in Zahn's film-work that has gone unattended to by the internet-machine so far! Quelle horreur! Apparently in the 2001 comedy (and I use that word broadly here) Saving Silverman (which also stars Jason Biggs, Amanda Peet, and Jack Black), Zahn is shown doing some "naked yoga." Well I could scarcely let such a thing go undocumented, now could I? So here tis, in all its glory: Mr. Steve Zahn elucidating the glory of the imagination-revving-ly named "plow position" in the film Saving Silverman...

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I Am Link

2009-11-19T10:45:00.001-05:00

--- The All Sam Express - Continuing with my self-inflicted edict of reporting all Sam Worthington news whenever it shows itself, Mr. Worthington's signed on for a new movie! It's called The Last Days of American Crime and is described thusly:

"Set in a near future where, as a final response to terrorism and crime, the U.S. government plans in secret to broadcast a signal making it impossible for anyone to knowingly commit unlawful acts.

To keep this from the public, the government creates a distraction, installing a new currency system using digital charge cards.

A not particularly successful career criminal intends to steal one of the charging stations, skip the country and live off unlimited funds for the rest of his life.

The media however has leaked news of the anti-crime signal one week before it was to go live...and now Graham and his team have just a few days to turn the crime of the century into the last crime in American history."

That's a complicated sale there, ain't it? That story is decidedly not easily boiled down to a sentence or two. Not that I demand such things! Complicated can be good! Or it can be needless complications in search of a meaning. We'll see. Still, Sam's cute! Aww. Cute.

--- Lovely Lady - There's no way I'm gonna get around to seeing her new movie, Women In Trouble, until it's on DVD, there's too much out right now and on its way, but I love Carla Gugino all the same so y'all oughta check out this interview with her if you love her too (and if you don't love her, wtf is your problem dude?). It's mostly about that film.

--- Split Up! - That's CRwM's wise theory that he's extrapolating over at And Now the Screaming Starts with regards to how one would wisely behave and therefore survive in a horror film. I think he might have something here.

--- Orphaned - Larry Fessenden, the low-budget horror director, has abandoned on the studio's doorstep in a little wicker basket the remake of the highly regarded Spanish horror flick The Orphanage. I thought the original was alright but hugely overrated, but I was definitely curious to see what Fessenden could've done with it. Alas - he was probably trying to figure out a way to cram a Wendigo into the story anyway.

--- 7 outta '09 - Over at STYD they looked at seven horror films that have not gotten released this year, and why they've been shuffled where ever the hell they've been shuffled, and when and where they might see the light of day. Ti West's abandoned Cabin Fever sequel, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, The Poughkeepsie Tapes, and four others are represented.

--- O' Tennessee - Over there to the left is the not-half-bad poster for The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (via), an adaptation of a Tennessee Williams play, which stars Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Evans. I'm unfamiliar with the story so here's how they summarize it:

"Bryce Dallas Howard is Fisher Willow, the disliked 1920s Memphis debutante daughter of a plantation owner with a distaste for narrow-minded people and a penchant for shocking and insulting those around her.

After returning from studies overseas, Fisher falls in love with Jimmy (Chris Evans), the down-and-out son of an alcoholic father (David Strathairn) and an insane mother who works at a store on her family's plantation. She tries to pass him off as an upper-class suitor to appease the spinster aunt (Ann-Margret) who controls her family's fortune, but when she loses a diamond, it places their tenuous relationship in further jeopardy."

This being Tennessee Williams, I think you can forgive me for hoping that Chris Evans spends a majority of the film sweating in a wife-beater and repressing his homosexual desires. But judging from some pictures of Mr. Evans in the film that are out here on the internets, he seems to rock a tux for most of it...

Still, hot. The film's out in NYC & LA on Dec. 20th.
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Good Morning, World

2009-11-19T09:10:00.001-05:00

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Romain is ready to rumble.
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Today's Mood

2009-11-18T16:40:00.001-05:00

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Today's Fanboy Delusion

2009-11-18T16:32:00.000-05:00

Today I'd rather be...

... helping Thomas Kretschmann
reach those hard-to-reach areas.
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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

2009-11-18T15:41:00.005-05:00

... you can learn from:

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Biker #1: Whoooeee! Look at this crowd. Bound to be a lot of pussy on the hoof in a crowd like this.

Biker #2: All swelled up with patriotic feeling and ready to be humped like a frog.

Biker #1: So where you figure the most pussy's at - Las Vegas or California?

Biker #2: Hell, I don't know. But if you make it between Wyoming and Montana, I'd pick Wyoming in a minute.

Just so ya know. All the patriotic pussy's in Wyoming. Now ya can't say ya never learned nothing of substance here.

And now I can scratch one more scene from this movie off the check-list... soon enough the entire thing, start to finish, will have been documented by yours truly. Nothing quite like an insane obsession to make the days go by, is there?
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David Beckham Two Times

2009-11-18T15:27:00.002-05:00

Oldies but goodies... goodies that I've somehow managed
to never post before, more specifically...
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Guns & Agora

2009-11-18T14:25:00.007-05:00

Wow okay sorry for the seeming radio silence here today. I'm just not feeling altogether here today. I woke up in the middle of this rad nightmare where I was outrunning all these plane chunks falling out of the sky and the clouds were on fire, and ever since I don't feel quite right. Blah blah nothing is more boring then listening to other people's dreams blah. I'm trying to pull myself together. Nothing's quite igniting my imagination for posting though. Here are a couple things worth noting I guess (the enthusiasm's leaping off the page!).

Via Slash here's the trailer for Zhang Yimou's next movie which is maybe being called The First Gun now instead of the far clunkier Amazing Tales: Three Guns; this you may recall is his remake of the Coen Bros. Blood Simple.

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And this next something I was actually just trying to find the answer to on Monday, with no luck, so I was happy to see this bit at DH:

"Alejandro Amenabar's "Agora" has finally been acquired for U.S. distribution through Newmarket Films says Screen Daily.

The English-language ancient epic tells the story of religious conflict in Roman-governed Alexandria as the Christian and pagans battle, often violently, for religious and intellectual supremacy.

The period story centers on he enlightened thinker Hypatia (Rachel Weisz) as well as both her philosophical and romantic conflicts. Max Minghella and Oscar Isaac also star."

Mmm Max Minghella...

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Anyway I'm def. curious about Agora - I loves me some Rachel Weisz after all and Amenabar's always an interesting filmmaker. I know the film's been out overseas - anyone seen it?
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Five Frames From ?

2009-11-18T10:32:00.001-05:00

What movie is this?
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