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...

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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!

Day of Rest (Avec Ludivine Sagnier)

Shhhhhhhhh. Ludivine Sagnier finds ennui and romantic confusion exhausting. She's sleeping it off. (She probably shouldn't be sleeping though. She should wake up and get her ass out of that apartment, double quick. Nobody ever leaves that apartment!).

We'll be back tomorrow with more blog fodder. In truth there's not actually much resting going on chez moi. There's spreadsheets and websites and IMDb pages all over my screen. I'm researching 2010 and 2011 for next week's launch of the new Oscar predictions. Yes, it starts all over again very soon. Stay tuned.

In the meantime... talk amongst yourself, give me clues to what you think will happen this coming Oscar year in the comments right here, or continue conversations that are already in play further down the page. There's even continued conversation to enjoy on that 'this decade's actresses' and the post on Oliver! from last Monday.
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Beauty Break: Emmanuelle Béart

Today is Emmanuelle Béart's 46th birthday. Here she is to your left earlier this summer with another Gallic great Isabelle Huppert. Huppert is still an arthouse draw in the states but it seems like it's been ages since Béart made it to our screens in any significant way. There's been a teensy run here and there (Strayed, The Witnesses) but the last film that won any real attention was 8 Women (2002) also starring Huppert... and Catherine Deneuve and Fanny Ardant and Ludivine Sagnier. Mon dieu, je l'aime!

The last time I remember hearing other Americans talk about Béart was in college in the early to mid90s when Béart had that critically acclaimed run of Un Couer en Hiver (Cesar nom), L'Enfer, A French Woman and Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud (Cesar nomination) but international stardom is a tough thing to maintain for anyone, no matter how beautiful or talented. Exceedingly rare are the Hupperts and Deneuves who can hold on to it with a steel grip all their lives.

Béart often gets wet in photoshoots, non?

She's not French but look at the career of Franka Potente? How the hell did she not stay as famous as she was in the late 90s after Run Lola Run? She was just as riveting to watch in The Princess and the Warrior even if the film wasn't as good and she more than held her own in The Bourne Identity. Makes you wonder what will become of Gael Garcia Bernal, Audrey Tatou, Marion Cotillard in ten years time. Hasn't Zhang Ziyi essentially disappeared already?

<--- The star with her husband, french actor Michael Cohen.

Béart first won my heart as skinny dipping Manon, the youthful goddess of Manon of the Spring. That movie made me bawl. I remember being greatly confused that Jean de Florette (the preface) and Manon (the conclusion) weren't nominated at the Oscars. That epic two-parter had to make due with Globe and BAFTA attention -- though I knew nothing of the other awards back then so the honors were lost on me. I was so obsessed with Jean/Manon that I even bought the soundtrack and used to sing along with the theme song phonetically. What was I singing about? I didn't know but assuming it was a hymn to Béart was good enough for me.

Here is the original trailer to Manon and a recent French cel phone commercial (creepy or funny?) starring the famous beauty.



Where would you rank Béart in the pantheon of French goddesses? And which young French actress are you obsessed with? I mean, besides Ludivine Sagnier who I'll assume you love? If not, don't tell me otherwise!

[If you aren't familiar with Béart or maybe just beginning to fall in love with French cinema, Netflix has 21 of Béart's movies. Lots to choose from.]

Underappreciated Films of 2008 / Rental Suggestions

Year in Review Part 4 of 5

"Overrated" and "Underrated" are loaded statements when it comes to the critical and popular reception of movies. They suggest a false notion that there exists an easily cited consensus but depending on who you read and where you get your information consensus may vary. Which means it isn't consensus. Confusing. "Underappreciated", my preferred appellation, has its limits too. It suggests that one can't include films with decent to huge box office so for this year's "Underappreciated" roundup I'm spotlighting films that almost no one saw (along with their gross to prove it). They're not perfect but still worth a look.

READ THE REST...

Surely you'll agree that Ludivine Sagnier is luscious no matter how many lovers she's juggling, The Fall's hospital bedside storytelling device is more successful than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button's, and that Ben Kingsley (Elegy) is far more convincing as a sexual magnet than Philip Seymour Hoffman (Synecdoche New York). Also discussed: Ciao, Turn the River and Trouble the Water
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Which films do you think deserved more attention this year?

also in the year in review
Top Twelve Films (Best of the Year)
Hyperboles Gone Wild (Over Appreciated Films)
Hell's Multiplex (Worst Films & Performances)
FiLM BiTCH Awards Promo (because we love motion pictures)
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20:08 (Ludivine in Motion)

Thoughts and screenshots from the 20th minute and 8th second of films released in 2008. I was missing my 20:07 series so I'm bringing it back albeit in an altered form. Looking only @ this year's titles.


Ludivine Sagnier (in motion) doesn't like to wash dishes. Particularly not while the men lounge about in the next room. And especially not after awkward conversations with her mother (smoking) about her new threesome!

This random screenshot pulled from Christophe Honoré's young musical Love Songs, which flitted briefly across stateside screens in March, proved serendipitous. Because when I think of Ludivine Sagnier, which is more often than you'd guess, she strikes me as a Girl of Perpetual Motion. With some actresses I think of close-ups. Not so with Sagnier. Whether it's the languidly sexual movements in Swimming Pool, the youthful bounce in 8 Women or even her exaggerated bratty gesturing as Tinkerbell in Peter Pan, in my mind's eye she's always on the go.

<--- I haven't finished watching Love Songs yet but I grinned impulsively the second I saw her hair swinging in closeup in the opening credits. She's walking to a movie theater as this film begins. So meta ...or so French whichever the case may be.

Come to think of it, Ludivine's current film A Girl Cut in Two has a fine uninterrupted shot of the intoxicating starlet hurrying down the street, too. I loved the movie when I saw it @ the NYFF last year, but it's kind of a blur now. My memory might be faulty but that particular long cut felt like a bullet shot, a dividing line for the film as the victim/heroine raced from its first half into its second, hormones and emotions in disarray. Another image from A Girl Cut in Two that also loops in the brain is a kinkier suggestive one of Ludivine on all fours crawling towards her svengali lover. I was so pleased to discover that the new poster uses it.


Ludivine je t'aime.
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(La) Gestation

You'd think after two decades of increasingly rabid moviegoing and several years of writing about movies, I would get used to the elephantine gestation period of the foreign-language film. From initial release in their home country to touring with the festival circuit to American release. It's so long. I can never wrap my head around it in a culture that's otherwise all about speed. Why do distributors consistently ignore the possible benefits of festival buzz and word of mouth --only to send the films out one sometimes two years later when few people remember the films existed at all?

Last weekend I was dreaming it forward about this coming October's New York Film Festival and then this trailer popped up on my radar. A Girl Cut in Two, a blackly comic love triangle from septugenarian Claude Chabrol, was one of the yummiest entries at last year's NYFF and it's finally seeing US release in mid August. I hope vous will see it.



Benôit Magimel, who you'll remember as Isabelle Huppert's lover in The Piano Teacher is a major thrill as a wealthy gadabout and his designer clothes are so natty. Ludivine Sagnier continues to be the most succulent dish in French movies --love that girl. The film might be up for some filmbitch awards at year's end now that it's going theatrical. You never know. Wheeeee or should I see "oui". A Girl Cut in Two premiered in Paris last August but never mind that. If you care they're finally giving you a chance to see it in America. Or at least in NYC.