My Link Spilleth Over

Funny Pages Posts
Mister Honk Troopin' in the Rain. hee
Goatdog "if they only had texting" old movies reimagined
Go Fug Yourself plays madlibs with Julianne Moore


Clickables
Yahoo watch Penélope Cruz and the girls rehearse for Nine. Sort of (it's more like a trailer which highlights the making of. Though why studios give exclusives like this to sites with "streaming video" I'll never know. It looks cool... but it also looks really ugly given the streaming. Missed opportunity when it shoulda been in Quicktime.
Pop Culture Nerd two kids review Where The Wild Things Are

It’s so random that the monsters have generic names, except for Judith and Ira because I don’t know anyone with those names... Why Alexander played with a cute kitten also doesn’t make sense to me. It’s so random because on that island, you would think there are only monsters and not normal animals.

My New Plaid Pants celebrates Nicholas Hoult, all growed up
Movie City Indie on the Chicago Film Festival Awards.
A Blog Next Door wonders why it took him so long to watch the star-laden Romance and Cigarettes (eep. I still haven't!)
Fin de Cinema remembers The Descent
Noh Way here's another instant Mo'Nique fan, bowled over by Precious


Andy Awesome Check out this super fun circular art (some examples above)! Several genre movie characters appear and you can buy originals by emailing the artist
NPR R Crumb illustrated "The Book of Genesis"?!?

UGH
David Poland wants the Gotham Awards to be better at predicting Oscar. Jesus Christ, Poland! Every time I think my age old battle cry against this stuff is gaining steam (at least Guy Lodge is with me) someone popular goes and says something like this. I must repeat: There is literally no point to ANY awards show other than Oscar existing if they only exist to predict Oscar. Give your awards to whoever you feel is best, the end. Prediction is prediction. Awards are awards. The latter should never strive to be the former -- it's fine if it happens accidentally -- or the awards body in question is a useless corrupt thing. If you want to predict the Oscar, make predictions. Have at it. I myself recommend doing so because it's damn fun. But don't confuse that with the desire to actual honor people for good work. When you're doing that, call it like you see it. Not how you think Oscar will see it. The Oscar race would be an even more fascinating thing if all the other awards bodies followed this decree: Get your own voice or shut the hell up!
*

Red Carpet: Venice, Toronto and Tilda x 7

Which stars have been out and about this past week? Whole galaxies of them. I've collected a few randomly for this edition of the red carpet lineup. It's but a tiny fraction of the luminaries since we're now in the thick of festival season. Telluride is behind us, Venice wraps today, and Toronto just kicked off. And that's just the big ones.


Nicholas Hoult and Julianne Moore hit Venice for the premiere of A Single Man (see previous post). An Education's Carey Mulligan, quickly emerging as the one to beat for Best Actress, is going to be fought over fiercely when it comes to dressing for the Oscars, just watch. She wore this Prada 09 Fall/Winter collection piece for her film's Toronto premiere. Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly and her perpetually Oscar snubbed husband Paul Bettany were also in Toronto promoting the Charles Darwin biography / marital drama Creation.

Finally, Venice had the cast of the sci-fi drama Mr. Nobody starring Jared Leto as a 120 year-old man. And, what do you know, Sarah Polley came. Polley sightings are exciting since she's not exactly a red carpet staple. But --and it feels so weird to say this given my actress predilections -- I'd rather she get back behind the camera very soon as a writer/director. Away From Her was just fine filmmaking.

What else ya got, Sarah?

Little Know Fact: In late May of 1960 all of the world's major film festivals met for a wild orgy at Cannes. Just as La Dolce Vita was handed the Palme D'Or, Tilda Swinton was conceived. Cannes herself, heavy with child, fled to England and gave birth to Tilda not five months later (everything happens quickly at festivals). It's totally true! For Tilda is the film festival anthropomorphized: the rush of celebrity, the discovery of the exotic, the air of the international and the thrill of the avant garde. Festivals just don't feel complete without her, do they?

She was all over Venice last week (I've repurposed the photos from Zimbio). Witness...

Tilda's Venice palette: baggy black (a la 07 Oscars), earth tones, white.

I wonder if she'll show up in Toronto? While in Venice, she was promoting Lo Sono L'Amore, an Italian drama. Longtime Swintonites should note that a reunion with her Teknolust director is currently in development. It's called Gene to the Fourth and the actress would play a woman seeking eternal life through scientific experiments. But first, and as early as April, Swinton is set to go before the cameras as Die Blutgräfin (The Blood Countess). Yes, that's the same vampiric Hungarian role that Julie Delpy played in the unreleased film The Countess, a film I'm starting to feel I'll never have the opportunity to see.
*

A Single Man Teases

I realize that if I ran Hollywood, they'd be bankrupt in a year. Oh, the things I'd greenlight! And the way I'd market the beautiful motion pictures I shepherded into being. (sigh) History shows us that moviegoers like to see spoilers and lots of exposition in their trailers but I shudder when a trailer ends and I already know the entire outline, the best three moments and can guess the ending with 90% accuracy. I'd promote nearly every movie like they're promoting A Single Man. Here is the teaser -- thanks to reader Seeking Amy for pointing it out -- which is all intriguing imagery and dropped hints as to the story that awaits you.



The Good News
This is truly beautiful stuff. Julianne Moore looks ravishing and stylish. Colin Firth looks less dumpy than usual and the cinematography by Eduard Grau (a DP I'm not familiar with) looks promising, indeed. It should come as no surprise that the first feature from a reknowned image maker, fashion golden boy Tom Ford, would look good. But this looks great. The delicious cast also includes the superhumanly beautiful Ozymandias Matthew Goode, Pushing Daisies' Lee Pace, Nicholas "About a Boy Man" Hoult, model Jon Kortajarena, Teddy Sears (Dollhouse) and the always welcome Ginnifer Goodwin.


The Bad News
The movie is still for sale which means that you can't count on it showing up in your cinema any time soon. Here's to hoping that something magic occurs at Toronto and this movie can enter the upcoming Oscar fray. Which will only be a scuffle, methinks, given the barren awards landscape that 2009 seems to be turning into.
*