Good news, bad news, Star Wars fans. Lucasfilm has set Feb. 10, 2012 as the date for the first re-release of the franchise in 3-D. Unfortunately, they’re starting with Episode I — The Phantom Menace . How many injuries will result from people attempting to savagely elbow Jar-Jar Binks in the face during these 3-D showings? Stay tuned… [ StarWars.com ]
No actor has made a career of exerting determination to the extent that Matt Damon has. In the Bourne movies, he burned himself down to a central nervous system — his focus fried away unnecessary calories. In The Informant! , the comedy comes from doughy Mark Whitacre’s single minded pursuit of the life he has in his head; the weight he happily carries didn’t make him earthbound. That film’s examination of identity played like a Philip K. Dick adaptation; it seems to serve the purpose of making writer/director George Nolfi’s simultaneously drab and florid adaptation of Dick’s Adjustment Team superfluous.
Lyrics: I’ll take you to the movies Oh, you look so lovely I’ll take you to my bedroom Where you can prove to me That you really love me A funny feeling That you’re gonna leave I’ll give you our new CD One more look at me to ease The suffering This is gonna be a heartbreaker (this is gonna be) Caught me dancing (caught me) In your make-up (in your make-up) Wait, wait; tell me Before you leave Do you think this dress (do you think this dress) Looks good on me (looks good on me) See if I car
Yesterday, I dredged up the terrifying childhood memory of the creepy ventriloquist’s dummy (if that’s not redundant) in the ads for Magic , so let’s keep the young-nightmare fuel going with a discussion of clowns. But even if those painted circus harlequins make you uneasy — studies show you’re in the majority — you should still check out the DVD debut of Federico Fellini’s fascinating The Clowns (RaroVideo).
Good morning to you on this very special day! No, not Gavin McLoed’s [sic] 80th birthday , though that deserves recognition, I can’t lie. But! Lou Reed was born 69 years ago today in Brooklyn, NY — a location that would become the partial subject of his fantastic appearance in the 1995 ensemble-improv weird-out Blue in the Face . Let’s reminisce and pay some much-deserved respect below.
“Do you know where you’re going to?” asks the theme to Diana Ross’s 1975 movie Mahogany . Well, do you? Turns out it doesn’t matter, because Mahogany doesn’t know either. Is it a fashion movie? A love story? A political thinkpiece? A treatise on how photographers are gay predators who suckle your breasts and try to kill you? The answer: All of the above! And yet, so much less. After seeing Ms. Ross on Oprah this week, we’ve had a craving for her old films, and Movieline has chosen to reexamine the nuttiest one of all. The one where she fornicates with Norman Bates.
“Michael Cera runs. He runs in Superbad , escaping the police with his friend Jonah Hill, and he runs in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist , after a derelict played by Andy Samberg verbally assaults him on the steps of downtown Manhattan’s Grace Church. For all his running, never once is Cera chasing anybody. (The closest he comes is in Juno : just after crossing the finish line and failing to locate Juno in the stands, he runs to the hospital where Juno is giving birth.) He is never the pursuer. But then again, he is rarely the pursued. In Nick and Norah , nobody chases after him when he runs away, and in Youth in Revolt he is pursued only by a phantom, an id he cannot vanquish and is not sure he wants to. That is the essence of his running: a contest with himself, a test to see if he can become a man — if he can, to use the term of art, man up .” Now you know. [ The Believer via Looker ]
You know how Charlie Sheen’s sons were removed from his home early on Wednesday morning, after the Two and a Half Men actor threatened to cut the head off his estranged wife Brooke Mueller, “put it in a box and send it to [her] mom”? Well, apparently she was not the only person whose life Sheen threatened to brutally end in the past 36 hours. Winning?
First things first: No one around here condones homophobia or any legislation under its influence, and generally speaking, any statement against said legislation is one worth backing. But that’s not why I’m pumped for the short film Porno Melodrama , which purports to be a direct reaction to institutionalized hate in Lithuania. I’m pumped because holy Christ this trailer .