Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Down in Fraggle Link

the classics
The Film Doctor '10 things I learned about Breakfast at Tiffany's...'
Birth of a Notion well, well. Batman's Boy Wonder just turned 65. Who knew?
Okinawa thinks Olivia de Havilland's Melanie is a badass in Gone With the Wind.


of the moment

popbytes True story of my Lady Gaga moment in the supermarket today. Plus news on Madonna's second feature W.E.
The Big Picture Inception backlash coming in 3...2...1...
AV Club strangest news of week: Rob Lowe may be buying Miramax to become 'the next Harvey Weinstein.'
Film Business Asia The Golden Horse Awards have added a "new director" prize for the next generation of Asian filmmakers.
Empire Captain America Chris Evans talks about his costume for Captain America
"I think everyone that’s going to see it is going to say, 'Okay, well done. Well done. I think they got the costume right. The casting they completely ruined, but the costume they nailed!'"
You gotta love self deprecating celebrities.

Movie Dearest I love reading about bizarre off cinema projects from cinema faces. Seems that god fearing Esmeralda from Edward Scissorhands (aka actress O-Lan Jones) is directing an complex possibly travelling opera.
I Need My Fix Lindsay Lohan sentenced to jail time. Incidentally in case you were worried. That porn biopic is going to wait for her release. That's loyalty!
Topless Robot True Story: Watching The Twilight Saga: Eclipse can kill you. Oh my god how depressing. Can you imagine if that's the last movie you were ever able to see?
Pop Hangover's Celebrity Headswap. These images are disturbing BUT for the first time ever a Twilight image made me want to see a Twilight movie. Kristen Stewart androgynized? Way sexier.
Collider Tree of Life gets an MPAA rating but distribution still looks shaky to me.

You Bent My Wookie has a lengthy interview up with the director of the upcoming Fraggle Rock movie. Seems the Weinsteins are giving him trouble. Quelle surprise. I have no special affection for Fraggle Rock (not that familiar) but I do love puppets and his heart seems to be in the right place
...time and again, I will run into people – and I’m talking about anyone from a fan boy sitting at a coffee shop to someone in the industry – everyone seems to long for an analog performance, a live performance, a real performance.

I loved Avatar, and I love what Andy Serkis does with motion capture as Gollum. There’s magic there, too. But I know that people have a hunger for tactile characters right now. I think the pendulum is swinging in a direction where people want to know they’re watching something real on camera, something that they can reach out and touch.

Though I would love desperately for this to be true, as I too miss tangible things and I love in camera effects and such, but I'm pessimistic that it actually is. CGI has conquered.

11 comments:

/3rtfu11 said...

Red Fraggle -- I still have my Hasbro edition plush from 85!

Andrew R. said...

If I want to have a movie-related death, it won't be Twilight. (Poor man...his wife clearly dragged him there. She's probably going insane now.)

It'll be The Godfather. Right when the door closes, my heart will stop and I die instantly.

NATHANIEL R said...

Andrew R -- i'm surprised to say that you've made a good choice. That is so final!

Liz said...

I'm slightly baffled by that article about possible "Inception" backlash. I think it's a definite possibility (and since the birth of the Internet, everything has been the victim of backlash), but the examples that Goldstein uses are bizarre.

Justin Chang from Variety "calls the Nolan film 'commandingly clever' but compares the look of one sequence to Magritte and M.C. Escher, while also theorizing that the film contains an homage to 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service.'"

Uh, are either of these things hard to believe? Any snow-related chase is going to be compared to the Bond film, and anyone who knows anything about Escher can see the influence. And he thinks a comparison to "Riffi" is "pretentious"?

It's almost like he's saying you shouldn't look for movies to have deeper messages and any kind of multi-layered story, or you're a pretentious windbag.

The mind reels.

Amir said...

"Oh my god how depressing. Can you imagine if that's the last movie you were ever able to see?"

this is one of the funniest things ive read.

Mikadzuki said...

I totally agree with Liz. If anything, that Justin Chang quote represents the kind of film criticism that I'd like to see MORE of -- actual, literate arguments describing why the film succeeds, rather than the vague, superficial hyperbole of all those reviews that claimed that Avatar RE-DEFINED CINEMA!!! or whatnot.

NATHANIEL R said...

Liz & Mikadzuki -- yeah, Patrick Goldstein can get a bit anti-criticism/anti-intellectualism in his reporting sometime.

but his point is probably valid. If people are this hyperbolic the backlash is bound to start any second.

Liz said...

But Nat, you don't think that Chang's review is an example of that, do you? I can't possibly see what that review has that could be considered ridiculously over-the-top.

I have to admit, though, I've always been confused about the "hyperbole" factor. A number of people are saying it's a masterpiece, best film of the year, best of Nolan's career, etc.

OK, and...? What if they truly believe those things? This goes for any movie, of course. I've always found it a little strange that you're allowed to be enthusiastic about a movie, but not too enthusiastic. Otherwise, it's unwarrented.

But then again, I've never understood the idea of "backlash" in the sense of disliking something because a lot of other people like it. But that's just me.

Anonymous said...

YEAH! Nathaniel you are a saint!

The Film Doctor said...

Thanks, Nathaniel, for the link.

Walter L. Hollmann said...

Oh, O-Lan Jones in Edward Scissorhands. That's when I knew I was an actressexual. "You must push from you, expel him. Trample down the perversion of nature!" Love her.