The Blog Saga: New Link

Movies Kick Ass deconstructs yet another photoshop casualty (i.e. movie poster), this one for NINE . My thoughts on that film will hopefully be up later today... time is a tough taskmaster.
Cinema Styles looks forward to Luise Rainer's 100th birthday in January. We should all be celebrating! Especially since she'll (god willing) still be alive for it. She was Oscar's very first two-time acting winner... beating Spencer Tracy to the title by one year.
Topless Robot Batman's TV villains who should make the leap to the screen
Scanners (sarcastically) hates on ambiguous movie endings
Empire keeps track of Thor's ever expanding cast list so you don't have to. The only person this chart is missing (as far as I know) is Kat Dennings (Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist)
In Contention looks at the Adapted Screenplay Oscar race
Noh Way expresses photographic love for director/muse duos beyond Pedro & Penélope

Sexiest Men Alive?
popbytes is on the Brad Pitt beard watch. Did it cost Brad the title of...
People's "Sexiest Men Alive". It's not just Johnny Depp. Roughly every famous person shows up. Though...
Go Fug Yourself has a laugh about the Glee photoshoot therein
My New Plaid Pants, uninfluenced by mainstream rags, remembers his love for Jean Claude Van Damme [nsfw]

Twi-Hard
Bright Lights After Dark "tortured longing is the new coke" Erich's inner 13 year old makes a case for The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Erik Lundegaard gleans box office meaning: stop ignoring girls
Variety director Chris Weisz blames New Line for the way The Golden Compass (2007) turned out. You know, I liked that movie more than most but it was but 1/20th of what it could have been given how excellent the book is. But I'm not sure you can take this in a black & white way, blame wise. Why would they interfere so much there but not on The Lord of the Rings? Would they have interfered with Peter Jackson if he weren't such a goddamn visionary? I just think this is probably a gray area unless Weisz has suddenly shown new cinematic mastery with New Moon. And well...
Antagony and Ecstasy thinks it's "boring as fuck-all". And wouldn't that indicate some degree of problems with Weisz' powers behind the camera?

...and no, I have no real plans to see New Moon. Unless it falls into my lap, I shan't ever know if it improves upon the original (which wouldn't be a significant hurdle). Time and money are both precious commodity this time of year. I have so many movies left to see in such a short time frame before awards are passed out. So I'm not going to pay hard earned $ to be bored (and support Mormon causes financially) if I don't have to for Oscar write up purposes. I'm guessing I don't have to worry about this movie securing nominations. If I'm wrong I promise to stare at Kristen Stewart and her dead eyes (shouldn't she be playing the vampire?) for 2.5 hours and issue my mea culpas.
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Saoirse and the Dakotas

When someone in Hollywood needs a 15 year old blonde with dramatic chops to headline or co-star in their movie, I imagine that Saoirse Ronan and Dakota Fanning are getting the scripts first. Can we get a few mailed to Dakota Blue Richards, too?

Dakota Blue Richards in Five Miles Out (2009)

She's exactly 1 day older than Saoirse Ronan (weird trivia!) but I fear she may get lost in the shuffle. Fanning has two months on both of the Dakotas and many more years of experience and celebrity. But Saoirse already has an Oscar nomination and a primo gig with Peter Jackson. Richards, on the other hand, is only known for headlining The Golden Compass, the blockbuster that didn't bust blocks. Since Compass she's made 1 TV film, 1 short and 1 feature.

<-- Saoirse and Dakota the First

In that stack of shorts I saw whilst in Nashville, Richards had the lead in a beautifully shot miniature called Five Miles Out. She played a morose and preoccupied girl, trying to shake off the heavy weight of a family crisis during a trip to the seaside. That 18 minutes was enough to remind me that she holds the screen really well. You look at her face and you must know what's going on inside her head. It's the same feeling I get when I watch someone like Samantha Morton... albeit on a much smaller scale in this case.

Did you think Richards was strong in The Golden Compass? Any other mid-teen actresses you think are worth watching? It won't be long before they're all fighting it out for what we now think of as the Keira Knightley, Amanda Seyfried, Scarlet Johannson parts.
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