Them's Some Sexy Clintons

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Via:

"Dennis Quaid is set to star as President Clinton, with Julianne Moore taking on Hillary in an upcoming HBO film called The Special Relationship. While, at first glance, this might seem like a tale that will discuss certain forays in the Oval Office and risque behavior with cigars, the piece will look at an entirely different relationship -- the "sometimes turbulent political relationship" between Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- who will be played by Michael Sheen.

You might remember that Sheen already played Blair in both The Deal and The Queen, so this will be old hat. (Helen McCrory, who played Cherie Blair in The Queen, is also set to reprise her role.) He was also the Frost to Langella's Nixon, and Frost/Nixon playwright Peter Morgan wrote the screenplay to this project and is hoping to make his directorial debut with the feature, should it get greenlit."

Well? What do we think? Is it giving the project too much of a "he's a closet-case and she's sleeping with the help" vibe?

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"Oh I know what y'all really want..."

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" ...is some gross, caricature of a woman to prove some idiotic point that power makes a woman masculine, or masculine women are ugly.

Well shame on you for letting a man do that, or any man that does that. That means you, dear. Miss Marshall. Shame on you, you macho shit head."

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Robin Wright Penn Is Nothing But Trouble

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I like to believe that there's a human-character equivalent to Roger Rabbit's Toon Town and that The Princess Bride's Westley and Forrest Gump have gotten over the constant drama Princess Buttercup and Jenny keeps putting them through and have found each other, moved into a ice little apartment together, and at last found peace.

I like to believe that.

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What ridiculous movie character fantasies do you harbor?
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Brother, Can You Spare Some Eggs?

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JA from MNPP here, gently tapping on the screen door to Film Experience headquarters, politely requesting some eggs for your neighbors. Nevermind the white gloves, can I just have the eggs? Please? Thank you. Oh your cat jumped up on me, Nat, and I dropped the eggs. Can I have the other ones? I see them right there. You can go to the store tomorrow. No I am not being rude. No, I will not leave without the eggs.

Hey everybody, sorry about that, but... Nat's not gonna be here today! He's... preoccupied. Much like Susanne Lothar (sidenote: who else adores Susanne Lothar?) and Naomi Watts before him, he's... preoccupied.


But I'm here! Ready, willing, full-bodied, able, to guide you through your Wednesday. And it's funny that I brought up Michael Haneke's dueling Funny Games pictures here because I actually mean to speak a bit about the "Home Invasion" movie genre here for a moment. (Funny how that I works! I brought it up, and I want to talk about it! Funny!)

Although it's a genre near and dear to my heart, I've been thinking about the genre this past week or so more than often than usual. I just finished the chapter in David Hughes' book The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made on Steven Spielberg's never-happened Close Encounters sort-of sequel, to be called Night Skies. Night Skies was going to tell the story of a family on a farm who come to be terrorized by a group of outer-space aliens who trap them inside their farmhouse and kill their cattle and are generally bad guys (and yes, if that immediately made you think of M. Night's Signs, you are not alone.) Anyway, the story goes, Spielberg wasn't liking where the story was heading, but did like the side-story in the script of the farm-family's son who befriended the only nice alien out in the group, which turned into you guessed it again E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. And then Spielberg got his home invasion ya-ya's out by "producing" "Tobe Hooper's" Poltergeist the same year (switch out the aliens for ghosties, and wha-la).

And besides that sordid tale, I also saw the remake of The Last House on the Left last week, which, befitting the current "Home Invasion" film renaissance - Ils (Them), The Strangers, and Funny Games being recent torch-bearers - feels more like your standard Home Invasion film than it's previous Bergman/Craven incarnations. The bad guys are still invited into the home like they've been since The Virgin Spring, but due to alterations in certain outcomes (trying to stay spoiler-free here), it becomes more about maintaining the safety of the home space than just straightforward vengeance. (as an aside, if you can handle the brutality of what Last House has to offer, I'd say that Dennis Iliadis' film is a mostly artful contemplation on The Horrors Men Can Do... at least until that slightly silly denouement).


I'd be remiss, in discussing Home Invasion movies, without giving a shout-out to three of the genre's most important figureheads, so here they be:

(Sam Pekinpah's still controversial Straw Dogs,
Jodie "Mother Hen In A Confined Space" Foster,
and Attempted-Child-Brutality-Has-Never-Been-So-Funny
superstar Macauley Culkin)

Alright, so now that I've lured y'all in here and quietly clicked the lock into place, behind you, you ain't going nowhere without telling me your favorite Home Invasion movie. And why do you think these movies have been so popular specifically the past couple of years? What I'm getting at is, do you think the genre will subside a bit now that we don't feel locked in this country with a madman who seemed to have swallowed the keys to the Oval Office anymore?
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That's Too Much Princess

Even for me!

pic snapped on 55th street here in Manhattan

Mobile post sent by nathanielr using Utterli. Replies.

I Want to Link You Like an Animal

Topless Robot ogles My Little Pony. This is so wrong
Public School Intelligentsia on the pull of Chlöe Sevigny as "Nicolette Grant" on Big Love.
Wired has a big report on the Watchmen-related new DVDs Tales of the Black Freighter and Under the Hood


StinkyLulu digs deep into Broadway's revival of West Side Story. How does it compare to the classic film and previous Broadway incarnations?
Low Resolution makes a case for the charisma of Ryan Phillippe.
StarEast Asia Zhang Ziyi and camel. Does ZZ act anymore or is all about the shilling of product and the banking of cash?
The Spy in the Sandwich the new Pinoy film from the director of recent Oscar submission The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros has been censored. Shame

And finally... Isn't it Bromantic?

Are Breckin and Ryan about to make out (on DVD)?

My friend Kenneth in the (212) told me that little west coast birdies told him that that awfully dull Studio 54 movie from 1998 -- that one that starred Ryan Phillipe, Salma Hayek, Mike Myers and Breckin Meyer -- is headed back to DVD this fall. Here's the good news: it's supposedly the formerly apocryphal Director's Cut version (i.e. much longer and gayer) that is being released. That cut got a surprise screening last summer at Outfest but there was no word of a follow-up DVD release. The initial studio interference with 54 (Miramax... ah, the brothers Weinstein) is one of the dumber movie-making stories from the late nineties: cut 45 minutes of this, reshoot, beef up the more traditional romance. Why anyone thought the target audiences for a movie about Studio 54 would be satisfied with a film that lacked outre behavior, sexual experimentation and excessive drug use... well, I couldn't tell you. Is the new/old version as good as they say? (I hope so. I liked writer/director Marc Christopher's early gay short Alkali, Iowa) Perhaps we'll find out in the fall.

Let the Dumb Subtitles Win

Today's Must Read: Icons of Fright details the dumbing down of Let the Right One In by way of simplified subtitles (thanks to H-E for pointing this out). Plenty of screengrabs prove their sharp point. Eli got staked!

Why would they do this for the DVD release? The film was plenty successful in its initital form. If the distributor felt it should be dumbed down shouldn't they have just waited for the American remake to do that deed? American remakes are efficiency experts at just that. They always get the job done!

Related Post: Top Twelve of 2008

Classic Film Stars: Now Less Elusive!

Have you heard the news that Warner Bros has opened up their vaults? Seems at least one of the major studios has realized that those who truly love the cinema love the entire history of it. They'd like to see more of that history.

Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery live Private Lives but they
still want to show off their brand new DVD collections!

There's a reason that some former mega stars (Norma Shearer is a good example) fade in the public consciousness quicker than others. Actually there are many reasons: changing tastes, mediocre filmographies, undramatic personal lives -- especially if they don't end tragically, pop culture's rapid "who's next?" star meat grinder, lack of gay appeal (think about it: fascinating the gays insures a long shelf life for entertainers. I don't think I need to cite examples... they've probably popped into your head just reading that sentence). But I'm thinking of the most infuriating reason for premature fading: sometimes their work just isn't seen.

Part of that is public disinterest in film history (Boo!) but a lot of it is Hollywood's weird disinterest in their own history. They'd rather remake an old film than promote the previous best of their industry. I know that it all boils down to money but in an industry filled with so many "creatives" you'd think more of them would funnel some cash back into film preservation and film history education and promotion. It stands to reason that if everything was available, some titles and stars would not remain as obscure. Surely the renaissance of interest in Louise Brooks was fueled at least partially by Pandora's Box VHS release.

Starry titles now available include: a few from both Clark Gable and Joan Crawford, Liv Ullman in The Abdication, Spencer Tracy in Malaya and Edison the Man, Warren Beatty and Eva Marie Saint in All Fall Down (the tagline is too funny on that one... "male enough to attract a dozen women... not man enough to be faithful to one!"), Greta Garbo in both Love and Wild Orchids, Cary Grant in Mr. Lucky and Crisis, Greer Garson in Sunrise at Campobello. Shearer herself gets at least three titles: Strange Interlude, Private Lives and We Were Dancing... though it's hard to say exactly since the archive isn't very user friendly. It's not searchable in convenient ways.


As I continued reading the articles about this and scanned the archive I realized that the whole thing is less juicy than it sounds. Only 150ish titles are now available within this new "custom order" dealio. The Warner library is nearly 7,000 films strong and according to the AP

Twenty more films or TV shows will be added to the program of re-releases each month, with 300 expected by year's end. To put it in perspective, the studio has released only about 1,100 movies on DVD since the technology was spawned 12 years ago.

While I'm glad that this is happening, I'm also disappointed that it's so tentative. They haven't so much opened the vault as installed a mail slot in the wall by which they can shove a few DVDs through when they feel like it. Cinephilia needs its own Moses to storm the studios with righteous fury "Let My Movies Go!"
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I Could Go On BioPic'ing

Clang! Clang! Clang! Variety is reporting that Anne Hathaway is going to become Frances Ethel Gumm (i.e. Judy Garland) in a biopic called Get Happy

When will the madness end? If the pop culture on pop culture on pop culture joke weren't overplayed already, I'd be peering out from under a bedsheet, mascara running face contorted screaming...

LEAVE JUDY ALONE!!!

Judy Garland is one of the film experience's sacred ten* and just as She Could Go On Singing, I Can Go On Bitching that she does not get the credit she deserves. Another biopic detailing her sad life probably won't do much for her legacy which should be one of enormous contribution to cinematic and musical culture rather than yet another recounting of her personal tragedies. See, they didn't call her "The World's Greatest Entertainer" for nothing. Can we please talk about that.

Judy G was the subject of a popular television biopic as recently as 2001. Tammy Blanchard played her as a young starlet. Judy Davis took over as she became a great star and netted AFI, Globe, BFCA, SAG and Emmy statues, a sizeable haul by any account, for her impersonation.

Now, it's no secret that my love for Anne Hathaway has been growing exponentially (she made me love her. I didn't wanna do it. I didn't wanna do it) these past couple of years but is she right for this? She keeps getting stronger as an actress and she can sing beautifully but, here's the catch: Would they really let anyone not lipsynch to Judy? (This isn't a Tommy Femia show! It's a movie) And if Hathaway is going to be in a musical I want to hear that showtune friendly voice of hers, damnit.


Hathaway turns 27 this year and even though I'm no great fan of biopics I must admit that it's probably the perfect age to play Garland. It's young enough to just barely get away with playing her as a teen star and it's old enough to play her at the peak of her movie powers (the Meet Me in St. Louis years of the mid 40s) followed by her quick flameout and first career ressurrection. I think modern audiences tend to think that Judy Garland's comeback in A Star is Born (1954) was the comeback of a middle aged star, regaining her luster for another iconic role (in the same category as Bette Davis in All About Eve for example). But it's not so. Garland was in fact only 32 when A Star is Born surfaced. Like the last inimitable iconic vocalist to get a biopic (Edith Piaf, who some consider the French Judy) she aged rapidly. That's what numerous addictions will do to you. (Let us pray they don't feel the need to scramble Judy's narrative)

Would Hathaway win a Marion Cotillard style Oscar doing this or is this just a bad idea all around? I suspect it's a moot question. Remember when various actresses were going to play Marlene Dietrich (Uma Thurman, Gwyneth Paltrow, etc...)? That bio also didn't have a script or a director. It was merely a dream vehicle intended to drive someone towards gold statues. It never found keys for the ignition.

Updated to add ~ Paul Outlaw is right: Hathaway actually looks more like Judy's offspring Liza Minnelli



and she's never had a biopic. It figures. I have an unhealthy relationship to biopics and she's one of the only stars I'd love to see get one. Therefore it shan't happen. My love is a curse!

*for new readers, the other nine favorite actresses in alpha order: Deneuve, Davis, Fonda, Monroe, Moore, Pfeiffer, Streep, Taylor and Wood. But here's the top 20 and here's the top 100 ...because why stop at 10? There are so many actresses worth loving?

How I Feel / How I Wish I Felt

As mercilessly embodied by James Caan and the women who love him.


I hope you're feeling better than me. May you be fawned over rather than hobbled today!

Vintage Isabelle

This photo of French goddess Isabelle Adjani (pictured left with Muriel Cathra) was taken 36 years ago... today! She was 3 months shy of her 18th birthday.


She seems quite pleased to be photographed... and why not? The future was bright. At the time she was doing television but her Oscar-nominated breakthrough The Story of Adele H was only two years away. That French film made her the youngest Best Actress nominee ever (a record she held until Keisha Castle-Hughes teared up in Whale Rider in 2003).

<-- Isabelle with Gael Garcia Bernal in 2003 @ Cannes

That's not her only claim to the history books. She is tied with Juliette Binoche and Simone Signoret for most Oscar nominations for a French actress (only two each --but that's more than Catherine Deneuve, Julie Delpy, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Devos, Ludivine Sagnier, Sylvie Testud, Jeanne Moreau and Emmanuelle Béart put together. sniffle). Another tie for the history books: Adjani is one of only four actresses (Sophia Loren, Liv Ullman, Penélope Cruz are the others) to have multiple nominations for performances IN a foreign language.

Highlights of Isabelle's career are many but these are the ones I think of first: She offered up the most exquisitely inviting neck in any vampire film (Nosferatu, 1979). She survived Ishtar ('87) and won an Oscar nomination for her very next film Camille Claudel ('89) and she gave birth to the first heir of Daniel Day-Lewis (Gabriel Kane Day-Lewis). On a more personal note... she also starred in one of only a handful of movies that yours truly has ever paid to see twice on opening weekend due to total in-the-moment euphoria (Queen Margot, 1994).


Rent one of her movies this week and drink up her beauty as hungrily as Nosferatu slurped from her alabaster neck.
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Hounds of Link

"If I only could, I'd make a deal with God. And get him to link our places...."

This Woman's Link
fourfour has a thang for Kate Bush. So many memories are embedded in this post I felt like my heart was going to burst whilst my mind was blown. I l-o-v-e Kate Bush. That is all. Where's her biopic? And who on earth would be gorgeous enough but suitably bonkers to play her?

Wuthering Links
Blog Stage Jane Fonda and Angela Lansbury: "non-divas"
Gawker is Warren Beatty holding up the rights to the Dick Tracy franchise. Did you even remember that this could have been one? Speaking of Dick Tracy...
Boy Culture Madonna as Jeanne Moreau in Bay of Angels. Sorta...
Screengrab inaugurates a new series "Not on DVD" with the bio Patty Hearst (1988) starring Natasha Richardson.
/Film the strange case of the distributorless Jim Carrey/Ewan Macgregor prison love story I Love You Phillip Morris
Victim of the Time the best review of Duplicity ever?
World of Wonder says goodbye to Oscar nominee Betsy Blair (Marty). In the photo with this post she's pictured with Nathaniel's two all time favorite classic male movie stars. How about that?!

The Ninth Link
Nick's Flick Picks on the Best Actresses of 1941

And finally, have to leave you with this pointed bit from Jimmy Kimmel Live. Portia De Rossi apologizing to everyone she hurt by marrying Ellen DeGeneres.



Heh.
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She is Going to Kill Bill. "Yayyy!!!"

One of the bestest things ever created on the internets.



247 minutes of Quentin Tarantino goodness... minus 246 minutes. Such economy and awesome blocking. The only thing that I desperately wish could have found it's way in is Elle Driver's hospital walk whistle. I ♥ everyone responsible from the University of York Filmmaking Society. I really do.

"Actress Psychic" Round 3

We begin very soon.

I've put up an in progress page of possible options for Oscar's Best Actress shortlist next January. I'll need your predictions between March 25th and March 30th... but until that window opens, let me know if I've forgotten any leading ladies. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking 'bout, see last year's contest and join us for Round 3. My own Oscar predictions for '09 will be up on 04/01

<--- Meryl Streep on the set of Nancy Meyer's as yet untitled romantic comedy. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin will compete for her love. That's three very funny actors for one romantic comedy. Cross your fingers that Meyers provides a solid foundation for them to build on.

2009 should be quite busy here at The Film Experience, what with the decade coming to a close a new reviewing gig (more on that later), festivals and my mania for listing. I've been getting mail about various "decade in review" pieces in the works elsewhere but mine probably won't begin until early Fall. Need time to devise the diabolical master plan [insert evil laugh]. In the meantime though, while we're on the recent but retro tip, check out this piece from Fin de Cinema on François Ozon's Water Drops on Burning Rocks. That's a good picture and as good a place as any to start looking back on cinema in the Aughts.

Now Playing: Apocalyptic Duplicitous Bromances

L I M I T E D
The New Twenty This is only playing here in New York at the tiniest screen known to mankind (Hi, Quad!) For a first film it's quite good. Ignore the generic 'we'll get the gays to see it!' poster (if the leading man looks familiar think Beyonce's "If I Were a Boy" video) and somewhat clumsy title. The plot is a little shapeless but the characters are quite likeable and engaging. The sex lives and friendships of this makeshift family, some gay some straight, are more realistic than you usually see in movies. All that plus the film doesn't push its jokes -- some of the characters just happen to be funny. That's the way we like our laughs in ensemble dramas. B

Hunger If you've been reading lately you know that I highly recommend this one, the true story of a hunger strike in the early 80s in a hellish prison. It's politics are only viewed from one angle but cinematically it operates on several. The artist Steve McQueen is gifted behind the movie camera. (previous thoughts) A-

The Great Buck Howard "Malkovich! Malkovich! Malkovich!" This time he plays a "mentalist"... that's almost like the time Jack Nicholson played a wolf. Is the casting too on the nose?

Máncora A Peruvian road trip film about a young brother and sister and the sister's husband following their father's suicide. Apparently "lines are crossed".

Skills Like This an indie comedy that had festival audiences chuckling. It's about a frustrated writer who suddenly robs a bank.

Valentino The Last Emperor a documentary that follows the closing act of über famous orange designer Valentino Garavani and his business partner Giancarlo Giametti nearly 50 year career. I always hold out hope that there will one day be another fashion documentary as good as Unzipped (1995). Could this be it?

Sin Nombre A sociopolitical thriller about Mexican gangs and a teenager from Honduras on a freight train bound for the States. It wowed critics at Sundance, winning both Best Director (it's a first feature for Cary Fukunaga) and Cinematography prizes.

E X P A N D I N G
Sunshine Cleaning It has occasional trouble navigate its need for quirk (the bane of self-conscious indies). I have no idea why it steals a character wholesale from a better film -- in this case Alan Arkin all but reprising his Oscar winning Little Miss Sunshine performance -- but the rest of the supporting cast handles their roles beautifully and without much fuss. In it's best moments, particularly those involving a love affair between Amy Adams and Steve Zahn, it plays naturalistic and humble. Emily Blunt and Adams are completely watchable, sexy and winning but I suppose that's no surprise at this point. B/B-

W I D E
I Love You, Man Paul Rudd is, according to EW, the most adorable movie star on the planet. I missed the part where Amy Adams was dethroned but I love the Rudd, too. Jason Segel co-stars in this bromantic comedy. Is this popculture movement a trend or a fad? It depends on whether or not this movie is a smash I suppose.

Knowing If you stop seeing bad movies, you can do your part to prevent the apocalypse. Or at least the final destruction of our beloved cinema (my review) D


Duplicity Remember that awesomely hostile sexual chemistry Clive Owen and Julia Roberts had in Closer? It's back in full force only this time twisted slightly to service comedic spy games. They really are a sensational screen couple (and relatively close in age: take note Hollywood. This helps). I'm already eager for a third date with them. Although a second date with this movie might be helpful because it's so damn confusing. Also quite fun. B+

Are you at the movies this weekend or staying in with DVDs?
If you're doing neither, explain yourself oh foe of cinema !
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Naomi

Open Battlestar Galactica Thread

Oh My Gods. It's all coming to an end. For those of you who frakkin' must discuss the finale of Battlestar Galactica (before all of us have seen it. Unfortunately I have to wait), please keep your comments within this thread so as to avoid spoilers elsewhere. Please and thanks.

Signatures: Mia Farrow

Adam of Club Silencio here with another look at my favorite actresses and their distinguishing claims to fame.

I'm the wife, you know. I take care of the kids, I host the dinner parties, arrange the social schedule... Try to look pretty so your friends can admire your taste. I've become one of those women who shops all day and gets pedicures, but I want to be more. There's more to me.

-Alice

Mia Farrow really is extraordinary. A special talent who's almost always the exception in her films. Check your calendar - it's not every day you're selected to carry Satan's child. Mia's characters are often everyday women faced with great dilemmas and grandiose choices; not because she's equipped to handle them, but because she's really just better than us.

Rosemary Woodhouse is a perfect example. It's the singular role that would define much of Mia's early career... and a kicky new hairstyle. Born and bred a Catholic schoolgirl in Omaha, Rosemary couldn't be more enchanting and fresh-faced, so it's no wonder Satan took a second glance.


Scattered amongst Woody Allen's best works are some of Mia's finest and most exceptional women. It helps that her performances are cast with such a loving, graceful glow... at least for heft of their lengthy collaboration. Mia's often our sympathetic outsider, who's often the fixation of everyone outside her. Even when her characters are behaving badly, everyone's still drawn to her like a hyper-articulate and well-balanced magnet. Maybe it was Woody's feelings for her at the time, and maybe it's that Mia's strength lies in that everyday mystery.

Take for example her inoculated introspection via Chinese herbs in Alice that sends us through the looking glass of her mundane upper-crust existence. Only Mia could turn a bad trip into a total transformation from metropolitan mom into Mother Teresa. Mia should probably stop taking strange herbs from her on-screen counterparts, but we can rest assured something extraordinary will happen.


Her presence alone is magic. She's served as a mystical and revelatory alter-ego in Another Woman, the fourth wall in female form in The Purple Rose of Cairo... and being emotionally and financially stable was outstanding enough for Hannah and Her Sisters. Jon Cusack offered up $700 for just an hour alone with her! The woman's got powers.

Link What Yo Mamma Gave Ya

not a movie poster very cool UK poster for Let The Right One In. I'm confused. Does this mean the film hasn't yet opened there?
MNPP declares war on stupid sex-phobic Watchmen articles
Dr. Stan Glick alerts us to a free screening of Korean Oscar submission Secret Sunshine in NYC on March 26th. If you're fond of great actresses don't miss it. The lead performance is pretty damn incredible (she won at Cannes).
The House Next Door a detailed piece on misogyny and feminism in Battlestar Galactica


Deep Focus terrific review of the must see prison picture Hunger
Screengrab talks to Garret Dillahunt about his career upswing. I love him as an actor but there's no way I'm seeing Last House on the Left. If I need my scary Dillahunt I'll just have to wait for The Road to open and see it again (he terrified me and he was barely in it.)
/Film Will Chris Pine be Hal Jordan in The Green Lantern? Seems like a dull choice to me but then I am still haunted by Just My Luck. Unless he's suddenly bursting with heretofore unseen movie star charisma post Star Trek filming...

Hugo Sampling

Though you wouldn't know it from my Knowing and Watchmen reviews (I meant them to be funnier but they're closer to grouchy), recently I've been newly devoted to genre material. Sci-fi and fantasy please. It started with a mad spree of fantasy paperbacks last year (including The Curse of Chalion discussed here) and television's sci-fi block on Friday really ramped it up with that Terminator / Dollhouse / Battlestar cluster-frak. So let's discuss a few nominees for the latest HUGO Awards which were announced yesterday.

Yes Virginia, people are still giving out awards for 2008.

Before we get to the movies here are the Best Novel competitors which one might add to one's kindle, library request or shopping list if one knows how to read.

• Anathem by Neal Stephenson
  
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman the awesome.
  
• Little Brother (download free) by Cory Doctorow. It's post-terrorist attack speculative sci-fi about a 17 year old in San Francisco, now a police state.
  
• Saturn's Children by Charles Stross is about a 23rd century femmebot. With no humans left to service (we've been wiped out!) she agrees to a job transporting a mysterious package. I included the cover left because it made me chuckle but also because I have a question for you. The cinema has a long love affair with prostitutes but have you ever noticed that when genre stories approach the world's oldest profession (A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Blade Runner, Firefly) it's always sort of backgrounded and sexless? Why is that? Here's a review from i09 that makes this sound like a strong satirical sci-fi read. I think I shall try it out. Who's with me?
  
• Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi.
  

Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form
The Dark Knight, which one assumes will win, is up against the year's other critical and populist triumphs: Iron Man and Wall•E. The "one of these things is not like the others" nominee is an audio story collection called METAtropolis which you can download/experience here (Flash required). Galactica groupies should note that two of its men, "Saul" and "Gaeta", are among the voices therein. Finally there's Guillermo Del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army. I never know quite what to make of Del Toro as a filmmaker. He definitely has visual prowess and a "voice" but his storytelling skills can be suspect. So I worry about The Hobbit (2012?) because Peter Jackson wipes the floor with him in terms of "story". Anyway, Hellboy II is a marked improvement over the first. It retains the fun and the color but it's way more coherent.

Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form
I tend to think that the Hugos (and any other awards that split categories this way) have their awards reversed. It's television, not film, that's the "long form" drama. Barring classic old school sitcoms, all of the best television has understood the cumulative potency of slowly unfolding narratives and complex and ever-complicating character arcs. Hollywood has this reversed, too. They really ought to be gravitating towards short stories and novellas for their transfers. Short stories are ideal for cinematic transfers (think Away From Her and Brokeback Mountain) allowing for both fidelity to the source material and the imagination of the new interpreter since they're expected to flesh them out. Hefty novels and comic books really are more suited for serialized television though that's not the way the film and television industries tend to see them. Their eyes can only focus on the green.

So since Battlestar Galactica -- which you can't miss any 45 minutes of lest you be hopelessly confused -- is in "short form" its mid-season finale "Revelations", a total stunner, is a nominee. It's up against two episodes of Doctor Who ("Turn Left" and "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead"), one chapter of Lost named "Constant" (I don't watch Lost but a good 50% of my friends are obsessed with it so maybe I've missed out), and Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

I'm rooting for Battlestar as I tend to but my favorite episode in Season Four might just be "Six of One" rather than "Revelations". But that's like asking if I'd like a cash prize of 10 million dollars or a cash prize of 10,225,000 euros. It's all good. It's all gold.

The full list of Hugo Nominations

PLEASE NOTE: Some of us will not see the Battlestar series finale when it airs tonight so please no spoilers in the comments.
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