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Robert Rauschenberg, Dead at 83
http://blog.spout.com/ 2008/ 05/ 13/ robert-rauschenberg-dead-at-83/
Robert Rauschenberg, one of the last great post-war American artists still standing as of yesterday, has died at the age of 83. The New York Times has a four page obit. Above, in unlabeled footage from a documentary (if you recognize the film, let us know in the comments), Rauschenberg describes the making of his famous Erased DeKooning.
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5 Reasons Brad Pitt Should Play Thor (Flix99.com)
http://www.flix99.com/2008/05/21/5-reasons-brad-pitt-should-...5 Reasons Brad Pitt Should Play Thor Rumor has it that the Oscar-nominated movie star is first on Marvel’s list. And I think the comic book adaptation should be the first on his list, as well. It’s not always worthwhile to jump on rumors like this, but the idea that Brad Pitt could be cast as The Mighty Thor in Marvel’s upcoming movie adaptation (due June 4, 2010) is too good an idea to be left alone. The word comes from Latino Review that Marvel is simply tossing the actor’s name around, though apparently the role hasn’t even been suggested, let alone offered, to Pitt. Unfortunately, it’s hard to imagine that Pitt would be interested in playing a superhero. He’s still a big enough star and a talented enough actor that he might feel he’s above such a thing. However, if he wants to continue making great films like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which don’t make him much cash, he’s going to need some mainstream hits, and he could do much worse for a paycheck than wear a cape and helmet and fight evil as the Norse God of Thunder. So, I’ve come up with five reasons for Pitt to grab Thor’s hammer. Hopefully he’ll find the list convincing. Lucrative Franchise Potential - Without the security of more Ocean’s movies and the chance that your star power will wane (it’s happened to your friends and peers), now is the time to suit up for a comic book movie. It’s not like this would be that different from your only other recent hits, Troy and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, neither of which can be proven to have been successful because of you. Everyone Should Try it Once - Yes, it’s the cool thing to do for actors of your generation. Your Fight Club costar Ed Norton is The Incredible Hulk, and your Less Than Zero costar Robert Downey Jr. (OK, you weren’t a star then, you only had a bit part) is Iron Man. Sure, your buddy George Clooney and your Troy costar Eric Bana might have some bad words to say about playing a superhero, and it’s easy to see how it didn’t work for either Ben Affleck or his wife. But with your clout, you could make the movie worthwhile. Surely you have the power to make sure there’s a good script and a good director on board (too bad your Snatch producer just quit the gig). You could probably (hopefully) even bring your girlfriend aboard to play Enchantress. Wouldn’t that be fun? Do It For Your Kids - As Latino Review suggests, you’re probably going to want to make some movies that your children can watch, and what kid doesn’t want to see his or her dad play a superhero? Better to do something like Thor now than settle for some kind of awful male nanny part down the road. It Will Actually Be Good - Superhero movies may be a dime a dozen, and none will ever be as good as any film directed by Terence Malick, or the Coens or Andrew Dominik or any of the other amazing filmmakers you’ve worked with, but as Iron Man has shown, they can be decent. And Marvel Studios is the company that’s making the best effort to produce quality comic book adaptations. Supposedly Mark Protosevich (I Am Legend) has delivered a good script, and Avi Arad is probably going to hire someone respectable to take the helm now that Vaughn is gone (perhaps you could convince David Fincher!). You’re the Best Person for the Job - Don’t pass up the chance just because you might believe Marvel has a long list of actors who’d be good for Thor. Yes, they could hire any number of buff blonds, but there is nobody with the combination of looks, talent, charisma, intelligence or star power that you have. And like Downey has done with Iron Man, you can bring some of yourself to the character in order to make it fit more perfectly. Source: feeds.feedburner.com Lesbian Hooks as Cannes Cooks: SpoutBlog Week In Review Enter our Presidential Zombie Photoshop Contest! And if you need inspiration, watch the brilliant Aussie zombie short I Love Sarah Jane. Karina in Cannes: Follow her here. Also: Black Downey Jr. Billboards; Damme on Van Damme; THINKfilm’s Cannes do; Waltz With Bashir trailer; Sex on the way to Cannes. The “controversial” lesbian kiss revealed: Vicky Cristina Barcelona […] Enter our Presidential Zombie Photoshop Contest! And if you need inspiration, watch the brilliant Aussie zombie short I Love Sarah Jane. Karina in Cannes: Follow her here. Also: Black Downey Jr. Billboards; Damme on Van Damme; THINKfilm’s Cannes do; Waltz With Bashir trailer; Sex on the way to Cannes. The “controversial” lesbian kiss revealed: Vicky Cristina Barcelona trailer and sexy screencap. 5 Reasons Brad Pitt Should Play Thor. 5 Reasons Why Speed Racer’s Failure is Bad For Movies. By the way, it’s failure was bigger than initially announced. Louise Brooks, still sexy at 78 in ‘84. Roger Corman, worthy of a doc in ‘08. The Angelika Film Center whores itself for Sex (and the City: The Movie). On the podcast: interviewing internet-famous filmmakers. Downfall is a huge hit with YouTube spoofers. Why not let Uwe Boll make a GTA movie? At the end of the day (and word), he might be the most awesome filmmaker ever. Cronenberg’s remaking Timecrimes (and Herzog’s remaking Bad Lieutenant). Jessica Alba + Charlie Chaplin = more feminist film theory. Oliver Stone’s Bush biopic may be the Rocky Horror of political satire. Fear and Loathing in Cinevegas: the most psychedelic film festival promo ever? Karina professes her love for Jennifer Jones, whose tribute she’ll be missing. Who’s that blue guy in the Magneto movie? What’s that iPod doing in Wall-E? How’s the twist in The Happening? Steven Boone watches The Bank Job at a halfway house. Indiana Jones = bad archaeologist; Nazis = good archaeologists. Robert Rauschenberg, R.I.P. Source: feeds.feedburner.com Indiana Jones and the Backlash Despite Getting Mostly Favorable Reviews Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is apparently good, but it’s bad, but it’s familiar, but it’s boring, but … I hope that title isn’t too long. It certainly isn’t much longer than the actual title of the latest Indiana Jones movie, which I hadn’t planned on writing about today considering I seem to be one of only four people who didn’t attend a press screening yesterday (I’ll be seeing the film with a real audience sometime after it opens this Thursday). However, there doesn’t appear to be much else in the news today, and anyway I find it interesting how suddenly the film seems to have terrible buzz even though most of the reviews out of Cannes and the U.S. screenings have been relatively positive. Currently its Rotten Tomatoes rating is a respectable 74%, but as I looked through a number of headlines and review titles last night and this morning, all I could notice were phrases like “mixed reviews,” “positively polite response,” “loved and lashed,” “generally pleased,” “Indiana Jones and the Savage Reviews,” and “good enough.” Of course, some of these aren’t actually negative, but in their lack of excitable wording they seem underwhelming enough to be a part of a backlash anchored on the consensus that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is merely OK. Today, it’s becoming even more clear that many of the positive reviews could indeed be more polite than honest. Perhaps the critics are feeling a need to be careful with the beloved franchise, or else they didn’t believe their actual experience with or reaction to the film. Looking at the live-blogged review from Eric Kohn at indiewire and the instant message correspondence between Defamer’s Stu Van Airsdale and Seth Abramovitch, the atmosphere during actual screenings was a bit awkward, and a number of major critics were downright bored and disappointed. And looking back over some of the major critics’ reviews, this politeness is quite noticeable. Most of the first paragraphs of these reviews, even from those who recommend the movie, include a giant, buzz-crushing “BUT.” Either they start off talking about how great it is to have Indy back on the big screen and then say, “BUT it’s ultimately a mess,” or they begin with negativity and eventually counter with, “BUT it’s nevertheless a worthwhile movie.” Both approaches are equally unfavorable, as any reader is likely to fixate on the negative language, particularly in terms of personal hype and anticipation. Already, I’m thinking I can probably wait an extra week before seeing the movie. It suddenly seems prematurely passé. Sure, sure, the few negative reviews (and even the many positive reviews, most of which feature some form of negativity) won’t matter to the moviegoers and so therefore won’t affect the box office gross, which will still be enormous. But still, it’s like the media wants to burn the film just so it has an interesting angle. I guess it puts things into perspective. Those of us who might have been hoping for the best summer movie of all time are now expecting something familiar and entertaining, but not necessarily great. Which is pretty much what we should expect from an Indiana Jones movie anyway. Source: feeds.feedburner.com Tags: movie trailers available for downloading, watch movies online, movie reviews, movie news, air jordan release dates
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Lesbian Hooks as Cannes Cooks: SpoutBlog Week In Review (Flix99.com)
http://www.flix99.com/2008/05/18/lesbian-hooks-as-cannes-coo...Lesbian Hooks as Cannes Cooks: SpoutBlog Week In Review Enter our Presidential Zombie Photoshop Contest! And if you need inspiration, watch the brilliant Aussie zombie short I Love Sarah Jane. Karina in Cannes: Follow her here. Also: Black Downey Jr. Billboards; Damme on Van Damme; THINKfilm’s Cannes do; Waltz With Bashir trailer; Sex on the way to Cannes. The “controversial” lesbian kiss revealed: Vicky Cristina Barcelona […] Enter our Presidential Zombie Photoshop Contest! And if you need inspiration, watch the brilliant Aussie zombie short I Love Sarah Jane. Karina in Cannes: Follow her here. Also: Black Downey Jr. Billboards; Damme on Van Damme; THINKfilm’s Cannes do; Waltz With Bashir trailer; Sex on the way to Cannes. The “controversial” lesbian kiss revealed: Vicky Cristina Barcelona trailer and sexy screencap. 5 Reasons Brad Pitt Should Play Thor. 5 Reasons Why Speed Racer’s Failure is Bad For Movies. By the way, it’s failure was bigger than initially announced. Louise Brooks, still sexy at 78 in ‘84. Roger Corman, worthy of a doc in ‘08. The Angelika Film Center whores itself for Sex (and the City: The Movie). On the podcast: interviewing internet-famous filmmakers. Downfall is a huge hit with YouTube spoofers. Why not let Uwe Boll make a GTA movie? At the end of the day (and word), he might be the most awesome filmmaker ever. Cronenberg’s remaking Timecrimes (and Herzog’s remaking Bad Lieutenant). Jessica Alba + Charlie Chaplin = more feminist film theory. Oliver Stone’s Bush biopic may be the Rocky Horror of political satire. Fear and Loathing in Cinevegas: the most psychedelic film festival promo ever? Karina professes her love for Jennifer Jones, whose tribute she’ll be missing. Who’s that blue guy in the Magneto movie? What’s that iPod doing in Wall-E? How’s the twist in The Happening? Steven Boone watches The Bank Job at a halfway house. Indiana Jones = bad archaeologist; Nazis = good archaeologists. Robert Rauschenberg, R.I.P. Source: feeds.feedburner.com Robert Rauschenberg, Dead at 83 Robert Rauschenberg, one of the last great post-war American artists still standing as of yesterday, has died at the age of 83. The New York Times has a four page obit. Above, in unlabeled footage from a documentary (if you recognize the film, let us know in the comments), Rauschenberg describes the making of his […] Robert Rauschenberg, one of the last great post-war American artists still standing as of yesterday, has died at the age of 83. The New York Times has a four page obit. Above, in unlabeled footage from a documentary (if you recognize the film, let us know in the comments), Rauschenberg describes the making of his famous Erased DeKooning. Source: feeds.feedburner.com Jessica Alba and the Female Gaze You’ve been looking at Jessica Alba for years. Now it’s her turn to look back. If there’s one actress working today who best reinforces the theories of Lauren Mulvey, it’s Jessica Alba. And she encourages the male gaze by maintaining a career centered on playing eye candy, whether she’s having her skirt ripped off to expose her underwear (Good Luck Chuck), spending the majority of a film wearing a bikini (Into the Blue), playing a stripper (Sin City), being used to invoke jealousy (Meet Bill) or invoking erectile gags out of Mike Myers (The Love Guru). Perhaps someone should write a lengthy article on the myriad ways in which Alba relates to feminist film theory. I think her role as Invisible Woman in the Fantastic Four movies and her blind character from The Eye (who identifies herself with the dead woman whose eyes she acquires) can each inspire a few interesting theses. Obviously Alba is aware of the male gaze and may in fact be controlling it. It’s possible even that her participation in the online staring contest at ibeatyou.com is a matter of ironic reflexivity. Watch the clip of her first-place-winning stare and you’ll understand what I mean. It’s like she’s welcoming our lustful eye and then seemingly returning the gaze, hypnotizing us into thinking she desires us, too. Certainly there are a number of men out there becoming simultaneously turned on and disturbed by this video. And hopefully there are some feminist critics taking notes on it as well. [via The Superficial] Source: feeds.feedburner.com Tags: hd dvd movie reviews, family movie reviews, movie trailers, upcoming movie trailers, movie news golden compass
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