Modern Maestros: And Many More...

Robert here with the final entry in my series on great directors.

A full year after starting my Directors of the Decade series that eventually evolved into Modern Maestros, I can declare that no man should besmirch the state of movies today.  We've discussed 47 directors who are consistently putting out films that are original, interesting, exciting and often masterpieces.

With each piece I've come to love even more each director and what it means to be a lover of film in this day and age.  Even though the series won't go on, I know it could.  There are still many directors worth celebrating.

There's Oliver Assayas and his ability to direct a wide variety of films from the heartwarming to the hopelessly cool.  The Brothers Dardenne with their Bressonian influence continue to pop up and find success at festivals every few years.  Turkish prince of detachment Nuri Bilge Ceylan has thus far been under-the-radar, but I await his eventual breakthrough.  Swede Lukas Moodysson brought us some of the most heartbreaking and heartwarming films of the past fifteen years.  Carlos Reygadas who can depend on mixed responses to his difficult films which are never less than downright intriguing.

Directors Danny Boyle, king of whirlwind editing, Peter Weir, consistent craftsman that he is and David O. Russell who we all wish worked a little more easily are poised to present entries into this year's Oscar race.

And speaking of Oscars, we have yet to see if Kathryn Bigelow's win last year helps solidify support for female directors, but dark romantic Jane Campion, ennui enabler Sophia Coppola and drama celebrating Lisa Cholodenko are all worth celebrating.

The recent explosion of documentaries can perhaps be traced back to the success of Michael Moore who, provocateur though he is, knows how to create enticing films.  Other documentarians like Charles Ferguson and Alex Gibney continue the tradition of asking important questions through their cinema.

The boom in Asian directors has been a running theme, yet I missed Hou Hsai-hsien who has been doing his thing for decades, perfecting his modern yet classic observational style and Hirokazu Koreeda whose poignant films cover the topics of life and loss.

Horror and Fantasy can often be a mass-produced wasteland but Guillermo del Toro with his dark humanity, Sam Raimi with his sense of fun and Peter Jackson with his mastery have all elevated those genres to new heights.

Bill Condon, Stephen Frears, and Terrence Davies have found a way to keep sophistication from becoming dusty.  Quite the contrary, they keep churning out films that are distinctly modern.

Clint Eastwood, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Julie Taymor and Julian Schnabel are among the names who've put out minor works this year (or flat out bad films depending on who you ask) but is there any questions whether or not their next film will be greeted with just as much anticipation as their last?  They could strike gold at any moment.

You can add to that list Sam Mendes, Stephen Daldry, Terry Gilliam, and Fernando Meirelles who we can pretty dependably assume will rise to great heights again.

Veterans of the old indie movement have found nice niches for themselves, whether that be Jim Jarmusch and his cerebral minimalism, Spike Lee and his documentaries or Noah Baumbach and his uncomfortable dark comedies.

Young independent directors are coming of age nicely too, like Ryan Fleck and Anna Bodden who clearly have great understanding for their characters.  Or Thomas McCarthy who clearly has a great love of his characters.  Or Todd Field who clearly appreciates the great drama that his characters provide.

How about the real veterans.  Eighty-five year old Sidney Lumet still knows how to make a film that's gripping.  Eighty-two year old Agnes Varda knows how to infuse a doc with her artistry.  Seventy-nine year old Godard proved at Cannes that he can still cause a stir.  And One Hundred and One year old Manoel de Oliviera is still working... my god he's still working.

And then there's Terrence Malick.  Has any other director since Kubrick found himself surrounded by such an aura of mystery and anticipation... he's practically an American folk hero.

After all that I could still name more, and so could you.  So I encourage you to share the directors who you look forward to, film after film after film, whether they've directed one movie like Duncan Jones or dozens like Abbas Kiarostami, whether they've fallen from grace like Tim Burton or are on the top of the world like James Cameron.  Tell me who I've missed or simply give love to someone who bears repeating.

Here is a list of all the directors covered by Directors of the Decade/Modern Maestros:
Martin Scorsese,
Ramin Bahrani,
David Lynch,
Darren Aronofsky,
Tsai Ming-liang,
Brad Bird (Mr. Complexity),
Lars von Trier,
Andrew Stanton (Mr. Simplicity),
Gus Van Sant,
David Gordon Green,
Joel and Ethan Coen,
Guy Maddin,
Paul Thomas Anderson,
Roy Andersson,
Wes Anderson,
Quentin Tarantino,
Claire Denis,
Zhang Ke Jia,
Christopher Nolan,
Jason Reitman,
Pete Docter (Mr. Madcap),
Paul Greengrass,
David Cronenberg,
Wong Kar Wai,
Michael Haneke,
Alexander Payne,
Hayao Miyazaki,
Todd Haynes,
Spike Jonze,
Steven Spielberg,
Andrew Bujawlski,
Steven Soderbergh,
Werner Herzog,
Michel Gondry,
Errol Morris,
Ang Lee,
Apichatpong Weerasethakul,
Bela Tarr,
Edgar Wright,
Woody Allen,
Mike Leigh,
Catherine Breillat,
Zhang Yimou,
Alfonso Cuaron,
Aleksandr Sokurov,
David Fincher,
Pedro Almodovar.

Unsung Heroes: The Costumes of The Big Lebowski

Michael C from Serious Film back again, this time with a Little Lebowski Urban Achiever whose work is already iconic even if few know her name.

I'd like to dedicate this one to the costume designers that don't do movies about dead monarchs or glittery musicals.

-Sandy Powell collecting her third Oscar

It's a common refrain among film lovers that flashier work may win the awards, but the subtler, more invisible work is the stuff that really deserves the recognition. But what about the crafts where the flashy stuff is also brilliant as well? Take costume design. In 1998 when the Oscar race came down to Shakespeare in Love vs. Elizabeth I don't think many would deny that those were two very deserving choices. Even though they were the Oscar's favored "Look at me!" more-is-more style nominees, that didn't make the costumes any less brilliant. And while a lot of people would agree with Powell's statement that contemporary costume design is woefully overlooked, it will still be difficult to skip over Elizabeth to mark your ballot for my choice for that year's best costume design: Mary Zophres for the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski. 

If you contrast the amount of effort that went into making one of Cate Blanchett's royal gowns against, say, picking out just the right grungy beige cardigan for the Dude, it seems like a pretty indefensible choice on the face of it. But costume design, like any other creative profession, is about making choices. And every choice made about the costumes in Lebowski is a bullseye, right down to getting a T-shirt to properly accentuate the Dude's gut.

Zophres makes every character in the movie instantly recognizable from their attire without ever stretching credibility (at least without stretching it any further than the Coens already did) How many robes did she have to try before she found one that hung off Julianne Moore so perfectly? How many vest and tinted glasses did she go through before she found the perfect combo to give John Goodman that militaristic edge? I could have done a whole post just on John Turturro's legendary hairnet and tight purple bowling outfit alone, to say nothing of all the other bowlers, nihilists, avant garde artists, and young trophy wives who populate the film.

And, hey, if you want traditionally attention grabbing, Zophres and the Coens oblige with a wacked-out Busby Berkeley goes bowling musical showstopper with the most outlandish costumes this side of a Terry Gilliam movie. Sandy Powell was a totally worthy Oscar winner for Shakespeare in Love, but I defy anyone to name me a costume from Shakespeare, or from any other film that year, that has brought more joy to people over the years than Julianne Moore's Viking bowler ensemble.

Burlesque ~ New Photo!

Here it is, in all its hot honey glory

I wish I liked Christina Aguilera more because I am so thankful that we'll have a musical to enjoy in the movie theaters this year. But still... CHER.

This photo begs the question, though...
The Hand Bra: Who wore it best?

poll by twiigs.com

BARBRA STREISAND

Foreign Film Oscars: International Beauty Pageant.

If you'd like to read about the now official Oscar submissions for Best Foreign Language Film,  click away. But because you -- make that we -- can't see most of the films, due to the hideous state of international distribution, let us use this Academy press release as an excuse to take a different view, a sexytime view... a Beauty Break if you will. Let's gawk at the actors and actresses who are in the submitted films. We'll pretend it's like a Miss Universe pageant (how do you say "shallow" in Finnish?). Randomly selected hotties follow (it's not easy to find info/photos.) whether you're into the men, the women or other. Don't judge!

Beauty Knows No Borders
I presume you'll let me know your very favorites in the comments. Do I presume too much?

Handsome Guys...

Left:  Bill Skarsgård a.k.a. Alexander's lil brø (20) for Sweden's Simple Simon.
Right: Oscar Guerrero (age unknown) for Puerto Rico's Miente / Lie.

Oh the imperfections of the web: Guerrero is obviously famous having been in several films and soap operas and yet he has neither a wikipedia page nor any personal information on the IMDb. Weirder still, the IMDb does not even list him as appearing in Miente, a film in which he plays the lead role!

Left: Mark Chao -- or Zhao depending on your info source -- (26) for Taiwan's Monga (see previous post). He also sings.

Right: George Pistereanu (19) for Romania. Some people think he looks like...

Left: Gael García Bernal (31) for Spain in Even the Rain. He's from Mexico and the most familiar face in this year's submission list outside of Javier Bardem, who is from Spain representing Mexico with Biutiful. They've flip-flopped countries, submission-wise. I sat two rows behind them -- they were together so I assume they're friends -- in Toronto for The Sea Inside premiere back in 2004. Memories ♫
Right: Boris Ler (25) for Bosnia Hersegovina in Danis Tanovic's Cirkus Columbia.

Left: Coco Martin (26) who stars in Noy for The Philippines. (see previous post)
Right: Santiago Cabrera (32), who you'll remember from the TV show Heroes (first season only -- the tortured artist) who is the romantic lead of Chile's The Life of Fish. The Chilean actor was born in Venezuela, speaks four languages and lives in London. International!

Left: Pablo Derqui (34) for Costa Rica's Of Love and Other Demons. He was born in Barcelona and is a TV star in Spain.
Right: Asser Yassin (29) for Egypt in Messages From the Sea.

Left: Aarif Lee (23) for Hong Kong's Echoes of the Rainbow. He won the Best Newcomer Award in the Hong Kong Film Awards for this role. He's starring in a Bruce Lee biopic next. Here's more info on the Lee picture.
Right: Mateusz Kościukiewicz (24) for Poland. He stars in the punk rock drama All That I Love. At least one website names him the Polish Robert Pattison !

Gorg' Ladies...

Left: Maria Bonnevie (37) for Norway in Engelen (Angel). See previous post for more on Maria.
Right: Lubna Azabal (age unknown) for Canada in Incendies (it's one to watch for the finalist list, I think). She's from Belgium and of Moroccan descent.

Left: Sibel Kekilli (30) for Germany's award winning When We Leave. We are fond of her.
Right: Blanca Lewin (36) for Chile in the romantic drama The Life of Fish. She's a television star there.

Left: Takako Matsu (33) for Japan in Confessions (see previous post for exciting trailer). She won several best actress awards recently for the melodrama Villon's Wife.
Right: Micaela Ramazzotti (31) for Italy in The First Beautiful Thing. She plays the young mother of two kids in this nostalgic memoir. (The role is shared with award-winning Stefania Sandrelli when the mother gets older). Lotsa photos of Micaela... she currently has darker hair.

Left: Jana Zupančič (age unknown) for Slovenia's 9:06. Like Guerrero up top she's also not listed on the IMDb as part of her submitted film, but she's one of only three actors on the poster. You may remember her from last year's submission Landscape No. 2 (previously reviewed right here).
Right: Mariana Santángelo (34) for Puerto Rico's Miente / Lie. She's from Argentina.

For Specialized Tastes...

Left: Jenny Larrue & Cindy Scrash who play rival transsexual cabaret stars in Portugal's To Die Like a Man.
Right: Various for Hungary in what must be the oddest Oscar submission this side of Uncle Boonmee. It's called Bibliotheque Pascal.

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If you'd like to read more uh... professional and totally official info on the Best Foreign Language Film Submissions, click for whichever country you're interested in. On the charts you'll see posters, official site links for further exploration, distribution status (US based only, sorry) and basic trivia. As always the best way to see any of them is to pay close attention to festival schedules in cities closest to you.

• Albania to France
  23 films: East West East, Outside the Law, Carancho, La Pivellina, The Precinct, Third Person Singular Number, Illégal, Cirkus Columbia, Lula the Son of Brazil, Eastern Plays, Incendies, The Life of Fish, Aftershock, Crab Trap, Of Love and Other Demons, The Blacks, Kawasaki's Rose, In a Better World, Messages From the Sea, The Temptation of St Tony, The Athlete, Steam of Life, and Of Gods and Men.
• Georgia to Nicaragua
  21 films: Street Days, When We Leave, Dogtooth, Nuummioq, Echoes of the Rainbow, Bibliotheque Pascal, Mamma Gogo, Peepli Live, How Funny This Country Is, Farewell Baghdad, Son of Babylon, The Human Resources Manager, The First Beautiful Thing, Confessions, Strayed, The Light Thief, Hong Kong Confidential, Mothers, Biutiful, Tirza and La Yuma.
• Norway to Venezuela
  21 films: Angel, Undertow, Noy, All That I Love, To Die Like a Man, Lie, If I Want to Whistle I Whistle, The Edge, Besa, The Border, 9:06, Life Above All, A Barefoot Dream, Even the Rain, Simple Simon, La Petit Chambre, Monga, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Honey, A Useful Life, and Hermano.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "La Dolce Vita" (1960)

This week's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" topic is Federico Fellini's wonderful classic La Dolce Vita (1960). One caveat before we begin: I've had a difficult night and computer issues, so I was only able to pull screenshots from the film's first half. But no matter. Ninety minutes in, Fellini has already gifted us with a greater movie than most and there's still another one its same size waiting after the imaginary intermission.

Who crafts pictures like Fellini? Or rather, who crafts motion pictures like him? No one. His camera is often moving and its subjects always are. Fellini loves a crowd and his hordes are either surrounding the action on the verge of chaos or they're lining up to follow some invisible pied piper of dance leading them through a restless black & white bacchanalia.  The effect is so sensual and dizzying that the image of Anita Ekberg as Sylvia lifted up exposing maximum cleavage only to be continually spun around is about as perfect an encapsulation of the Fellini feeling as you can get.

This image of Marcello Mastroianni (below), which suggests he's directing the picture (and he will in 8½ as proxy), is interesting. He's not directing anything at this moment but observing the chaos. He's climbed up a tower to get a better view of the religious frenzy in progress.

About that religious frenzy. It's insane to stand in the pouring rain whilst in ailing health praying for magical healing. It's crazy to run to and fro and back and forth following the ever-changing whims of two kids who claim to have seen the Madonna. It's bonkers to tear the branches off a tree as if the leaves had healing powers. The madness ends when the children demand that a church be built right on the spot they're standing on.

I'm certain Italy has enough churches already. But make it a movie theater and I'll riot with you. I believe in the church of cinema and Fellini is a* god. (*Cinema is a polytheistic religion.)

This god's best creations are gorgeous and impossibly chic. Marcello and Anouk Aimée (pictured above) and Anita and even Yvonne (to a lesser degree) never seem to need any sleep. They wander from setpiece to setpiece and from day to night to dawn back into day in stylish shades, perfectly tailored suits and gowns. They don't need sleep or washing machines or ironing boards. They're always dressed in their finest and so so cool.

My favorite shot in the film's first half is Anita's dreamy aimless wandering through Italian streets with a newly adopted furry friend. The camera isn't sloppily drunk, careening around her but it's definitely got a good buzz going, while she communes with kitty. This is, you should know, a very personal choice for "best shot" as Fellini proceeds to completely spoil me: cats, beautiful actresses, rich black and white images, the glory of unexpectedly vivid details (Ekberg placing the cat on her head); all of these could make me ecstatic alone...but together?

(These images are culled from more than one shot -- there's a few cuts -- but the work is so fluid and alive that it all just flows.)

Imagine the joy of being in a Fellini movie. You get to wear great clothes, dance, cruise Italy while lit and lit perfectly. And when you're coming down from the high of a great party, when sleep is as yet unthinkable, you can take a whimsical stroll through magically quiet city streets.

Should you suddenly decide to take an immortal dip into a nearby fountain, you've arrived in style with an utterly fashionable mewling chapeau.

Impossibly cool.

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Blog Bello

• Movies Kick Ass Marcello's Hands.
• Serious Film Fellini's Imagination.
• Antagony & Ecstasy The Seventh Dawn.
• Brown Okinawa Assault The Women Saunter.
• Pussy Goes Grrr The Rootless Urbanites.
• Robert The Final Shot. (Spoiler)
  

 Next Week!

• MEAN GIRLS (2004). I don't think I've ever looked at this movie from an images standpoint. But I love to watch it, so why not? Are you with me? Pick your favorite shot by next Wednesday, let me know, and I'll link up.

 Previously on "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"

• Angels in America (2003), X-Men (2000), Showgirls (1995), Bring It On (2000), Black Narcissus (1946), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Pandora's Box (1929), Se7en (1995) and  Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Related Reading

• Oscar's Favorite Foreign Directors

Bad Girl

I've been bad and I'm quite behind on blogging. Supposed to be working on that "Best Shot" for this evening (La Dolce Vita) but I am a million hours behind and now the Academy has gone and finalized the Oscar Foreign Film list and the Documentary Short Finalist so there's that, too. Updating now so more on something or other in a couple of hours.

In the meantime this is a shot from Madonna's "Bad Girl" video which I've been obsessing over this week due to all The Social Network / David Fincher related posting. And I don't even like the song!  Discuss.

I promise I'm logging off of The Fincher Network now but isn't that shot heaven? Smoking kills but damn does it look good in movies/music videos. (See also: the complete works of Wong Kar Wai.) Incidentally the cinematographer on the Bad Girl video was Juan Ruiz Anchía, who hasn't worked with Fincher on any movies but his credits include the Mexican Oscar submission Innocent Voices (2004) as well as the Arthur Miller adaptation Focus (2001).Anyone remember that one with William H Macy & Laura Dern? It sure was visually showy. He also did the wee 'Witherspoon lost in the desert!' movie A Far Off Place (1993) and the 'Demi will cause the apocalpyse!' movie The Seventh Sign plus Glengarry Glen Ross and many more.

Madonna sings. Christopher Walken dances.

In completely unrelated news... My pal Nick did not like Black Swan that much. Oh no! Sadly, not everyone can love everything.

Back to work with me. kthxbye.
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Female Characters (In Two Dimensions!)

Have you seen this flowchart on female movie stereotypes in entertainment? It's created by the folks at Overthinking It. (You'll have to open that window to view it in readable size.)

It's dizzying, hilarious and depressing in equal masure. I'm reading it and I'm totally hearing Meryl Streep's voice in my head when Shirley Maclaine starts listing monster movie moms (like Joan Crawford) that she could have been born to instead in Postcards From the Edge

"These are the options?"

Meryl is awesome and it's tough to find her on this chart; she usually comes in three dimensions.

P.S. I love that Lt. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is still considered such a gold standard female hero. Where's Sigourney's major revival? She deserves better than You Again.

Eisenberg vs. Damon? The Youngest Best Actor Nominees!

"Do I have your full attention?"

Whilst continuing my "Best in Show" column for Tribeca Film, I decided it was high time to highlight Jesse Eisenberg from The Social Network and this is why. Here at The Film Experience though, it's time for Oscar trivia! Though I would love to see Eisenberg win traction for Best Actor, he has something else working against him besides the subdued performance: his age.

Youngest Best Actor Nominees

And where Eisenberg would fit in, were he to be nominated.
Disclaimer/Bragging: You won't find info this extensive elsewhere! The Official Oscar site / Wikipedia only offer top tens. However the following info is approximate. Though the Academy's top ten is down to the day of the actual nominations, they don't provide official nomination dates only ceremony dates. Inside Oscar and Wikipedia also only list the ceremony dates so we're just using February 1st, ∞ as a general calculation date for when nominations happened for given years.

1. Jackie Cooper, Skippy (1931) was 9 years old.
   Nine, Guido, Nine! Kind of strange that he was nominated, wasn't it, since back then they were giving people "junior" Oscars. Why wasn't he handed one of those instead? Or perhaps they started those in the wake of this nomination.
2. Mickey Rooney, Babes in Arms (1939) was 19 years old.
3. Mickey Rooney, again, The Human Comedy (1943). He was 23.
   Bonus Trivia Note: Rooney is not the youngest actor to receive two Oscar nominations. If you include supporting work, the record holder is Sal Mineo who by the age of 22 had been nominated twice: Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Exodus (1960). If you include actors, male or female, Angela Lansbury holds the record of fastest to "two-time nominee" status: she had two nominations for Supporting Actress by the time she was 20 (The Picture of Dorian Gray and Gaslight).
   
   
   
   Mickey & Sal: fast-start careers, quick industry respect.
   
   
4. John Travolta, Saturday Night Fever (1977) was 24.
5. James Dean, East of Eden (1955) was 24 years old when he died. This nomination came posthumously when he would have just turned 25.
6. James Dean again for Giant (1956). He would have just turned 26.
7. Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson (2006) was 26 years old.
8. Orson Welles, Citizen Kane (1941) was also 26.
9. Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain (2005) was 26 going on 27.
   ****If Jesse Eisenberg is nominated for The Social Network he will boot Matt Damon out of the top ten by a hair (it's a matter of approximately 14 days).
10. Matt Damon, Good Will Hunting (1997) was 27 years and 125 days old.
    
11. Tom Cruise, Born on the 4th of July (1989) was 27½
12. Albert Finney, Tom Jones was also 27 going on 28.
13. Marlon Brando, A Streetcar Named Desire was 27 but rapidly approaching 28.
14. Montgomery Clift, my favorite actor, for The Search (1948) when he was 28.
15. Marlon Brando again for Viva Zapata! (1952) when he was almost 29.
16. Chester Morris, Alibi (1929) was turning 29 probably within a week or two of the nominations.  But I can't find the date that the Academy announced the nomination in 1930 for the films of 1928/1929.  
17. Kenneth Branagh, Henry V (1989) was newly 29 as well.
18. Anthony Franciosa, A Hatful of Rain (1957) was 29.
19. Edward Norton, American History X (1998) was 29½.
    From here on out it gets dubious/tricky. I can't vouch for the following order without official nomination dates since all of these men were born in the month of April and the nominations usually arrive in February but dates vary quite a lot.
20. Adrien Brody, The Pianist (2002) was almost 30.
    
21. Marlon Brando again for Julius Caesar (1953) when he was almost 30.
22. Ryan O'Neal, Love Story (1970) was almost 30.

Once actors have hit 30 the leading roles start coming. Though Rooney and Dean are near the top of "youngest ever" charts I think it would be best to consider Brando the patron saint of all the future young guns given his instant impact and fascinating longevity, despite many career twists and turns.

 Brando from '51 to '54: Four consecutive nods by the time he was 30 for
A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva Zapata!, Julius Caesar and On the Waterfront.

He was nominated in four consecutive years starting at the age of 27 with his history-altering performance as Stanley Kowalski (Streetcar Named Desire, 1951) and ended that insane run with a golden boy win (On the Waterfront, 1954) just 4 days shy of his 31st birthday ...which is about the time most people just start being considered for good roles let alone prizes.  

Excessive Trivia Alert! Brando snatched that youngest winner title from James Stewart (who was 32 when he won for The Philadelphia Story besting Clark Gable's win for It Happened One Night at age 34). The Godfather held onto the title for two decades until Richard Dreyfuss won at 30 (The Goodbye Girl, 1977). Dreyfuss was dethroned a quarter century later by Adrien Brody (The Pianist, 2002) who won three weeks shy of his 30th birthday. Are you loving this trivia or are you begging for it to stop? I can't stop once I get started. But I must. I must!

The only other nominees at the age of 30? That'd be Warren Beatty -Bonnie & Clyde, Richard Todd -The Hasty Heart, Franchot Tone - Mutiny on the Bounty, Dustin Hoffman -The Graduate, Sylvester Stallone -Rocky, and Leonardo DiCaprio - The Aviator.

31 Up and the men become too numerous to list. But in the past decade the men who achieved a lead nomination by 31 were Javier Bardem in Before Night Falls (2000), Jude Law in Cold Mountain (2003) and Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line... though few noticed the latter's youth at the time since Heath Ledger was making more noticeable history at 26 years of age. Together they made 2005's lineup one of the youngest skewing ever.

Here's the ten youngest best actor nominees of the past decade from youngest to oldest. (DiCaprio is the biggie here having rung up his 3rd Oscar nomination before he was 33. Still hasn't won yet, though.)

Youngest Lead Nominees of the Aughts

I promise I'll stop now!!!
What do you make of all this and do you think Jesse Eisenberg has a shot at all, given the super early frontrunner status of The Social Network minus their resistance to subdued performances and young men?

If you are over 30 reading this list I apologize. It makes me feel unaccomplished, too. If you are under 30 and an actor, take note. There's still plenty of time for you; nail your next audition!

Companion Articles / Related Reading
Best in Show: Jesse Eisenberg
Familiar Faces: Actors David Fincher Uses Frequently 
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30 Seconds To Link

Time Warner Do you want to be an indie film icon? Time Warner is hosting a short film competition on their YouTube channel. The prize is a trip to Sundance and presumably the festivities there.
Spangle the slippery slope of the new MPAA ratings. Yes, they're now warning you if a movie shows male nudity. Female nudity is the regular kind, see. No funny stuff!
Self Styled Siren great rangey entertaining review of the Romanian drama Tuesday After Christmas. Though I have to disagree on one major point: I thought the oaf at center was hot in the ways one can be if one happens to be oafish...
/Film Daniel Craig on the set of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

TCM Fredric March is the star of the month. Yay. Make sure to watch The Best Years of Our Lives... since we just discussed it (in case you haven't). I'm DVRing One Foot in Heaven tonight because it's never been able for home viewing.
Mind of a Suspicious Kind on Canadian Oscar submission Incendies
This Recording Molly Lambert wrote a zingy personal runaway train piece on Aaron Sorkin. Loved it but for that "artistic meritocracy" detour sent me spinning. I don't believe in any true meritocracy anywhere. I think believing it it only leads to unhappiness. Success is always about a combo of things including luck, getting to the right places first, knowing the right people, looking the right way, saying the right thing at the exact right time, being in the right mood at the right times, noticing opportunities when they whiz by,  and then... then and only then (and maybe even further down the list) merit. Sorry! There's just too many wildly successful people / things that are indifferently executed, lazily created, or unspecial to believe in merit. Personal button: Pushed! Beep Beep. But Molly is astute...

The internet has taught me that people are radically transparent even when they try not to be. It is a way to channel your id directly, sometimes dangerously, and everyone's id is going "I'M THE BEST LOOK AT ME I'M THE BEST" and then also simultaneously "OH GOD FUCK I AM THE WORST" as an extension of the same thing. Namely that people are fucking fragile, even the accomplished ones.

Dead on. Which is why I try to be transparent. Iwish I was more successful! I'mthebestlookat-ohfuckI....

Antagony & Ecstasy "Beating a Dead Horse" I almost don't want to see Secretariat now. I've been enjoying the merciless reviews too much. The movie might spoil the reviews!
Coming Soon Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly in Back to the Future. What could have been as DVD extras. (Though I'm surprised that contractually, studios can do this?)
MTV Rhys Ifans will play Spider-Man's villain. No word on which villain but if they're going with the canonic Gwen Stacy story it'd be The Green Goblin again.
OUT Cheyenne Jackson's career continues to blossom on television. I'm so embarrassed that the movies are still so hung up about out actors but TV is getting over it already. Oh, movies. Catch up!NY Times Courtroom sketch of Woody Allen & Mia Farrow circa 1993. Ohhhhh...


Refinery and Boy Culture have new Terry Richardson shots of Jared Leto. And speaking of...
Cineboobs Katey drew our attention yesterday to this incredible Jared Leto transformation.



Wow.

Curio: Film and Thread and Scarlett Johansson Pillows

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here with your weekly film craftiness. I've shared items from the glorious threadiverse before, but there are so many wonderful film-inspired embroidery pieces out there that they can't be contained in a single post. Some are simply clever, others downright artful. A selection, for your viewing pleasure.

Moxiedoll specializes in handstitched happiness. Here are her odes to Donnie Darko and Office Space.

Mr X Stitch is the king of contemporary embroidery on the internet, and his Phat Quarter embroidery group on flickr often swaps movie embroideries. Here are some of the results (pictured above)...you can guess the films.

Zachary Newcott, a.k.a. The Awkward Unicorn, made this Memento cross stitch so he could "imagine the confused faces of the people who haven't seen Memento" after spotting it in his bathroom.

MafiosaGrrl is responsible for these sublime Lebowski stitches.

Allison Manch embroidered Some Kind of Wonderful on a vintage hankie.

Finally, if you want to sleep with Scarlett Johansson, you can buy this from Merritt here.
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The Big Lebowski

Super Mario Beats It: The Lessons of NYCC 2010

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JA from MNPP here. New York's Comic Con went down this previous weekend in the massive Javits Center here on the island of Manhattan, and if you were there amongst the stacks of dusty Fantastic Four comics and shiny samurai sword replicas and Jason Voorhees masks you might've seen me wandering around in a glassy-eyed stupor. Every Comic Con I've been to breeds the same overstimulated dullness - within a couple of hours my pupils dilate and seeing things like a ten-foot tall Orc tickling Wonder Woman just starts to seem normal. This happens every day! Still, a couple of things stood out this year and I shall now document them.

10 Random Things I Learned at NYCC This Year

01 Girls really like the Silk Spectre costume - Or maybe it's that they know the boys like seeing them in the Silk Spectre costume - either way, I saw about twenty different ladies wearing the slutty bumblebee ensemble from Zach Snyder's adaptation of Alan Moore's seminal comic book. The film hadn't come out yet when the last Comic Con happened here in NYC - in 2009 NYCC happened in February, while they moved it into October for 2010 (a permanent move), and Watchmen came out in March 0f 2009 - so I don't remember seeing the costume last year, but it was literally - literally! - everywhere you turned this time around. Does this make Malin "Baby Girl" Akerman a geek icon?

02 Danny McBride's a trooper - The panel for David Gordon Green's Your Highness was at the geek-freaking hour of 10:30am on Saturday. Keep in mind you've got at least an hour's wait to even get into the building at that hour, plus with the commute there... needless to say it took me some effort to drag my bum there, but I did. Then I heard through the press-vine that McBride & Co. had been partying hard until the wee hours of morning before the panel and I felt a little less super for my own efforts, since I'd been in bed by 11:30. James Franco seemed dazed, but Danny McBride was firing on all cylinders. Funny man.

And the footage they showed from the film, while definitely geared to the Comic Con audience - Natalie Portman's thong! Puppets smoking from a bong! (hey that rhymes) - was every ounce the bizarre mish-mash I could've hoped the film would be. It looks terrific. I don't entirely understand David Gordon Green's directing career, but it's been a pleasure watching it play out so far.

03 Geeks will stand in a very long line to watch a commercial - This is nothing new to Cons, I've seen it at every one I've gone to, but it always baffles me. The fine folks behind the upcoming release of the Alien Anthology, as they call it, had a booth where they'd close you up in a sleeping pod and right up in your face was a TV screen and it'd show a bunch of clips from the four Alien movies with some sound effects echoing in your ears. The end. And yet the line never stretched less than fifty people long! I suppose the T-shirt they gave you that cleverly stated "Want A Hug?" had something to do with it, but still. (I totally did it anyway, and I cherish my T-shirt.)

04 The family that geeks together, is adorable together - I wish my parents had dressed me up like a Jedi or Baby Yoda and taken me to these sorts of things. So I could immediately fall asleep. Damn you, parents!

05 In The Thing, There Be Tentacles - While I'm still unsure about a prequel to John Carpenter's brilliant 1982 film, itself a remake, the trailer for Matthijs van Heijningen Jr's film - which has made its way online in an exceptionally shaky, hand-held version - had a couple of quick glances of their take on the plant-animal alien monster things and they did excite this nerd's senses. Although only glimpsed, they look right, which in this era of lousy CG was a concern. Now let's just hope they can nail the right paranoiac tone needed too.

06 Katee Sackhoff and Tricia Helfer are pros at this - I can only imagine how many of these events these ladies have entertained at this point, but the dynamic Battlestar Galactica duo had the audience eating out of their palms. They have a terrific rapport - they are apparently great friends in real life - and joked that they're waiting for the reboot of Cagney & Lacey to come along to showcase it. I would watch that.


07 But Michelle Forbes is scary - I don't care that she told us she's nothing like Admiral Cain in Battlestar of the maenad MaryAnn on True Blood or [insert the name of every character she's ever played] and that she's really a hippie-type in real life - there's a reason she's successful for playing harsh ladies, and she made me nervous. I had to keep checking to make sure everybody's eyes weren't going all black, because with all due respect the audience at a Battlestar Galactica panel at Comic Con is not the audience I want to be having an orgy with.

08 M Night Shyamalan, amiable dude - I defended M Night for a very long time, well past when most people had bailed ship - I liked The Village, and I liked parts of Lady in the Water - but the one-two punch of that book about him and The Happening (shudder) kind of killed any arguments I could make anymore. So I only sat through half of his panel by happenstance, in order to get a good seat for the panel following him (on AMC's The Walking Dead, which looks epic by the way). But he came off really well! It was for the 10th Anniversary of Unbreakable, a terribly underrated film, and you could tell he really loves the film and that its negative reception put him into a bit of a tailspin. He came alive showcasing the storyboards for the train scene at the start of the film - you can say a lot of things about him, but I don't think you can argue about the meticulous craft on display. And he was fascinating to watch in discussion of that.

09 According to Frank Darabont, Zombies are the new Vampires - Which seems like an odd argument to make, right? The last decade has seen every iteration of zombies you could ever imagine - it's not like they need to make a comeback to be the hip thing. I get that he was selling his Zombie TV Show, and it does look terrific. But isn't it really Frankenstein Monster's time to shine again? I want sexy Frankenstein, dang it. (Yes, SNL got there already.)

10 You haven't lived until you've seen Super Mario dancing to Michael Jackson's "Beat It" - This one is self-explanatory, and true. You might not know it's true. But then you see it happen, and you understand its truth. The fundamental sort.

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