Tag: Cinema

Llewyn to Caesar. | The Cat is the Hat?

“You always blithely write shit in and then find out that it’s a pain in the ass to do it,” groaned Joel. “In Inside Llewyn Davis, we very blithely wrote that there was a cat in all of these different scenes. And then we got on the set and had to do it, and you know, cats are a pain in the ass. They’re just an unvarnished pain in the ass, that’s all there is. There’s nothing fun about it.”

As Inside Llewyn Davis hits theaters, Joel and Ethan Coen talk about their potential next projects — looks like Hail Caesar is still flitting around — and the trouble with filming felines. “‘You have lots of different cats on set,’ said Joel. ‘”Oh, that one won’t do the scene? Try this other one, see if he’ll do it.” And you just sit there until he does it, or until you say, “Fuck it, he ain’t gonna do it,’ and come up with something else.”‘”

I haven’t seen Davis yet — DC being a second-tier film town, it hasn’t arrived yet — but I have a sneaking suspicion Llewyn’s kitteh will be playing the role of Tom Reagan’s hat here — a metaphor for his self-possession. Looking forward to finding out this weekend.

Waiting for Gadot.

Israeli actress Gal Gadot is cast as Wonder Woman for Zach Snyder’s Man of Steel follow-up (which people have been calling Batman v. Superman, but now seems to be Batman v. Superman v. Wonder Woman v. Lex Luthor v. Doomsday or somesuch.) “Variety adds you can probably expect ‘several members of the Justice League’ to make appearances in the film.”

This seems like a role that Jaimie Alexander was born to play, but I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve seen more of Gadot — She was apparently in Knight and Day but I have no memory of her.

Not Ruby, Not Oswald: Lehnsherr.


“Days before Kennedy arrived in Dallas for his Trade Mart visit, the Friends of Humanity had campaigned among locals for his impeachment. According to the group, the Missile Crisis was the least of Kennedy’s sins in a list of treasons including “mutant love” and “conspiracy to dilute the human race with ungodly blood.”

I missed this during JFK retrospective/Thanksgiving week until Ted of The Late Adopter passed it along: The Magic Bullet is finally explained. In short, there was no second shooter — just a bullet-bending mutant master of magnetism on the grassy knoll. Seems like a good reason to authorize the Sentinel program, and no mistake.

Update: Upon looking over recent entries, I notice I neglected to post the full X-Men: Days of Future Past trailer, so here it is: Some questionable editing choices here (that jump-cut after “Patience isn’t my strongest suit” is jarring every time), but hopefully this will avoid the overstuffed pitfalls of X3 and continue in the positive vein of First Class.

50 Hours a Cineaste.


“Anyway, this was a lot of fun to cut together. While I don’t expect that you’ll agree with all of my choices (given that this is a ranked list of 25 films, it would be really strange if you did), I hope you enjoy watching this all the same.”

As per last year, Film.Com’s David Ehrlich has once again spliced together an entrancing Supercut of his top 25 films of 2013. As always, my own year-end list will arrive at the end of the month, but I will say that I’ve seen most of Ehrlich’s (wide-release) choices, I generally agree with what he’s got going on here, my current top two films are in his top five, and I have very high hopes for his #3.

Them Big Boys Did What HBO Couldn’t Do.

“As you probably heard, the onetime juggernaut of a video rental chain formally pulled the plug on most of its remaining retail stores this week. Just think of all those abandoned storefronts where people used to rent ‘Wall Street 2’ or ‘Pain and Gain’ or whatever; just think of what Bruce Springsteen, the bard of economic collapse, might have done with such a…well, I was about to type ‘catastrophic occurrence,’ but..it was more like a sector of the marketplace realigning itself with technological reality after years of denying the inevitable.”

Down in South Carolina, back in 1993, I wore the blue and yellow, got ten free films a week. I built up some movie knowledge, right near the Florence Mall. Now those tapes have been taken away, lost amid the suburban sprawl. After mining the Internet hivemind, Matt Zoller Seitz gathers odes to the end of Blockbuster in the style of Bruce Springsteen.

Mowing neighborhood lawns notwithstanding, Blockbuster was actually my first job. And, while I never cottoned to their Republican-leaning ways or their ridiculous drug test policy, it was a pretty good gig for a high school kid, all in all — if you could withstand the same twenty trailers and episode of Duck Tales playing ALL THE TIME. Like I said, ten free movies a week. As an 18-year-old just working to raise beer-money for college, you can’t beat that with a stick.

From the Files of Dr. Jacoby.

“Because there was no still photographer on the set during the filming of the last Twin Peaks episode, Richard Beymer (aka Benjamin Horne) was given permission by David Lynch to shoot some pictures on the set. The resulting ‘behind the scenes’ photos are nothing short of stunning.”

Cinephile Archive offers a smattering of rare Twin Peaks arcana. Worth a look-thru if you’re Peaks-inclined…Alas, it still doesn’t answer the real question: How’s Annie?

The Song of Solomon.

“12 Years a Slave is an easy landmark. It’s a rare sugarless movie about racial inequality…[A]t several points an audience is free to remember that most movies about the Civil War and slavery have been appeals to our higher, nobler selves. They’ve been appeals to white audiences by white characters talking to other white characters about the inherent injustice of oppressing black people at any moment in this planet’s history…McQueen and Ridley turn that dynamic inside out.”

In Grantland, Wesley Morris ably discourses on Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, thus far the movie of the year (and I say that as someone who didn’t think much of Hunger or Shame.) As I said on Twitter, this film should come as a free digital download with any Lee Greenwood CD (or, for that matter, any Gods and Generals DVD.) “A different movie might have taken this story and turned it into a battle between Epps and the white men who feel a duty to free Northrup…The power of McQueen’s movie is in its declaratory style: This happened. That is all, and that is everything.”

Another Side of Llewyn Davis.

“Just as sure as the birds are flying high above, life ain’t worth living without the one you love.” Speaking of quality music from Coen corners, the soundtrack to Inside Llewyn Davis is now streaming at NPR. Below is the song from the trailer (and quoted above), Oscar Isaac and Marcus Mumford’s rendition of the 1908 traditional, Dink’s Song (Fare Thee Well).

A BWOMMPology from Zimmer.

BWOMMP. “‘Oh, it’s horrible!’ he told Vulture. ‘This is a perfect example of where it all goes wrong. That music became the blueprint for all action movies, really. And if you get too many imitations, even I get confused!'” BWOMMP. Inception scorer and BWOMMP creator Hans Zimmer would like to apologize for the BWOMMP.

Update: “[R]eading [the Zimmer article] and seeing someone on the inside, who knows exactly how everything happened, outright lying, that bothered me. I just feel the truth on the whole process should be explained once and for all.”

And now we have a BWOMMP-troversy: Inception sound designer Mike Zarin says Zimmer is full of it regarding the origins of the BWOMMP. Having watched all three iterations of the trailer in this link, I’d argue Zack Hemsey’s “Mind Heist” really captures the first BWOMMP in all its glory.