Johnny Simmons

My favourite post this week comes courtesy of Blake (Bitchin’ Film Reviews) puts forth a fine argument as to why superhero films are the new romantic comedies. I like his argument even more because he touches on two films Friends with Benefits and Captain America which I had issues with despite the positive reviews.
    
I don’t really love Polanski’s The Pianist but Stevee (Cinematic Paradox) LOVES it. No, I don’t think the film is poor – it’s rather good, but I never managed to appreciate it as vociferously as everyone did, and I always resented it because I felt the story behind it was more wholly loved than the film itself.
      
Nick is relentless at coming up with the strangest ideas for a post and this top ten is a winner. Has anyone seen the trailer for The Whistleblower (the film which will net Rachel Weisz her second Oscar nomination)? Over at Anomalous Material he imagines ten actors saying a line from the film. # 5 is the best. Seriously.

Luke (Journalistic Skepticism) doesn’t like Mulholland Drive. I don’t feel much for the film either way; although I know Castor loves it. It just sort of sits there for me...anyone care to make an argument for me to watch it again?

Eponymous The Flick Chick lists her five favourite body-switching films. She unfortunately doesn’t have the Lindsay/Jamie switch of Freaky Friday. But, she’s never seen it (and #1 and #2 are golden).

         
The summer movie season is coming to a close, and not fast enough for me. Maybe the rest of the year will be as underwhelming, but I’m hoping the string of disappointments this year is just because the fall season has reached. Ruth (FlixChatter) lists her five favourite summer blockubsters, so I guess her summer has been going better that mine

And to close, who isn’t anticipating Soderbergh’s Contagion. I haven’t keeping track of the behind-the-scenes rambling of most films, opting to be surprised so I didn’t realise Jude was in until Paolo started talking about the new posters over at The Film Experience. I’ve avoided the trailer, and the IMDB page. It’s like a Talented Mr. Ripley reunion...but for Cate. Sigh.

I don't usually watch trailers but could I honestly resist Vanessa Redgrave? No, I could not. Sure, the Shakespearean roots are not obvious but I never really did like Coriolanus much I'm just excited to see VANESSA REDGRAVE. And Ralph.

Anne Hathaway has been cast as Catwoman in Christopher Nolan‘s third Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises". For her role as Catwoman, Hathaway had to compete with several other top beautiful actress Keira Knightley, Rachel Weisz, and Naomi Watts.
Hathaway follow the steps of Liam Neeson and Heath Ledger, who also plays as Batman enemies. In addition to announcing Hathaway as Catwoman, Warner Bros also said that actor Tom Hardy will also take part in the movie as Bane.
Christian Bale stick with his role as Batman in this movie. But, Bale has said this is his last role as a Batman.
Anne Hathaway catwoman

Friends with Benefits: directed by Will Gluck; written by Keith Merryman, David A. Newman and Will Gluck
  
After seeing Friends with Benefits I came across some interviews that director/writer Will Gluck gave in relation to the film and my attention was immediately caught when I saw him compare it to a Tracy/Hepburn scenario. More arresting, though, was his concept of the characters’ mindfulness. A significant scene in the film sees the two, until then, sex starved protagonists Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) watching a romantic couple on screen played to anachronistic perfection by Jason Segel and the lovely Rashida Jones. Because these characters are so wise they’re able to point out the silliness of the romantic genre and the ludicrousness that has all those platitudes culminate in a happy ever after ending. The scene is delivered with a level of snark I accept, because even if I do feel badly for the genre romantic comedies tend to be embellished as of late with little to redeem them. In theory, it seems Gluck flirts with the idea of creating a response to decade and more of tired clichés – but, not quite...

A week after the fact, the occasional insularity of the film’s world gives me pause. Dylan is a mere denizen in New York, so that would explain his apparent isolation, but it’s odd that Jamie (portrayed as the poster-girl for all things New York) would have not a single friend in the city other than a man she’s met mere weeks before. The conceit of the film rests on the concept that the two, islands in the proverbial stream, are both lonely and horny and deciding that sex should be as friendly and casual as a game tennis decide to begin a game – a sports’ metaphor that’s awfully trite*. I think I’m getting lost in mixed metaphors. Naturally, the situation will go awry when one – or god forbid, both – of them realises that the situation isn’t as foolproof as it seems. Even tennis has its causalities.

More than a number of persons have credited the “success” of the film to the charisma of the two leads and Timberlake and Kunis definitely do have searing chemistry. For all his recent ubiquity, I like Justin Timberlake (although that’s more than possibly just residual appreciation from his music career) and though I’ve not seen Kunis in enough for her to move me I’m still interested in when she steps up the base line to serve (another sports’ metaphor, whoa). Still, fairly good performances hardly make fine cinema and though nothing about the film screams abysmal, the film around them doesn’t suggest priority. Patricia Clarkson shows up, as is her wont, to inject even more enthusiasm to the situation as Jamie’s kooky and somewhat loose mother. There’s a scene in the film which seems intended to mirror a similar one in Gluck’s last feature Easy A, and it doesn’t roll over the net unimpeded (ahem). It’s because Friends with Benefits spends a curiously short amount of time examining the purported issues of the characters. The film opens with respective hook-ups of Jamie and Dylan telling them that they’re emotionally undeveloped and damaged, and it’s not until well into the second half that they make up on any indication these emotional issues. Otherwise, Timberlake and Kunis prance around like any normal, good-looking young adult.
The clichéd romantic comedy within a romantic comedy which Segel and Jones star in plays on a loop at occasional parts of the film and Gluck’s intent is as subtle as a hammer to the head. The insertion is too saccharine to be condescending; it borders more on being annoyingly expedient. This, he seems to say, is the clichéd way – we’re going to be more self-aware. But, imprudently Gluck seems to think that acknowledging that a mountain is huge is as good as moving it. So, he mires his film down with a slew of witty comments on the state of affairs in the genre while resorting to the same ones to keep the film afloat, which results in an experience where the occasional pleasures are subverted by a pervading sense of confusion. I think I’d have appreciated Friends with Benefits more if it didn’t try to land its serve with a backhanded (gah, that metaphor again). It delivers in a cutesy ways of the genre, but by destroying the naive geniality of the genre it leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth. And, for all their clichés – the last thing you want is a romantic comedy which leaves you feeling uncomfortable. Gluck shows moments of perception, but they aren’t well imbued. Gluck takes the dive, but he doesn’t stick his landing.

(*I’m done with the sports’ metaphors, I promise. See how gauche that was, with the constant use of sports’ metaphors even as I said that they’re awkward? That’s sort of how Friends with Benefits comes off.)


C

Lucille Ball is mostly known for her comedic television show I Love Lucy. To this day this is my favorite television show. Ball was an American comedian, film, TV, stage and radio actress. She was also a model and television executive. She stared in the sitcoms, I Love Lucy, We Love Lucy, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy.
lucille ball

We all remember that one year on the MTV VMA’s when Lil’ Kim showed up with her left breast hanging out and covered with a pastie.

When Kim presented an award with Diana Ross, and Ross grabbed Kim’s breast, that was an instant classic moment in television history (albeit, a similar one would derail Janet Jackson’s career, but that’s another post for another time).

Well, Kim’s breasticles made an impromptu appearance at a club over the weekend when things got a little out of hand, and one of Kim’s tig ol’ bitties popped out to say hello and throw a few darts at Nicki Minaj (not really, but could you imagine?).

nicki minaj slip