Posts tagged 2010NOV

HARRY POTTER: THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: part 1 | child actors make successful transition

HARRY POTTER: THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: part 1 | child actors make successful transition

Harry Potter 7:1 takes advantage of the fact that its child actors are now adults—and lets them actually act as adults, as opposed to the more typical option of making them into action figures. Basically a three-actor film, the first half of the two-part finale sets up all the plot points that will be resolved in part two.

The audience is refreshingly spared the endless battle scenes with thousands of CGI warriors that made the latter ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies so unwatchable. The special effects serve the storyline without getting in the way. There is a particularly well-done and beautiful animation sequence that explains the ‘Deathly Hallows’ premise economically and artfully. This movie should be a lesson to other filmmakers who feel they need to flash every (million) dollar’s-worth of CGI whether it advances the story or not.

The focus in this movie shifts—I am sure quite intentionally—from the vast stock company of British character actors who gave the humor and color to the preceding six films to the three leads. In fact, the leads carry the movie quite well without having to be supported, as they were as small children, by every famous player in the UK. 

Emma Watson grounds the movie. The two young men are good, but not yet at her level, although they have one more movie to get there. Looking forward to Harry Potter 7, Part Deux.

HARRY POTTER: THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: part 1 | child actors make successful transition

rottentomatoes.com

theatlantic: amyvernon: This is cool and all, but why is he barefoot? via wordpainting & libraryland & desktopdrawl & bohemea: David Bowie Oh David. Looks like you’re getting a subscription to The Atlantic in your stocking this year.

theatlantic:

amyvernon:

This is cool and all, but why is he barefoot?

via wordpainting & libraryland & desktopdrawl & bohemea:

David Bowie

Oh David. Looks like you’re getting a subscription to The Atlantic in your stocking this year.

slaughterhouse90210: “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” — Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

slaughterhouse90210:

“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”
— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

thedailywhat: I’m Really Okay With This of the Day: Meet your 83rd Annual Academy Awards host and hostess, James Franco and Anne Hathaway. From the official announcement: James Franco and Anne Hathaway will serve as co-hosts of the 83rd Academy Awards®, Oscar telecast producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer announced today. Both have previously appeared on the telecast but not in hosting capacities. “James Franco and Anne Hathaway personify the next generation of Hollywood icons— fresh, exciting and multi-talented. We hope to create an Oscar broadcast that will both showcase their incredible talents and entertain the world on February 27,” said Cohen and Mischer. “We are completely thrilled that James and Anne will be joining forces with our brilliant creative team to do just that.” [deadline.]

thedailywhat:

I’m Really Okay With This of the Day: Meet your 83rd Annual Academy Awards host and hostess, James Franco and Anne Hathaway.

From the official announcement:

James Franco and Anne Hathaway will serve as co-hosts of the 83rd Academy Awards®, Oscar telecast producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer announced today. Both have previously appeared on the telecast but not in hosting capacities.

“James Franco and Anne Hathaway personify the next generation of Hollywood icons— fresh, exciting and multi-talented. We hope to create an Oscar broadcast that will both showcase their incredible talents and entertain the world on February 27,” said Cohen and Mischer. “We are completely thrilled that James and Anne will be joining forces with our brilliant creative team to do just that.”

[deadline.]

thedailywhat

Don’t worry about it. You should see what we say about you.
An unidentified foreign official, speaking with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she tried to do damage control over the release of secret diplomatic cables that described many foreign officials in blunt terms. (via officialssay)
JAMES FRANCO | 127 hours

JAMES FRANCO | 127 hours

mymomcallsmestabi

Wednesday Addams: Wait. We cannot break bread with you. You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now, my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the roadsides. You will play golf and enjoy hot hors d’oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They have said, “Do not trust the pilgrims, especially Sarah Miller.” And for all these reasons. I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground. Happy Thanksgiving!
Wednesday Addams: Wait. We cannot break bread with you. You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now, my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the roadsides. You will play golf and enjoy hot hors d’oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They have said, “Do not trust the pilgrims, especially Sarah Miller.” And for all these reasons. I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground.

Happy Thanksgiving!

burningyears

DAN SAVAGE | there are no nonfaggy gay men… Q: I’m gay but I’m just a normal guy. The most stereotypical gay thing about me is that I’m a musical-theater major. But I can fix a car, I don’t enjoy dancing (in clubs), I hate the bar scene, and I never use the word “fabulous.” I’m not attracted to faggy men. Can you assure me that there are nonfaggy gay men out there? > > Straight Actor There are no nonfaggy gay men out there, SA. Or there are no nonfaggy gay men out there, I should say, because you’re nonfaggy. I’m taking your word for it, SA, and there you are, all nonfaggy and majoring in musical theater! But you’re the only fabulously masculine gay man in America! You’re like Will Smith in I Am Legend, only you have to sing and dance and blow loads on guys instead of running and screaming and blowing away loads of zombies. But there may be a few homos out there masculine enough to meet with your approval. Look around the tech department of your theater program, SA, and if you see someone in paint-spattered jeans, carrying a power tool, with a pack of smokes tucked in a back pocket, ask that butch dyke out. She’s your only hope.

DAN SAVAGE | there are no nonfaggy gay men…

Q: I’m gay but I’m just a normal guy. The most stereotypical gay thing about me is that I’m a musical-theater major. But I can fix a car, I don’t enjoy dancing (in clubs), I hate the bar scene, and I never use the word “fabulous.” I’m not attracted to faggy men. Can you assure me that there are nonfaggy gay men out there? > > Straight Actor

There are no nonfaggy gay men out there, SA.

Or there are no nonfaggy gay men out there, I should say, because you’re nonfaggy. I’m taking your word for it, SA, and there you are, all nonfaggy and majoring in musical theater!

But you’re the only fabulously masculine gay man in America! You’re like Will Smith in I Am Legend, only you have to sing and dance and blow loads on guys instead of running and screaming and blowing away loads of zombies.

But there may be a few homos out there masculine enough to meet with your approval. Look around the tech department of your theater program, SA, and if you see someone in paint-spattered jeans, carrying a power tool, with a pack of smokes tucked in a back pocket, ask that butch dyke out. She’s your only hope.

Robert Reich | Sarah Palin's Presidential Strategy, and the Economy She Depends On

robertreich:

Monday night, Sarah Palin watched from the audience as daughter Bristol danced on ABC. Twenty-three million other Americans joined her from their homes. Tuesday, the former vice-presidential candidate started a 13-state book tour for her new book, “America By Heart,” which has a first printing…

SOUTH AFRICA | gold miners | apartheid era

SOUTH AFRICA | gold miners | apartheid era

We did the Cole and we wanted the United States to react. And if they reacted, they are going to invade Afghanistan and that’s what we want …Then we will start holy war against the Americans, exactly like the Soviets. > > Mohammed Atef, military commander of Al Qaeda, November 2000

We did the Cole and we wanted the United States to react. And if they reacted, they are going to invade Afghanistan and that’s what we want …Then we will start holy war against the Americans, exactly like the Soviets.


> > Mohammed Atef, military commander of Al Qaeda, November 2000

The New York Times

WIT + wisdom of JOHN MAYER | an ongoing series If you had started doing anything two weeks ago, by today you would have been two weeks better at it.

WIT + wisdom of JOHN MAYER | an ongoing series

If you had started doing anything two weeks ago, by today you would have been two weeks better at it.

FAIR GAME | Naomi Watts embodies a woman with two lives

FAIR GAME | naomi watts embodies a woman with two lives

Naomi Watts makes Valerie Plame come alive. Sean Penn is completely convincing—as usual—in the Joseph Wilson part, but Naomi Watts has the more difficult task in embodying a deceptively quiet, intelligent but seemingly passive upper middle-class housewife and mother who in fact is anything but.

Movies’ ‘humanization’ of historical figures is often irritating because it over-simplifies situation and motivation, ‘personalizing’ in order to hold our attention and as a result patronizing the audience. ‘Fair Game’ avoids this trap. The marriage is under stress—but survives. The insight into the human situation provides context for exactly how destructive the Libby/Cheney/Rove characters were willing to be in order to steamroll anything counterfactual in relation to their agenda.

As a number of reviewers point out, the fact that the Wilsons semi-survived the onslaught from the Bush Administration with their lives and dignity semi-intact is hardly a cause for naive celebration. The same kind of reactionaries are still out there doing their worst.

FAIR GAME | naomi watts embodies a woman with two lives

rottentomatoes.com

WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS | Actors speak in Screen Actors Emphatic to very little point

WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS | Actors speak in Screen Actors Emphatic to very little point

I hated this movie. 

Shia LaBoeuf is convincing in the Sammy Glick role. Carey Mulligan is wasted as a passive pawn-in-their-game character who expresses angst by nibbling on her lip a lot. Michael Douglas and the other over-60 actors get to be variously sneaky and bombastic in stereotyped curmudgeon/coot/elder statesman roles with utterly predictable dialogue and character arcs. 

Oliver Stone has a great visual sense, but his direction jacks-up the actors’ performances to no discernible point, escept to make what they are doing and saying seem IMPORTANT. Not convinced!

WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS | Actors speak in Screen Actors Emphatic to very little point

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