Horror movies about new home ownership:

Twin Peaks

This is very important:
http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/10/ranking-of-all-117-sweaters-seen-on-twin-peaks.html

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the news that there is going to be more Twin Peaks. I'm pretty sure it's good news.

Ohhhh my god you guys:

"Search how often characters have said any word in movies and TV since 1930"

 “Look,” Tony said, and held Natalie’s arm to stop her before the posters of a theater; the movie now being shown inside was old, and apparently past any redemption by adjective, so that the management had simply, resignedly let the pictures into the frames outside the theater, and were now presumably hiding away somewhere inside, beyond reach of irate patrons. One of the pictures showed a glorious scene between a man in a cowboy hat and uncomfortable pistols, who backed against a door to face a darker, equally weaponful villain; in the background a damsel wrung her hands and all three seemed to turn anxiously to the camera, which alone could justify the violent emotions they ravished themselves to feel. It was plain from the picture that it was near the end of the day; the sun was setting dramatically outside the backdrop window; the hero had the look of one who would shortly remove his guns and his spurs and go home in a car he had bought but could not afford; the heroine seemed to be thinking, under her beautiful look of fear and concern, that perhaps she should keep the children out of school until this chicken-pox scare was over. The villain, too—who, tired now of jokes about his villainy and being treated mockingly by his friends as a potential murderer, had said to himself, “Just this one more time, and then I shall be myself again”—snarled, and sighed.  

“It must be a lovely movie,” said Natalie. “Shall we go in?”

“I would not embarrass them by watching them,” Tony said, “Look, this one here is a vampire.”

-------

Jackson, Shirley. “Hangsaman.” Penguin Group, USA, 2013.

[photo: On the left, Starve a Fever; On the right, Feed a Cold.]

Snow Piercer - Selections from Stephen King's Twitter Feed's Reviews

[Photo: I have no idea why I made such a dismal and confusing effort to conceal the identities of the participants in this twitter thread]

another Lucy

This is the thing you must read today.

http://feedly.com/e/dwf4XXJP

HOLY SHIT JAMES FRANCO IS NOW DIRECTING CORMAC MCCARTHY.

And he's taken....liberties.

The Purge

Our yearly bike ride starts in two weeks and I haven't really trained. I have been carbo-loading for about six months, though, so I should be fine. In the meantime, I'm training up as much as I can and that means movie-watching while bike training. Expect some reviews of high-adrenaline action or horror.

Here is what you need to know about The Purge. It's an allegory. It's totally an allegory for the real America. No no, not a fictional future America. OUR AMERICA. Like, THIS AMERICA.

[photo: I would make a second image of the man they want to kill with the text "help! help! I'm being repressed!" except that this would give you the misleading idea that he has any lines, or character development, or meaning to the story at all.]

Having seen The Purge, I am now very conversant in the systematic injustice and institutionalized violence that is an increasingly class- and race-divided America. I know this, because the movie informed me of this at every turn. In fairness, it was nice to see the movie really settle in on at least one thing. Tension between the father and the daughter? Failed to really go anywhere meaningful. What is going on with the son's weird tech stuff? Not really important. Will we ever learn even one thing about the mother? Nope. Will the dad have to deal with the fact that he sold shoddy security systems to everyone he knows? No, why? What's up with the neighbors? Meh. Will this family make better decisions in the future? It really doesn't matter.

They even half-assed the pivotal moment in which the family decided they don't need to be monsters like everyone else who inhabits the culture that produced them. Here's how the big moment plays out (spoilers, obviously, but then you're not going to watch this movie yourself are you? No. Certainly not.):

--Looooooong entirely unnecessary sequence in which they needlessly bind and torture a homeless man--

Mother, son, and daughter, almost simultaneously: "LOOK AT US. WHAT ARE WE DOING?!" 

Father: "KEEP TORTURING!" 

Family: "THIS IS WRONG." 

Father: "You know what? you're totally right. Let's not do this anymore. Let's go shoot the asshole prep school kids outside."

--Family leaves the room presumably to take on about 30 machete-wielding affluenza-suffering 20-somethings with only their wits, leaving the tortured man bound to a chair where he can only hope to bleed out before he dies at the hands of Richie Rich. 

The triumph of the right has never felt so shallow.

Bonus: the homeless man that everyone abuses so gratuitously is, of course, African American. Sensing somehow that making your only black character a vaguely menacing nameless plotless line-less target for limitless abuse was a bad idea, the casting directors have hastily inserted two other people of color into the cast, both of whom have precisely two lines, one of which is to say a friendly hello and the other is to demand the immediate torture and death of innocent children. Casting directors: THAT WAS NOT AN IMPROVEMENT.

I have thoughts on Hannibal

We caught up on Hannibal episodes this week, and I hit social media about half way through the episode to see how people had reacted when it aired the first time. I found fans split between those who are trying to trend "cancel Hannibal" and those who are coming back with fandom in full force. There's a lot of debate about the writing, but nowhere near as much as the ongoing debate about the politics of the show and what it does (or "should") mean to fans.

It's hard to argue that the writing isn't on a downward spiral. It's also hard not to see the point of those who feel betrayed by a show that started with at least a basic nod to diverse casting and has written itself back into tokenism. People defending the show have argued that the increasing homoerotic nature of Lecter and Graham's relationship is itself a progressive space for fans to find an expanded range of identities given more screen-time.

Here is where I have feelings, and this is where I want to hear from y'all. Is it really progressive to spend two seasons developing a homoerotic relationship between two men who will become (SPOILERS HERE) cooperative cannibalistic serial killers?

I don't want to fully commit to position implied in my question. I know, obviously, that fandoms exist in a realm of genres, including very violent ones (exhibit me), and seek out a wide range of role models whose behavior often embraces violent anti-social* extremes in what might be seen as a commentary on the kind of social environment that marginalizes people for things like sexual behavior, regularly subjecting them to violence as one component of that marginalization.

Still. It doesn't sit well with me to put our stakes in a show that favors the homoerotic violent over the homoexplicit pro-social.* Here I speak just as a viewer, not as someone who has any claim to these public identities. I think, though, that everyone has need of better narratives for the full range of human identities. We all need role models we can relate to in the media we consume. The reverse is also true. I'm white, for example, and I think precisely because of this I need more people of color in my media diet. Why, then, should I feel good about a show that gives me homoerotic undertones to its heteroexplicit plot?

[Photo: I guess what I'm saying is, at this point I'm pretty much in it for Mads Mikkelsen and his creepy murder suit.]

*I use pro- and anti-social really hesitantly here, as the terms themselves are used to pathologize harmless behavior. I mean them differently, and lack the right vocabulary because, I suspect, our history hasn't yet produced it.

because this is the james franco blog

It has been observed that James Franco does not know that women write books.

https://twitter.com/maureenjohnson/status/453162697883136000

Perhaps the bigger problem with his list is that it is terminally boring...

Some updates, mostly Marvel

Thad recently requested a link to the infographic illustrating who owns what Marvel film rights, so here it is! The infographic was posted by The Geek Twins. Enjoy the link and the image below.

[Image: You're going to feel sad when you see where Stan Lee is. You're going to feel curious when you see what's up with Man-Thing.]

Additionally, I would like to suggest the revivification of Tuesday movies, and possibly Tuesday lunches. That stuff was good times, plus so many movies are coming out.

Finally, we saw Captain American Winter Soldier, and I feel Falcon was underrepresented in the movie's promotional materials, so here is this:
















[Photo: SO MUCH AWESOMER THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN THAT MOVIE.]

what jane espenson said

This was just one of the great things on the HodgePodgeman podcast this week.
I recently said that Star Wars is fantasy and got a very mean look in response, so it was nice to hear someone with at least a shred of authority voice the same opinion. (I imagine JH will get/has gotten lots of mean looks over it too.)

James Franco! He's writing about Shia LaBoeuf!

I really kind of liked this bit:

At times I have felt the need to dissociate myself from my work and public image. In 2009, when I joined the soap opera “General Hospital” at the same time as I was working on films that would receive Oscar nominations and other critical acclaim, my decision was in part an effort to jar expectations of what a film actor does and to undermine the tacit — or not so tacit — hierarchy of entertainment.

"Famous deaths invite hyperbole. The news that Philip Seymour Hoffman was discovered dead today in an apartment bathroom, with a syringe sticking out of his arm, seems like an occasion to overreact with some exaggerated summary of his career—something like 'most talented and kaleidoscopic actor of his time.'  

Except, in this case, the compliment isn't hyperbolic at all. It's just an accurate description, as true yesterday as it is today.... 

It's not clear that there were roles Philip Seymour Hoffman could not do. He had so many lives within him—and more, undiscovered and unseen. Those are the lives, aside from his own, we've now lost."

--Derek Thompson, in The Atlantic.

[videos: I found a clip of perhaps his strongest moment from Boogie Nights, but it was way too heartbreaking to include.]

all the movies of 2013

I think I saw 28 movies in the theater this year. I wrote on the blog about three of them: Elysium, Upstream Color, and Frozen. I feel like I'm handing in my homework late, and it's still incomplete. Can I have partial credit? 

Enough Said - If it's true that Nicole Holofcener is "the new woody allen" or "the female woody allen," it makes sense  that this is my favorite of her movies, because I think it's the funniest one, and the one where the most irritating characters live in the margins instead of in the center. Quick question: is there actually such a thing as a professional poet? And do they get recognized by fans in public parks? This seems like a weird science fiction world to me.

The Spectacular Now - Maybe 2013 was the year of Bob Odenkirk. His scenes were the best part of this movie for me. I had somehow gotten the impression that The Spectacular Now was a comedy, and it is not. Comparisons to Say Anything are wildly off base. This  movie is a painfully truthful portrayal of alcoholism and depression. 

Star Trek into Darkness - I'm not sure what to make of these movies that are not exactly remakes, but so deeply linked with the movies that came before them. I guess I could just say it makes me feel old, even though I was a very tiny person when Wrath of Khan came out the first time.

The Hobbit 2: Desolation of Smaug - Oh wait, I guess this was the year of Benedict Cumberbatch. Almost everything was wrong with this movie, and yet. It's just so magical, all those things up on the screen that only existed in my head for my whole childhood. Also Richard Armitage is dreamy. But then,  Thorin Oakenshield probably shouldn't be dreamy--come to think of it,  I'd say that "dwarves shouldn't be hot" covers a big fraction of what's wrong with The Hobbit 2. 

Warm Bodies - I'm glad I didn't realize that was the kid from About A Boy until it was over. I think it would have been distracting. 

Identity Thief - I could probably be convinced to see almost any movie Melissa McCarthy is in for a while even if it is pretty terrible. This one was pretty terrible.

Gravity - I have not been so emotionally involved in a movie in ages.  At the same time, the great weakness of the movie is the way it tries to get the audience emotionally involved, by explaining for instance that when people die it is very sad. Still one of my favorite movies of this year. 

Oblivion - I barely remember this movie. I might have fallen asleep during it. Have you read this book? It's pretty good.

World War Z - I don't have any inside knowledge of this, but it seems like this script must have been lying around, not called World War Z, and then someone got the rights to World War Z, and someone was like, "Well, we have this zombie script lying around, can we call it World War Z?" And the answer was no, but they did it anyway. After seeing this movie, I was thinking about whether it should have been more like the book, whether it would have been possible to make a movie of the book, something big and sprawling and loosely connected.  Something more documentary-like, almost academically interested in the nuts and bolts of world-wide zombie infection.  My conclusion: Contagion was a better adaptation of World War Z than World War Z. (p.s. my favorite thing about watching World War Z was seeing Peter Capaldi in a small role.)

In a World… This movie is a romantic comedy that gets right a bunch of things that romantic comedies almost invariably get wrong. No, that's not quite it. It's like, it traffics in all the dumb cliches of the genre, but it manages to make them work. e.g. you know that thing where the female lead is So Awkward even though she is obviously Cameron Diaz or whatever?  Lake Bell manages to come across as genuinely dorky and odd and obsessive (even though she's model-gorgeous).    

The Heat - see above re Identity Thief. This movie was much funnier than Identity Thief. 

Much Ado About Nothing - I really did not plan to like this movie, because while it seems very awesome and fun to read or perform a Shakespeare comedy in your  big gorgeous house for funsies, it also seems pretty self-indulgent to then release that thing in movie theaters, even if you are very good at what you do. In black and white no less! But I was totally charmed by it. I'll also second Thad F's opinion (I think it was Thad?) that Nathan Fillian should win some sort of prestigious award for his portrayal of Dogberry. 

The rest, with my Netflix stars ratings:

Monsters University ***

The Way Way Back ***

Philomena ****
Iron Man 3 ***
The Croods ***
Pacific Rim **
Side Effects ***
Red 2 **
The World’s End *****
This is the End ***
Ender’s Game **
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ***

The blogger app is unpleasant. I can't sort posts by author or limit searches only to drafts (at least that I can identify). I see no easy way to embed links or videos without just writing out the html code, which sounds like a real bummer on a tablet. How am I supposed to post choice bits from Reeling in the Year, or the entirety of The Rubber Bandits works here?

I'M TALKING TO YOU GOOGLE.

With regard to New Years resolutions, not complaining did not make the cut. Posting some did!