Today’s (Much Belated) Fabulous Image in Cinema: Cate Blanchett in Notes on a Scandal July 21, 2010

When things get quiet over at this particular corner of the internet, the reality is there’s only person we have to blame, and that person is me.  The only problem with this is that I’m a blame shifter, so when things get quiet over at this particular corner of the internet (at least this time around), it’s Christopher Nolan’s fault.  Seriously, he’s the man behind Inception, and I’m merely the owner of the mind that movie melted, which mean he’s the one who committed the mind crime!  (Get it?!?)  Besides, Joseph Gordon Levitt looking positively dapper (or do I mean Draper?) in a suit and vest will muddle your brain for days like that.  Oh, and the Mad Men Fever obviously isn’t helping my crazy, either.  Anyways, we’re not here to talk about Inception (YET); we’re here to talk about Today’s (much belated) Fabulous Image in Cinema, and Today’s (much belated) Fabulous Image in Cinema is from Notes on a Scandal, so let’s talk about it.

Joel Schumacher’s Twelve Could Be Gossip Girl on Bonkers Pills or: In Defense of the Twelve Trailer April 7, 2010

It’s important to note that you shouldn’t do drugs, but if you’re adamant about making bad life choices like Emily Meade is in Twelve, it is wise to at least to put yourself in a room that will make tripping balls a bit more like “Cycles” as directed by a gay man:

It’s also important to note that the trailer for Joel Schumacher’s adaptation of the Nick McDonell’s novel Twelve contains the following in no particular order: sex, drugs, spoiled white kids, foul language, violence, “Kids” by MGMT, Kiefer Sutherland’s velvet sex voice, Manhattan’s Upper East Side, 50 Cent being ridiculously jacked and leaving little to the imagination, Chace Crawford with facial scruff, and Ellen Barkin.  Naturally, this begs two questions:

1. Is this extended trailer safe for your place of work?
2. Can you please explain to me how Twelve won’t end up being the best fake episode of Gossip Girl EVER?

Twelve trailer, y’all:

The Final Poster for A Single Man Confirms What We’ve Long Suspected November 23, 2009

Basically, that we all want to go to there.  ”There,” of course, being Tom Ford’s visually stunning drama set in the 1960s in which Colin Firth gives one of the year’s best performances as a professor morning the loss of his lover, who is played by Matthew Woode.

Ooh, or a land where everybody’s hair, makeup, and accessories always look as dazzling as Julianne Moore’s.  I could be just fine with that “there” as well.

All my love to Movieline for this beaut.

The Second Coming (of Mad Men on DVD) is Upon Us June 15, 2009

Oh man, July 14th ain’t just Bastille Day this year.  Didn’t you get the memo?  French-historical-holiday hotness is so every other year, y’all.  Perfectly nuanced, 60s-set television drama is this year’s hotness:

Is is just me, or this box art all sorts of delicious?  Wait, stupid question.  It’s most certainly not.

But seriously, if you haven’t been watching season 2 of Mad Men, then you’re in good company.  I haven’t either!  That doesn’t mean we can’t fix our bad life choices before season 3 premieres on August 16th.  

After all, Mad Men‘s probably the single best show airing on TV right now.  The 60s-inspired costumes and sets are nothing short orgasmic (if that’s your sort of thing, and it’s most definitely my thing).  The plot lines play out like fabulous Sirkian melodramas, but they’re allowed the emotional slow burn of telling their tales over the course of 13 episodes as opposed to a few short hours.  And the fact that creator Matthew Weiner had the brilliantly ballsy move to set each season two years apart makes the show infinitely more compelling as it tracks the ever changing social landscape of 1960s America.  

And of course, there’s also that glorious cast.  Like Christina Hendricks, who plays the second greatest Joan of all time:

How I worship her curves and couture and the steely-bitch facade she carries in the office.  If I worked for Sterling Cooper, you’d better believe she’d be my beard wife in a hot second.

And equally fierce are January Jones (as Betty Draper) and Elisabeth Moss (as Peggy Olsen):

You Only Need Mention That Liev Schreiber’s in Drag to Sell Taking Woodstock March 26, 2009

Everything else is just gravy.  The fact that Imelda Staunton and Eugene Levy are in the cast, or that it’s directed by Ang Lee (he’s always great), or that Demetri Martin plays gay?  So much gravy on top of the perfectly crafted mashed potatoes that is Liev Shcreiber doing drag:

It’s quite pleasurable to see Ang Lee loosen up his style so much in this one.  I had to watch the trailer a couple of times, but there’s something in the look that reminds me of Brokeback Mountain, but more joyous instead of repressed.  This somehow seems fitting, given that Elliot Tibor (Demetri Martin) himself was gay.

I’m really quite pleased to see that Demetri Martin’s character isn’t just another stereotypically fey caricature, and the Wikipedia article on Taking Woodstock makes the movie positively tantalizing.  Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays Demetri’s married, closeted lover?  That’s plenty good for me, but the fact that this movie could essentially be kicking off its story with the Stonewall Riots has put my anticipation factor to boiling.  I recognize that a trailer premiering after an episode Important Things with Demetri Martin won’t likely really drop any of that into the trailer (the show’s not called Homo Things with Demetri Martin, y’all).  I hope Focus Features puts out another trailer that gives a bit more of a hint at all the layers to this movie; the trailer just feels a bit too light-comedy for an Ang Lee film.  Still, though: boiling anticipation.  BOILING!

Cheers to Vulture posting the trailer and /Film for the more homocentric plot summary.