Thoughts

         Hello folks. It's 12/12/12 today which really does not have any significance but everyone seems to be going crazy about it. There are pregnant women who have scheduled their deliveries for today. Like how messed up is this world? Anyways, I know I have been too lazy to write this post for the past two weeks but I will make amends now. My thoughts, twelve in all because well duh-

1) Guess who crossed the 400 films mark for this year? Yippee!

2) Everyone, please join Stevee's totally brilliant blogathon. There are very few hours left, but you can do it! This is my entry.

3) Th e awards season is fully underway now, and very soon we will be getting the nominations for Golden Globes and Screen Actor's Guild. So far, many critics' groups have given their prizes. Ryan has compiled most of them and Squasher has all the Critics Choice Awards nominees. Zero Dark Thirty and Katherine Bigelow are clearly emerging as the frontrunners for Best Film and Best Director. Best Actor seems to be Daniel Day Lewis's thing, although Bradley Cooper is definitely getting a lot of momentum. I guess Best Actress will be between Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Lawrence and maybe even Emmanuelle Riva. Best Supporting Actor seems like an odd field this year as the prophesied winner, Leo Di Caprio for Django Unchained, is not getting that much attention and one of his biggest competitors is co-star Samuel L. Jackson (poor Leo). One sure winner though is going to be Anne Hathaway for Les Miserables in the Best Supporting Actress category. What I am really getting excited about is the inclusion of films like Beasts of the Southern Wild and The Perks of Being a Wallflower in these awards as they aren't very, for lack of a better term, "Oscar bait-y". Also Skyfall and nominations for Javier Bardem and Judy Dench in Critics Choice is kind of awesome.

4) Ugh Dane DeHaan will play Harry Osborn in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Another reason why I will have to see this monstrosity.

5) The Oscars music department has released all the eligible candidates for Best Original Score and Best Original Song. While what gets nominated is yet to be seen, but my favourite score of the year, i.e.,  Moonrise Kingdom by Alexandre Desplat is ineligible, so that sucks. Best Original Song looks quite good though, but yet again one of the best moments of 2012's films was "Who Were We" in Holy Motors and that is not eligible.

6) Cate Blanchett will play the Evil Stepmother in Mark Romanek's live action take on Cinderella. I love this. In spite of the recent fairy tale movie busts, Blanchett is a gorgeous villain (I even loved her in Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) and Romanek's Never Let Me Go is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. Also one of the front-runners to play Cinderella is her Hanna co-star Saoirse Ronan, so I really hope this happens.

7) I have seen Oldboy from the Vengeance trilogy, which I loved. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is another film in the trilogy, and its Hollywood remake is being made with the amazing Charlize Theron as the lead. I am becoming quite the Theron fan now and I am super excited for this.

8) George Clooney's next film is going to be plenty awesome, as far as the cast is concerned. The Monuments Men will now have Clooney's buddy Matt Damon joining Cate Blanchett, Daniel Craig, Jean Dujardin, Bill Murray and John Goodman. The premise is very cool. It will be a WW2 drama based on a true story about a group of British and American art experts who have to track down some of the most valuable art works stolen by the Nazis.

9) Stoker has another sexily creepy poster out. I am getting really impatient to watch this film now. Also the first picture of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is out. It's so sparkly. To be honest, this will be the Hobbit movie I want to watch the most because it is using the best asset of Benedict Cumberbatch- his god-like voice *swoon*.

10) Oh btw, how do you like the Christmas banner? Wasn't Winona the prettiest?

11) Trailers- Oblivion starring Tom Cruise. It looks very bland to me. I so do not give a shit. I would say the same about The Lone Ranger except my loyalty to Johnny Depp forbids me to. But seriously dude, wtf? Kind of like Armie Hammer, however. A Bollywood trailer, Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola, is something I really want to watch because 1) Anushka Sharma, 2) Vishal Bharadwaj, 3) Imran Khan and 4) Pankaj Kapoor. Deadfall, which has Eric Bana, Olivia Wilde, Sissy Spacek and Kate Mara. I am a bit intrigued by it, to be honest. Especially because of the cast. After Earth is the new film from M. Night Shymalan starring Will Smith and Jaden Smith. I am not sure about it because it could be really interesting or really stupid. Remember when Jaden Smith was an adorable little kid? Why must they grow up? Man of Steel's first trailer is finally out, and well, I am not as buzzed about it as everyone else. I mean I will definitely watch it, but as Joker would say, "Why so serious?" I get it that this is following The Dark Knight trilogy's footsteps, but the grim tone actually suited someone like Batman. And this trailer is even less fun than the trilogy's trailers. Also I need more Amy Adams and Michael Shannon to get truly excited. A slightly happier second trailer, please? In TV land, Girls is back and it looks really really funny. So excited! Also Masters of Sex with Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan looks like fun. Finally, we have the trailer/teaser of the week- Star Trek Into Darkness. In spite of that ridiculous name, it is one of my most highly anticipated film of 2013 and Cumberbatch's eeie-tastic voice in the teaser has pumped me up even more. Bring it on!

12) Finally, ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce the latest addition to my fake husbands list-

From now on, kindly refer to me as Mrs. Logan Lerman. Thank you.

Okay tata!

Thoughts

Hello! College 2.0 has started. I have never been this tired in my life. But I like this college. There is film studies among my subjects, which feels like the class I have been waiting for all my life. Anyways, my thoughts for this week-

1) Super duper awesome casting news- Johnny Depp has been cast in Wes Anderson's next film The Grand Budapest Hotel. I have been praying for Depp to do something smaller that will truly show off his immense acting talents. This is exactly it. Anderson's brand of quirky is totally different to the Depp's natural eccentricity and I believe that both of them together can create movie magic. Among the other potential cast members are Anderson regulars like Owen Wilson and Bill Murray. There is also talk about Jude Law, Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Angela Lansbury and Jeff Goldblum joining in. I have to say here that if there is a film with Depp, Norton and Brody, I WILL DIE OUT OF HAPPINESS!! PLEASE LET THIS HAPPEN, PLEASE!!

2) The other casting news that has me buzzed is Daniel Radcliffe starring in two very different movies after Kill Your Darlings, the Beat era film he is currently filming. The first is the adaptation of Joe Hill's (Stephen King's son) novel Horns, which is about a 26 year-old man who, after being wrongfully accused of raping and murdering his girlfriend, finds horns growing out of his head which grant him the power to make people confess their sins, and this comes in handy in his quest to find the real culprit. It sounds pretty batshit crazy and added to that, will be directed by Piranha 3D's Alexander Aja. Still it will be interesting to see Radcliffe do something so far-out. The other film, one which I am more excited about, is a romcom (yess!) alongside Zoe Kazan, named F Word. It is about two people, Wallace and Chantry, who hit it off at a party, but then are forced to stay friends because Chantry has a long-term boyfriend. Radcliffe is incredibly funny in all his interviews, and was quite good in Extras and SNL, so I have high hopes for him.

3) Links- It was the ultimate badass and king of awesome, Harrison Ford's birthday this week and check out M. Hufstader's brilliant post on him where she makes him the BAMF of the Week. Speaking of awesome, this is The Dark Knight Rises week (Accio Sunday!) and pretty much everyone is writing about it, or its director Chistopher Nolan. While I am steering clear of any reviews of any kind, I love posts about the latter. Alex is doing The Week of Nolan, which is brilliant and do check out all the posts. Last but definitely not the least, is the biggest Nolan fangirl herself, Stevee, with a Christopher Nolan Retrospective/ Appreciation Post.

4) There are literally no trailers this week, but instead, I bring you something infinitely better and more brilliant- ladies and gentlemen, Robert Downey Jr.-

5) After so much brilliance, a little albeit very imperative rant- Pixar is going to make a sequel to Finding Nemo. Andrew Stanton will helm the project, which is now being developed. This is awful. As I have said time and again, I am a total Pixar worshiper. The people working there are geniuses who make the most incredible animated movies, and one of their best qualities is their originality. Now they too have fallen under the franchise spell. It is so terribly sad. I mean they have seen what happened with Cars 2, and while the Monsters Inc. prequel looks acceptable, they should just stop there. Pixar movies make a lot of money, and it is a good thing because their films are excellent and deserved to be watched by everyone, but this is just greedy. This article at The Film Experience speaks a lot about this and I agree with most of it, especially about the possibility of a Toy Story 4 (blasphemy!!).

6) Also Emmy nominations were announced today and here is the full list of nominations. I am still not a TV person, though I do watch a shitload of shows now. My favourite nominations are that of Sherlock of course- Best Miniseries, Best Actor in a Miniseries for Benedict Cumberbatch and Best Supporting Actor in a Miniseries for Martin Freeman. Sherlock is probably my favourite thing on TV currently, tied with Doctor Who and Parks and Recreation. Amy Poehler bagged a Best Actress in a Comedy Series nomination for that, so yaay! Others were snubbed :( Other nominees I am happy about are Peter Dinklage for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his splendid performance in Game of Thrones, Lena Dunham and Zooey Deschanel for Best Actress Comedy for Girls and New Girl respectively, Jim Parsons for Best Actor Comedy in The Big Bang Theory, Girls for Best Comedy Series and Max Greenfield, who plays the adorable douche Schmidt, for New Girl.

7) Finally, this happened-

I said goddamn! Goddamn!

It's getting hot in here people *fans herself*. Bye.

Thoughts

Hellooo all my lovely blogger pals! How have you been? If anyone is interested, my "turning 20 denial" phase has reached new heights of paranoia and fear. Anyhoo, these are my thoughts for this week-


1) Most annoying casting revelation of the week- Freida Pinto is in one of the many new Terrence Malick films, Knight of Cups. UGH I HATE HER! I have never understood the world's obsession with her after Slumdog Millionaire. She was in that film for five minutes. And now she's in a friggin' Malick film, along withn Christian Fuckin' Bale and Natalie Portman and Cate Blanchett! She's not even a good actress. Ugh ugh ugh.


2) Speaking of Slumdog Millionaire, Dev Patel is one of the stars of HBO's The Newsroom. I really like it, but that's mostly because I love the Aaron Sorkin dialogue. Yes, I know it can be contrived and too idealistic and all that, but it's fun. I lurve Allison Pill and Emily Mortimer in it. I am hooked! Also I finished all of HBO's Girls yesterday. I love Lena Dunham. I am adding her to my list of fake-bffs. I really enjoyed the show, apart from the first episode. But then it sort of didn't go very well with my current phase. Still, can't wait for the second season!


3) Okay I was thinking this after watching the first episode of The Newsroom, which was directed by Greg Mottola, who isn't the first name I associate with an Aaron Sorkin script, but then neither was David Fincher- Has there ever been a show in which different prominent filmmakers direct one episode each, bringing in all their characteristic styles to it? Like the same story but each episode is like the tag-story games we played as children where each director does his/her own thing in his/her episode. No, right? I wish they would. It would be brilliant, although I don't think normal, non-cinephile people will be too jazzed about it.


4) Lesya at Eternity of Dream has brought together for us- Paris in Genres. Do go read it!


5) So people are starting to put up their Oscar Prediction Charts already. I have watched like ten movies of this year, so that is a long way off for now. But I was looking at the Best Costumes category for many of them, and everyone keeps putting Colleen Atwood for Snow White and the Huntsman, and though that is nice, I must reiterate my love for the late Eiko Ishioka's costumes in Mirror Mirror. Honestly, they are exactly like what I would imagine Capitol citizens wearing.


6) A couple of weeks back, I rewatched Before Sunrise. I did write this random post on it, overcome with my love for the mysterious poet. Anyways, the third part to this movie is being written, which will be set nine years after the events shown in the flawless and excellent Before Sunset. That is a gap of about eighteen years since Jesse's and Celine's first meeting. Now at the beginning of Before Sunrise, when Jesse asks Celine to get off the train at Vienna with him, he tells her to imagine herself in about ten-twenty years and how she will be married with kids and all, and she will be a bit dissatisfied with her life about then and try to think back at all the guys she could have been with and by taking this little trip with him, she will be assured that all the guys, including him, would have turned out boring, and so she will be happy in her life. This third film will be set around this time. Like when this part came, I nearly died out of excitement- can you imagine if they had planned this all along? Or if probably not, this has the potential of being one of the greatest throwaways in cinematic history!! I mean I can't imagine the third part outdoing Before Sunset, but if it as good as Before Sunrise at least, this will very well be one of the best trilogies ever. Not about gangsters or superheroes or Jedi knights or hobbits or talking toys (not that those aren't great), but just about a man and a woman and their bond. I am getting goosebumps just thinking about it! Come fast, o third part (I cannot, for the life of me, fathom what it can be called! Sunrise, sunset, and then??).


7) Trailers- David O. Russel's Silver Linings Playbook which has Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. It looks interesting, and I love Lawrence and am excited to see her do something outside of survivor-land. The new Jesse Eisenberg-Melissa Leo-Tracy Morgan movie Why Stop Now has a very random trailer out. I have no idea what is going on, but I like the people involved, and so I will watch it. Then there is Jack Reacher, which stars the now 50 and Holmes-less (one gibe is allowed, alright!) Tom Cruise. I like it when he does an action film, and yeah... Frankenweenie looks great actually. I hate that they say "the director of Alice in Wonderland" because Tim Burton has made so many better films, but still- actually excited for this one. Looper has a second trailer out too. Man, Joseph Gordon-Levitt looks too weird. Other than that, this looks like an good flick with a very cool concept. Lastly, Django Unchained's TV spot which has Samuel L. Jackson, and Leo Di Caprio screaming in a super-scary super-awesome way *applause*.


8) Finally, I have been obsessing over this the entire week. I present to you, James McAvoy's blueeeee gems-

What are his eyes? 

Good baa.