Happy New Year ... and that's a wrap

Bud sinks down happily on the couch, and Fran holds out the
deck to him.

                         FRAN
            Cut.

Bud cuts a card, but doesn't look at it.

                         BUD
            I love you, Miss Kubelik.

                         FRAN
                   (cutting a card)
            Seven --
                   (looking at Bud's card)
            -- queen.

She hands the deck to Bud.

                         BUD
            Did you hear what I said, Miss
            Kubelik? I absolutely adore you.

                         FRAN
                   (smiling)
            Shut up and deal!

Bud begins to deal, never taking his eyes off her. Fran
removes her coat, starts picking up her cards and arranging
them. Bud, a look of pure joy on his face, deals -- and
deals -- and keeps dealing.

And that's about it. Story-wise.

                                            FADE OUT.

For your consideration — "Not written by the Earl of Oxford" edition

Critic David Bordwell on Dante's cheerful purgatorio — Occasioned by a New York retrospective of director Joe Dante's films, including a marathon screening of his pop-culty mashup The Movie Orgy, Bordwell elegantly reflects on Dante's body of work. "Dante, impresario of the comic grotesque, finds his inspiration in popular culture, the more wacko and inept the better. The comedy may come from childhood silliness, the grotesque from childhood fears. They say we baby boomers will always be just big kids, and Dante accepts this with a grin and a darkly cheerful eye."

laurel-and-hardy.com: Film Preservation - Another fine mess — A thorough four-part look at a difficult but necessary curatorial artistry. "How could movies like these, so widely seen for so long, be at risk of disappearing forever in first-class quality copies? Because they were too popular. Too many prints and negatives wore out, is the simple answer."

As a somewhat more than armchair Shakespeare buff with teeth-gnashingly strong opinions about the moronic, counterfactual "authorship controversy" recently given the thud of a movie it deserves in Roland Emmerich's Anonymous, I have considered blogging about it at Open the Pod Bay Doors, HAL. But I fear such a post would devolve into a spittle-flecked Hulk-smash rant (on the Internet?! No way!) on the "Oxfordians'" logical fallacies and their absurd Creation Science/Birther/Moon Hoax-style pseudo-intellectualism. So instead I heartily recommend more clear-headed authorities such as Holger Syme (start here), Paul Edmonson, Ron Rosenbaum, and Bardfilm's KJ.

indiewire: Director & Actress Rie Rasmussen Says Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained' Will "Revolutionize" Hollywood

Slate: William Monahan picks his Top 5 British Crime and Suspense Films from the ’60s and ’70s. David Haglund on When Pauline Kael Was Wrong.

Filmicability: Here's a charming and expansive retrospective on Charles Schulz at the movies.

Having seen and been equivocatingly enthralled by Von Trier's bleak yet beautiful newest, Melancholia, I've been curious to read a review of the film from someone with first-hand experience with depression. Dean Treadway at Filmicability rewards my quest here.

Ferdy on Films: Marilyn Ferdinand, one of the more thoughtful and interesting movie bloggers going, also helps me see Melancholia more clearly.

indiewire: Lars Von Trier Confronts Depression Head On In The Grim 'Melancholia'

io9: Planetary Collisions and Other Disasters: Lars von Trier’s Crackpocalyptic Melancholia —  "But Melancholia doesn't give us disaster porn — instead, it gives us disaster erotica."

NYT: A.O. Scott on Melancholia. Pat Ryan on The Prince, The Showgirl, And the Stray Strap, a bit of historical context ahead of My Week With Marilyn, which is high on my See It list.

The Guardian writers' My Favourite Film series, plus readers' comments.

Thirteen movie poster trends that are here to stay and what they say about their movies

Mythical Monkey — Buster Keaton, Samuel Beckett And Film. Waiting for Godot with a flat hat on. Also Happy Birthday, Louise Brooks. (Also see my own Alternate universe movies: "The Public Enemy" with Louise Brooks instead of Jean Harlow.)

io9: First Early Reviews of Looper, the Time Travel Movie That Could Be One of 2012’s Best Films and Why is Buckaroo Banzai such an enduring classic? (Because wherever it goes, there we are.)

Variety and, within hours, all over the geekiverse: "Harry Potter" director David Yates is teaming up with the BBC to turn its iconic sci-fi TV series "Doctor Who" into a bigscreen franchise. As a fan of Doctor Who, old and new, from way back, I remain dubious until I hear more directly from the Beeb. Still, io9's Charlie Jane Anders, whose opinions I've learned to respect on such things, is optimistic.

The Mary Sue: Toy Short Story Shows Us The Island of Abandoned Happy Meal Toys

The Girl With the White Parasol: Citizen Kane Takes the Stand - "The reason I watch films is so that I can find those moments of beauty, whether they come from a Technicolor image or from the throb in an actor's voice or from a string chorus. That's why I named my blog, 'The Girl with the White Parasol.' That's why I love film. And that's why I love Citizen Kane."

Music: Oscar Peterson
Near at hand: Yellow Submarine figures

Pic pick: Another fine mess (time traveling edition)

The Doctor makes a stop in 1939 long enough to appear alongside Laurel & Hardy in The Flying Deuces. Where else would he get his new fez?

From the first episode of Doctor Who's new season, "The Impossible Astronaut."

For your consideration — the "Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'" edition

I've been traveling lately, while also tending to other writing, so for that and other excuses reasons I'm behind on the "mostly movies" blogging. But I have a (smallish) feature post nearly completed and I'll hit the Publish button on that before I head out the door here again soon. In the meantime, here are some "mostly movies" items that caught my attention lately.

Killing Orson Welles at Midnight — Christian Marclay's The Clock reviewed by Zadie Smith. This sounds fascinating. Can a movie that's 24 hours long make it to home video somehow? On Blu-ray maybe? I suspect the clip-rights issues alone would be a formidable hurdle, though I sure would love to have my own copy to watch in pieces at my own leisure.

10 Sci-Fi Films You Should See (But Probably Haven't) — One of those articles that accidentally finds its higher purpose in generating a more-interesting discussion in the comments section.

It's now a Jack in the Box drive-thru. But in 1914 Chaplin filmed the opening scene of his first movie there. This sort of thing could actually make me visit a Jack in the Box drive-thru.

"Your order, please?"
"Oh, nothing, I just wanted to imagine being on this spot with Charlie Chaplin in 1914."
"Would you like fries with that?"

Elisabeth Sladen — Doctor Who's "Sarah Jane Smith" since the 1970s — died this week. She looms large in my youthful memories, and apparently I'm far from the only one. I'm heartened that her passing has received such loving reactions as here, here, here, here, and here.

Oh, while I'm on the subject of things that make me go "Oh hell yeah!"

This year, Easter's not about the bunny

According to io9, Doctor Who's series six will launch in Britain over Easter weekend (April 23), and BBC America just announced their own premiere date — which, as you can see from the new poster above, is also April 23.

Now if I can only stay away from the Doctor Who Spoilers site. Naaah....

Intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism

There are times when my inner geek just needs to spill over the brim here.

When Peter Cushing played the chap in the TARDIS...

... and the Daleks were badass in Technicolor.

Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks — Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (1966) were big-screen adaptations of the first two Doctor Who TV serials featuring the Daleks. They capitalized on the "Dalekmania" then sweeping across the U.K. (or at least the under-12 portion thereof), and came aimed squarely at children. They're unsophisticated and silly (like so often the TV series, then and occasionally now) and for true Whovians they're by no means canonical. Yet they have a Saturday afternoon tea-time-for-tykes charm.

For those of us who over the years have followed both the Doctor's adventures and Peter Cushing's iconic appearances in Hammer horror films and their ilk (not to mention his turn "holding Vader's leash" in the original Star Wars), it's a multiple nostalgia whammy to see him as the TARDIS's owner and operator.

In Cushing's second theatrical outing as "Dr. Who" (the Time Lords hadn't been invented yet and, unlike his TV counterpart, "Dr. Who" is treated as his actual name), receiving second billing is Bernard Cribbins. If you're a fan of the post-2005 return of the BBC TV series, you know Cribbins well as lovable old Wilfred Mott from the David Tennant years. In the movie he plays a London policeman who (understandably, considering) mistakes the disguised time-space machine for an actual police box, getting more than just a handy telephone in the bargain.

This fan-edited trailer makes the movie look better than it actually is:




Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks — Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. are each YouTube'd in their entirety (with commercials but in remarkable video quality) here and here.

Music: Ralph Vaughan Williams, Concerto in A Minor for Oboe and Strings
Near at hand: Elizabeth's latest draft of "The Angel of Seattle" for my critiquing/editing enjoyment.