DVDs This Week 28 April

Pick of the Week: Paranoid Park – Gus Van Sant’s dreamy existentialist piece concerning a skater and an accidental death. It’s slow, considered and utterly beguiling.

Also Out:
The Golden Compass – A shocking disappointment from promising source material.
Lust, Caution – Ang Lee’s exploration of sex and hate which I am yet to see.
We Own The Night – Another only-okay gangster-ish movie from James Gray which, again, stars Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix.
Waitress – Terrific final film from the late Adrienne Shelly featuring charming performances from Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion.
Sleuth – Jude Law… I hate him. You may love him. Go from there.
Out of the Blue – Yet to see this but apparently a thoughtful reflection on a tragic incident in New Zealand history. Will be checking it out.

Region 1:
27 Dresses – It doesn’t look like much but with James Marsden on board, I could rent it.

Link Gun

The creators of The Wire contribute an editorial piece to Time about the drug war in America.

Steve Wiebe has again missed out on beating Billy Mitchell to be the King of Kong.

The AV Club has a primer for newcomers to the work of Alan Moore. My tip: don’t read Watchmen first. Everything else pales.

Pitchfork has a new MP3 from The Breeders.

I never do links on Liev Schreiber, even though he is a chameleon. Here he is training for Wolverine.

Slate reviews 10,000 B.C.

The above also provides nine ways to truly achieve fakery in literature.

Sebastian Tellier is to represent France at Eurovision.

I also never blog about Andrew WK. So here you go.

Paranoid Park has finally reached the US and the NY Times gives its opinion here.

Rambo vs. Odeon.

Larry David discusses the Hillary scare-ad on The Huffington Post.

Krasinski, Mendes, Eggers. Yes.

You Only Link Twice

Ewww. Sorry folks, but due to pestering from occasional contributer Tom, I’m doing Bond films this week. This will end.

Pitchfork loves the new album from Mountain Goats. A good starting point, if you like what you’ve heard, would be The Sunset Tree.

The AV Club lists twenty-two remakes which veer drastically from the path of the originals.

PopMatters has some notes on New York graffiti and Grant Wood’s American Gothic works.

Lindsey Lohan has recreated Marilyn Munroe’s last photoshoot for NY Magazine.

More details have emerged on the new Death Cab record.

E has invited the Queen to come and see Eels.

Could John McCain reinvent the concept of the Republican?

Sir Mix-a-lot would love the Ivory Coast.

What impact will the writer’s strike have on US drama?

America’s Next Top Model, officially the greatest reality show of all time, is coming back!

Chloe Sevigny discusses her new clothing line.

It is possible that James Franco may be doing some nude work for Gus Van Sant. Unsurprising given Van Sant’s delectation for a chiseled bod but Franco’s the man. Start rejoicing now ladies.

Natalie Portman’s directorial debut is going to be in Hebrew.

Senior Bush is getting behind McCain’s bid.

Finally, further James Franco-relatedly, is the trailer for Pineapple Express below which is somewhat not suitable for loud watching in the workplace.

 

The Second Weekly Dig

 

As I’m trying to get into the San Francisco wake/sleep cycle I figured I would do a weekly Dig too! Hurrah!

Music: Um… what have I been listening to? I’ve been loving the Juno soundtrack, with its jangly melodies and Kimya Dawson-centric tunes. Especially the beautiful duet between Michael Cera and Ellen Page on their cover of The Moldy Peaches’ Anyone Else But You… Dreamy. On a side note, All The Young Dudes by Mott The Hoople is now my number one ringtone! I’m also adoring anything I can find by Yelle and Office.

Film & TV: I’ve watched Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park which I thought was beautifully shot and acted, with a great cameo by Gossip Girl’s Jenny (Taylor Momsen). Lost is back on US screens, and what an opener it was – setting things up nicely for the next 8 episodes… thank god they went over what happened because I was a little lost (hoho). The inclusion of a character I didn’t think I’d see again made me incredibly happy. I’ve also been watching The O.C season 4 (aka the one where it all went insane) and have really been enjoying the bizarreness of it all. I’d like to see Willa Holland (Caitlin) cast in Gossip Girl – I think she’d fit in nicely. It also made me miss Rachel Bilson & Adam Brody, can’t wait to see Jumper for a little Bilson, but Brody – where are you going to pop up next?? And as a house we’ve been taking in Series 2 of The West Wing. Classic.

Reading: Mostly magazines to be honest. Vogue Paris, Elle UK & US, the UK version of which has employed Chloe Sevigny as their style advisor in a fab move, also am loving their new cleaner subscriber covers. I’m looking forward to doing a bit more reading on my trip…

Anything else? Pop-culture is now my job as well as my hobby so I’m loving every darn bit of all that. Planning my trip has been fun, although a lot of it has been taken care of for me, and now I can’t wait to meet up with the girls at the airport tomorrow and get on the plane to the US! I have a new haircut, so I’m a big fan of Toni & Guy, and the lovely manicurist Aggie who works in my local salon too. Chocolate buttons and clementine slices are delish, as is mango… yum. I’ve seen my lovely parents in the last week and had a lovely walk round town with them as well as a yummy Chinese meal in our local. So everything’s pretty good at the moment.

Jo-Link

The AV Club holds it’s third annual film poll.

We love Ellen Page here and indeed, it seems The Guardian has also fallen pray to her cheeky charms.

I also love rotund Spanish genius Guillermo Del Toro and he has been linked to yet more projects.

Now I know you’re all sat there wondering, ‘what will Slate writers be reading this winter?’ Well folks, by clicking on the highlighted portion of this very sentence, you can instantly find out.

PopMatters also picks out some books, this time the finest they experienced throughout the previous twelve month period we oh so love to know as a year.

Microsoft has bid $44.6bn for Yahoo. Which seems like quite a lot doesn’t it? Isn’t Yahoo rubbish now? Hmm…

Entertainment Weekly selects a few choice action movie one liners. To be honest, it’s a little rubbish because not once is Arnie noted for his Commando, Running Man or Batman and Robin work. Poor show EW, poor show.

To background this, Jimmy Kimmel had a running joke on his show about inviting on Matt Damon and then running out of time. Probably the funniest gags ever done involving that fat lump of idiocy. Until now, although this doesn’t really involve him. This one is all about Sarah Silverman, Matt Damon and coming clean. Enjoy.

Here’s a very good list of the twenty meanest love songs. Despite this, REM’s ‘One I Love’ used to be among the most played songs at weddings despite being an exploration of love as a throwaway commodity. People are great.

M Ward discusses his working with doe-eyed indie siren Zooey Deschanel on a very anticipated album for E&L.

Newsweek is calling for finality to come to the Oscars. I agree, it’s time to put that golden fool down once and for all.

Cracked.com theorises on what might get nominated for the Oscars next year if the strike fails to be resolved. A couple of them sound great.

Lupe, Lil Wayne, MadLib; all good practitioners in the hip hop game. Better though, Bill Cosby.

The Washington Post adds its name to the list of publications which loved 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

Barack versus Hillary played out calmly with no blows truly landed. The International Herald Tribune discusses.

Here’s a clip of Les Savy Fav playing ‘Patty Lee’ on Conan. They rule.

Josh Hartnett in a martial arts movie, you say? Tell me more.

Milk, Gus Van Sant’s new movie about Harvey Milk, is looking very cool and CHUD has some pics of Emile Hirsch sporting a wig for his role.

Marc Jacobs, Betty’s fashion Jesus, played out an homage to himself in NY last night.

Deerhunter and the Black Lips have had their respective frontmen unite to deliver collaborative tuneage.

Budlinker

So it’s beers this week. Imagine the possibilities…

So kicking off the new week is this list of film stars impervious to box-office pain.

Pitchfork isn’t too impressed with what’s on Cat Power’s Jukebox. We still think she a gosh-darn genius though. The staff there also pick out some records not made last year but discovered in the vaults.

PopMatters is still listing-it-up and here’s another of further albums they liked last year.

Tim Harford on Slate discusses the common ground of Facebook and Ikea.

Anthony Lane discusses Cloverfield and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days in The New Yorker.

Oliver Stone wants to make a movie about George W. Bush. Shocker, right?

Gus Van Sant talks to Paper Magazine.

Ryan Gosling meets Tom Clancy? Oh yeeeah!

The Guardian provides a playlist to lift the spirits on this Blue Monday.

Terrorists beware! Kiefer’s out of the slammer.

PopSugar is taking in Sundance.

New Feature: Diggin

Yes indeed, it’s come time for a few regular feature ideas to be trialled on the service. There will be more coming, mostly conventional stuff (reviews, opinion columns etc.)

So Diggin, which is very much a working title for this, is to be a really short interview piece on which we will talk to fellow bloggers, friends and anyone else who’d like to be involved. It will ask really one simple question and take it across three categories.

The question is:

What are you diggin right now? So this works across the lot. Just really a case of listing and elaborating on the choices made. You can pick any music you like at all, no restrictions on EPs, live stuff, unreleased stuff etc. Same with movies and TV from which you can glean choices from both categories. Same with books and comics. You are at no obligation to answer both however.

That’s about it. To kick it off for you though, we’ll make a quick example feature. In fact, I will ask the question to myself which will do nothing for my sanity. This though will occur on about a fortnightly basis to give you guys little updates as to what me and Beth are loving at this time. For my first, take the jump.