Jason Bateman never really got the credit he deserved for his work in the exceptionally funny Arrested Development (he was overshadowed by “zanier” co-stars like David Cross and Will Arnett), but the show never would have jelled without him. This video of Bateman (sorry, no embed) being interviewed by Rolling Stone‘s Peter Travers for the upcoming movie Hancock is worth a watch if you were a fan of his work in AD or the movie Juno. He’s an underrated master of dry humor and it really comes out during this chat.
Gorgeously-rendered esoteric comps like these are hard enough to track down for top dollar, so you’d damn well better go download them for free from the always excellent Egg City Radio:
[T]his three-disc Italian exploitation film soundtrack collection [Nate Thompson] made especially for his blog is too good to let fade away into the ether. Nate sez:
“Given the huge amount of great film music never commerically released in any format, I decided to cut together a series of suites of some outstanding titles that deserved some notice; here the spotlight turns on some of the great (well, in most cases) Italian composers whose work has often never gotten the credit it deserves. Taken from a variety of sources (video, M&E tracks, or whatever’s handy), these have been tweaked to sound as good as I can make ‘em; hopefully you’ll discover a few new gems in this three-part collection, entitled ‘Italian Blend’.
I guess I should be pushing for an Obama/Galifianakis ticket with all of the Zach stuff I’ve been pushing here, but wanted to pass on this info on to you. I just found out that Galifianakis has a new low-budget movie coming out this summer called Visioneers and it looks like it could be a winner. You can check out the trailer below or click here for a hi-res Quicktime version. They’re also running a contest at the Visioneers‘ official site for a trip for two to the Las Vegas premiere if you want to check that out.
Unfortunately, no NYC screenings have been scheduled as of this posting.
I haven’t seen the documentary King Korn yet, but I’ve heard and read good things. It starts airing today (Friday 10PM in NYC on 13) as part of PBS’s Independent Lens series. You can find out more about the film, watch a preview and check your local listings here. This King Korn contest is pretty cool, too.
Talks are ongoing. Talks, it should be noted, are informal, out-of-the-blue phone calls between the cast and Mitch [Hurwitz]. Like, a month ago, I had dinner with David [Cross] and Jason [Bateman] in L.A. and we were kinda talking about it. Then Jason and I each called Mitch the next day. I think it’s something that all of us would really like to do because it would be so fun to get back together and play those characters. But there are a lot of little details that have to be resolved, like who would make it, where, how, and why.
LATTE-SIPPING CROWD: I’ve got your latte right here. God, I hate these people.
WORLD OF POOH—LAND OF THIRST: One of the last great indie albums of the 80s featured Barbara Manning and will probably never, ever be released on CD. You need this. Trust me. Grab it before it’s gone.
IT’S 3AM: Good selection of parodies of Hillary’s loathsome 3AM red phone ad over at YesButNoButYes. And while you’re there ... jeebus, this is fucking disturbing.
Clinton congratulated Obama and said she looks forward to continuing to campaign with him in Pennsylvania and the other 16 states or territories that still need to hold contests. But she also used the stage to critique her opponent. “When the phone rings at 3 a.m. at the White House, there’s no time for speeches,” she said.
Charming. Months and months more of this shit. Does anyone know if John Hodgman picked up any extra forms? He lives in my neighborhood.
(Hat tip to Will from sublimeguile for the Hodgman link. While you’re there, check out the King of Kong chaos that’s broken out on his blog.)
Mick Jagger—“Memo from Turner” (from the film Performance)
BOBBY CHARLES: I got turned on to Bobby Charles while listening to Devendra Banhart guest DJing on WNYC’s “Spinning on Air.” It was a warm spring night, I had the radio on out in the garden, and Charles’ song “I Must Be in a Good Place Now” wrapped snuggly around my head like the most comforting cloth ever created. An absolutely gorgeous moment. Charles’ phenomenal debut album, recorded with most of the members of The Band and Dr. John, inexplicably swings in and out of print and The Heat Warps was kind enough to upload it recently for your listening pleasure. Believe me, you need this.
BOOT CAMP—THE END OF THE LINE: Robin completed her initial six-weeks of hell in boot camp and the whole series has been an entertaining, ahem, “reed.” Click and scroll around her blog (pretty much the closest thing I get to exercise these days) to see what she went through.
“Falling Slowly” from Once—My Oscar pick to (deservedly) win best original song
Sorry, no other selections today (unless you want to see how much Frank Rich hates Hillary’s va-jay-jay). Have some weekend work to get through and still recovering from that head cold that clobbered me yesterday morning. The Sunday Selector will return in its normal form next weekend.
Awhile ago I challenged my pal Pale Dave at Missing the Moon to an Oscar picks throw down, but I’ve been so busy at work I didn’t have time to throw together my predictions until now. The entries marked in red are my picks to win and the browns ones were on my short-list (read: don’t count them out). If nothing’s marked brown in a category it means I think the winner is a sure bet (there aren’t a lot of them this year). I’m battling a rather brutal head cold at the moment, but I’ll try to add some commentary in tomorrow if I have time.
If you want to make some predictions (or mock mine), feel free to do so in the comments below.
Performance by an actor in a leading role
George Clooney in “Michael Clayton”
Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood”
Johnny Depp in “Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”
Tommy Lee Jones in “In the Valley of Elah”
Viggo Mortensen in “Eastern Promises”
Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Casey Affleck in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”
Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men”
Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Charlie Wilson’s War”
Hal Holbrook in “Into the Wild”
Tom Wilkinson in “Michael Clayton”
Performance by an actress in a leading role
Cate Blanchett in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”
Julie Christie in “Away from Her”
Marion Cotillard in “La Vie en Rose”
Laura Linney in “The Savages”
Ellen Page in “Juno”
Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Cate Blanchett in “I’m Not There”
Ruby Dee in “American Gangster”
Saoirse Ronan in “Atonement”
Amy Ryan in “Gone Baby Gone”
Tilda Swinton in “Michael Clayton”
Best animated feature film of the year
“Persepolis”
“Ratatouille”
“Surf’s Up”
Achievement in art direction
“American Gangster”: Art Direction: Arthur Max; Set Decoration: Beth A. Rubino
“Atonement”: Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
“The Golden Compass”: Art Direction: Dennis Gassner; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
“Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”: Art Direction: Dante Ferretti; Set Decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo
“There Will Be Blood”: Art Direction: Jack Fisk; Set Decoration: Jim Erickson
Achievement in cinematography
“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”: Roger Deakins
“Atonement”: Seamus McGarvey
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”: Janusz Kaminski
“No Country for Old Men”: Roger Deakins
“There Will Be Blood”: Robert Elswit
Achievement in costume design
“Across the Universe” Albert Wolsky
“Atonement" Jacqueline Durran
“Elizabeth: The Golden Age” Alexandra Byrne
“La Vie en Rose” Marit Allen
“Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” Colleen Atwood
Achievement in directing
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”, Julian Schnabel
“Juno”, Jason Reitman
“Michael Clayton”, Tony Gilroy
“No Country for Old Men”, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
“There Will Be Blood”, Paul Thomas Anderson
Best documentary feature
“No End in Sight”
“Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience”
“Sicko”
“Taxi to the Dark Side”
“War/Dance”
Best documentary short subject
“Freeheld”
“La Corona (The Crown)”
“Salim Baba”
“Sari’s Mother”
Achievement in film editing
“The Bourne Ultimatum”: Christopher Rouse
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”: Juliette Welfling
“Into the Wild”: Jay Cassidy
“No Country for Old Men” Roderick Jaynes
“There Will Be Blood”: Dylan Tichenor
Best foreign language film of the year
“Beaufort" Israel
“The Counterfeiters” Austria
“Katyn” Poland
“Mongol” Kazakhstan
“12” Russia
Achievement in makeup
“La Vie en Rose” Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald
“Norbit": Rick Baker and Kazuhiro Tsuji
“Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”: Ve Neill and Martin Samuel
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
“Atonement": Dario Marianelli
“The Kite Runner”: Alberto Iglesias
“Michael Clayton”: James Newton Howard
“Ratatouille”: Michael Giacchino
“3:10 to Yuma”: Marco Beltrami
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
“Falling Slowly” from “Once” Music and Lyric by Glen Hansard and: Marketa Irglova
“Happy Working Song” from “Enchanted”: Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
“Raise It Up” from “August Rush”: Music and Lyric by Jamal Joseph, Charles Mack and Tevin Thomas
“So Close” from “Enchanted”: Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
“That’s How You Know” from “Enchanted”: Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
Best motion picture of the year
“Atonement”
“Juno”
“Michael Clayton”
“No Country for Old Men”
“There Will Be Blood”
Best animated short film
“I Met the Walrus”
“Madame Tutli-Putli”
“Même les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)”
“My Love (Moya Lyubov)”
“Peter & the Wolf”
Best live action short film
“At Night”
“Il Supplente (The Substitute)”
“Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)”
“Tanghi Argentini”
“The Tonto Woman”
Achievement in sound editing
“The Bourne Ultimatum”: Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg
“No Country for Old Men”: Skip Lievsay
“Ratatouille”: Randy Thom and Michael Silvers
“There Will Be Blood”: Christopher Scarabosio and Matthew Wood
“Transformers”: Ethan Van der Ryn and Mike Hopkins
Achievement in sound mixing
“The Bourne Ultimatum” Scott Millan, David Parker and Kirk Francis
“No Country for Old Men”: Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter Kurland
“Ratatouille”: Randy Thom, Michael Semanick and Doc Kane
“3:10 to Yuma”: Paul Massey, David Giammarco and Jim Stuebe
“Transformers": Kevin O’Connell, Greg P. Russell and Peter J. Devlin
Achievement in visual effects
“The Golden Compass”: Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood
“Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”: John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and John Frazier
“Transformers": Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl and John Frazier
Adapted screenplay
“Atonement", Screenplay by Christopher Hampton
“Away from Her”, Written by Sarah Polley
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”, Screenplay by Ronald Harwood
“No Country for Old Men”, Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
“There Will Be Blood”, Written for the screen by Paul Thomas Anderson
Original screenplay
“Juno", Written by Diablo Cody
“Lars and the Real Girl” (MGM), Written by Nancy Oliver
“Michael Clayton”, Written by Tony Gilroy
“Ratatouille”, Screenplay by Brad Bird; Story by Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad Bird
“The Savages”, Written by Tamara Jenkins
TO MY GREAT CHAGRIN: The eagerly-awaited (in my house, at least) world premiere of the documentary To My Great Chagrin: The Unbelievable Story of Brother Theodore comes to MOMA this Wednesday, February 13th (also playing on March 1st). He was a complex, brilliant and vastly underrated performance artist and you can view some of his pitch-perfect and hysterical ravings in a video compilation we posted here back in September.
FUERZABRUTA: Friday I took my lovely wife Chris to see Fuerzabruta, the new spectacle from the creators of De La Guarda, for her birthday at the Daryl Roth Theatre and was totally blown away by it. I enjoyed De La Guarda, but thought it was a little over-hyped and found myself wishing it would come to an end about 45-minutes into it. Fuerzabruta, on the other hand, I never wanted to end, noticing at several points during the performance that my face was smeared with a thoroughly ridiculous shit-eating grin that only a child can accommodate without feeling like a complete tool. As an added bonus, I was selected by one of the Fuerzabruta “dancers” to join her on a metal platform and dance in front of hundreds of people before having an oversized, exploding paper cinderblock dropped on our heads. According to Chris the crowd was cheering me on (I inserted several of my death-defying robot maneuvers into my routine) and afterwards the dancer came over and gave me a big thumbs up when she found me back in the crowd. If you’re a New Yorker, I highly recommend checking this show out. If the $72 price tag is too steep for you, they sell $25 rush tix at the box office two hours before each performance.
