Anne Hathaway Catwoman

.

--- Hey Look - Channing Tatum shaved his head. I have no idea what it's for, if it's for a role or whatever, but I want to rub my hands (or you know, my whatever) all over it, I know that much.

--- Three Peeks - DH has descriptions of a few trailers we'll be seeing soon - namely The Dark Knight Rises (which is already leaked online in a crappy pirated version, I watched it this morning but the copy I saw's already gone so search around maybe you can still find it), The Amazing Spider-Man (which'll be shown at ComiCon, and excuse me while I groan at the apparent extensive inclusion of origin story in it - is there anyone on Earth who needs to see him get bitten by the spider at this point?), and the first trailer for John Carter Sans Mars (I think that's what I'm calling it from now on), which is supposedly showing up "with select copies" of Harry Potter this weekend. I better be seeing a "select" fucking copy then.

--- Future Man - There aren't any shots of Colin Farrell or any of the other actors in the Total Recall remake in these pictures from the film's now-shooting set, but there are some amusing looks at the costumes the police extras have to wear. Very TRON meets storm-trooper.

--- Latest Final - BD has a rather extensive (that's code for "I only skimmed it") set report from the latest Final Destination movie, which I am officially so excited for I could barf. As I say every time this franchise comes up, I hope I'm seeing new films from this series every other year for the rest of my life.

--- Suicide Laughs - I must've heard about this project earlier but forgotten - Kristen Wiig is teaming up with the filmmakers behind American Splendor to make a dark comedy about a girl who pretends to try to kill herself to win a dude back, a scheme which backfires and gets her sent to live with her estranged mother. This sounds like exactly what she should be doing, so I am there. It's also kind of reminiscent of the darker edges of Bridesmaids - that character was forced by sad circumstances to move home and deal with her mother too. I sense a theme! Kristen Wiig hates her mother.

--- Hero Boobs - This is my sort of literature! io9 gathered up all the examples of Marvel movie superhero men taking off their clothes that they could think of in one hot spot destination post. Chris Evans as Johnny Storm and Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, they got them all oh wait they forgot a couple which I will now bitch about, that's right. Just off the top of my head they left off Thomas Jane as The Punisher, they left off Eric Bana in the first Hulk movie (although they do give love to Ed Norton in the last film), and they left off Daniel Cudmore as Colossus in X2.

.

.

July 1st marks the halfway point of the year, and so I figured I'd do what I usually do and take a quick look back at the five movies I've enjoyed the most so far this year. Looking at the movies that open between now and then that I'm most curious about all there seems to be is Super 8 and Green Lantern - it that really it for June? - and I don't foresee either of those topping any of these at this point. (Prove me wrong, JJ Abrams!) There are a few duking it out, I could want something else in five minutes, but let's just roll with this.

Certified Copy (dir. Abbas Kiarostami) - Since seeing it back in March there kind of hasn't been a day that's passed where I haven't wanted to watch Certified Copy again. What baffles me looking back is I never wrote a proper review! I wrote a post telling y'all to remind me to write a review, and obviously you all failed me. Your fault! Anyway now I have a reason to watch it ASAP so I can write up some properish thoughts. There are visuals from this movie that accost me all the time. A slipping bra-strap or a boy following his mother or a sad bride.

Hanna (dir. Joe Wright) - my review - Okay okay so I've said enough about Eric Bana's wet longjohns at this point in the year, probably. There are other things! Wonderful things. Joe Wright making an action movie sort of feels like what would happen if one of those giant-headed bug-eyed aliens beamed down into your living-room and you told it to go and make you a peanut butter sandwich. This is that alien's peanut-butter sandwich. Strange and stranger.

13 Assassins (dir. Takashi Miike) - my review - I'm so glad to have another movie from Takashi to love - he makes more than it's possible to keep up with from this side of the world and the few that have trickled over have seemed more like emblems of his lack of concentration than, you know, coherent films. Not so with 13 Assassins, which is an astonishingly old-fashioned slow-burn to madness for the maestro of mayhem.
.

Jane Eyre (dir. Cary Fukunaga) - my review - It's all there in that scene in front of the fireplace with Rochester and Jane sizing each other up - Mia and Fassy scouring each other's faces and dragging us along for the ride.

Insidious (dir. James Wan) - my review - Lawd knows I have plenty of issues with plenty of Insidious, but at the same time I had such a hoot jumping out of my seat that I'm willing to overlook a lot of silliness. It packs enough bang for your buck. Good old fashioned spook-sanctioned fun.

.

.

Hey remember how on a Saturday just four weeks ago I posted some really shitty quality caps of Eric Bana's scene in Hanna where he strips down to his white longjohns, goes for a swim, and then erupts from the sea sopping wet like a cotton-skinned Adonis? Well the gods be good because it didn't take us too long to get some much better caps. I dunno, do you think this scene might factor into our Gratuities at the end of the year? I never want to bet against there being a lot of gratuity to come, but I'd say this scene's a pretty safe bet at this point. Anyway, you're so not paying attention to my words right now. I could say anything here - I declare war on Argentina! I have thirteen and a half testicles! - and you'd take no notice. So let's just do our gawking. Gawk.

See a bunch more, including that already for-the-ages

step outta the surf, after the break!