Anne Hathaway Catwoman

When we got word of the Toronto International Film Festival's slate yesterday, I listed off several films I'd kill to see there (even though I probably won't be going). There were a bunch! Looks like an excellent year. Well five minutes later the fine people at TIFF released pictures for most of their films, and a lot of these were our very first looks at these films. Like the ones that I already posted from director Steve McQueen's reunion with Michael Fassbender, Shame, for instance. Well there are other instances of this sort, having to do with movies I'm crazy excited over, and I feel it my duty to post them lest they go unposted, which apparently is the sort of thing that could cause my fragile psyche to swirl the drain. We wouldn't want that, would we? Well let's get on with it then.

First up are 5 new pictures from Todd Solondz's Dark Horse. 

It stars, as you can see there, Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow (!!!) and Selma Blair and Jordan Gelber. We don't know a whole lot about DH yet; TIFF describes it as "Todd Solondz creates an intimate dark comedy about a manchild whose desire for a romantic relationship runs smack into reality, " while IMDb says "Romance blooms between two thirty-somethings in arrested development: an avid toy collector and a woman who is the dark horse of her family." I'm guessing Gelber and Blair are the ones falling in love. 

Here's a new shot from Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I Live In:

If anybody can make Antonio Banderas sexy again, it's Almodovar.

Here's a shot of Michael Shannon in Take Shelter:

I could've sworn I wrote about this movie once before but I can't find the post so maybe I dreamed it.  It's from the director of Shotgun Stories, which Shannon was fantastic in. It co-stars Jessica Chastain.

This shot of Tilda and John C. Reilly in We Need To Talk About Kevin is sticking a finger in the wound that is the fact that I'm not seeing this movie right now and must wait:

I didn't take note of Burning Man when looking through the list of TIFF movies the first time but it apparently stars Matthew Goode who obviously grabs one's interest right quick, face-wise. He plays some sort of hopelessly sexy chef beset by distracting womenfolk! Yeah I probably won't see this unless Goode takes his clothes off then.

And finally here are two shots from Sarah Polley's next film Take This Waltz, which stars Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen. Give it to me!

That's someone named Luke Kirby in the second shot with Michelle, and he is adorable. Here he is in his underpants in some other movie. Ending things on a bright but random  note!

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It's been a slow news day so far today. But hark! Here is the list of films showing at the Toronto International Film Festival this year! I seriously doubt I'll be going since I've never gone before and I can't see that changing now - although Toronto is a lovely city so if they want to invite me they can do that! - but since it's a slow news day let's name five movies playing at the festival that make me wanna slap some marching boots on and storm the north come September.

We Need To Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsey) - Everybody's read the book by Lionel Shriver by now, right? I hope so. Go read the book if you haven't! Because this book is amazing. AMAZING. And this movie has Tilda Swinton starring in it. AMAZING TIMES TWELVE.

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--- Queen T - When the aliens come and ask us to take them to our leader, we've obviously got to make a beeline straight for Tilda Swinton's house.

--- Soul Swallow - There is apparently actual forward momentum of the long-gestating Evil Dead remake. Via Slash we hear that Uruguayan director Federico Alvarez has been hired and there are production people heading to Detroit to work on it. Alvarez apparently got a lot of attention for a short film called Panick Attack! that he released online a couple of years ago, and you can watch it at the link. I haven't seen it. I just pity the poor fool that tries to fill Bruce Campbell's shoes.

--- Batception - DH collected up the three big posters of the day - ones for The Dark Knight Rises, The Thing remake (which has been sitting around gathering dust forever now), and Martin Scorsese's Hugo (sans Chabret).

--- Weinstein Buttholes - Dimension Films is still owned by those Weinstein buttholes, isn't it? Ugh. They've snatched up the rights to Livid, the new film from the French director behind the awesomely disturbing fetus-snatcher movie Inside (reuniting him with Inside star Beatrice Dalle), which BD rightly deciphers to mean they'll mess the release all up, because they always do with horror movies.

--- Parrish The Panties - I don't watch Weeds, but I do watch videos of Hunter Parrish standing around in his underpants, even if he is trapped in a hamster ball.

--- 8 Times Ice - I am up to page 60 in A Dance With Dragons! I am a slow reader, this book is a thousand pages long, it's gonna be awhile. But I actually lugged the giant thing on the subway with me today, and I normally can't read on the subway, it makes me dizzy. Point: I am willing to risk barf for GRRM. Speaking of him making me queasy, io9's got a couple choice quotes from a new interview (no spoilers, don't worry) where he admits the possibility that the Ice and Fire series could stretch into an 8th book instead of 7 at this point. SIGH. This series will be the death of us all.

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--- Spy's Guys - Naomie Harris, the plucky lass so good in 28 Days Later, is Miss Moneypenny in the next James Bond film, which is great cuz we like her, but even better is word that Javier Bardem and Ralph Fiennes are pretty much locked in. Anyway I am going to have to demand a three-way between them and Daniel Craig. Demand! Wedge it in the plot somehow. They always find time for sexiness with James Bond somewhere. Maybe they can do it while on a helicopter that's on fire falling towards the ocean. Alright, where's my screenwriter credit?

--- Killa Thrilla - I haven't linked to the new trailer for Final Destination 5 yet because I heard it gives away absolutely everything to the movie from start to finish, and I ain't playin that. But with that in mind, if you don't care, click over and watch it. I'm holding out though. Just a little over a month to go!
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--- Pearl Clutcher - If you missed the first clip of Meryl Streep aping Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady that premiered online yesterday, you can see it over at The Film Experience. Love that I'm not the only one who saw some Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in there! Don't fuck with her, fellas! Anyway people seem generally a little bit skeptical, surprisingly? Which opens the door for Tilda to win her second Oscar, right? Yay Tilda!
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--- Whites Of His Eyes - Huge thanks to Bob Turnbull for cluing me in to this gallery he arranged of some incredible super-subtle gifs from several movies. The one from Full Metal Jacket is the stuff of nightmares. Stare at this for a minute:

--- Barely Bear Jew - Eli Roth says he's still working on the script for Endangered Species, his end-of-the-world movie, yadda yadda, same bullshit for years now. So very tired, Eli. So tired.

--- Big scoop! BD talked to Kit Harington - aka the bastard boy Jon Snow on A Game of Thrones - about his work on the Silent Hill sequel and he called the film "horrific" of all things! That's crazy! Alright I'm being a smart-ass, but this collection of banal quotes from him that they've assembled randomly on a page over there is sloppy enough to warrant my irritation. Yet I link just so's I can post a picture of Kit... so cheap, I am... but look at that pout! I wanna flog his direwolf so bad.

--- And finally, we want to wish Jarett at PopWrap the fondest of farewells. He closed up the site earlier this week and the internet's already been the poorer for it. He's off to the West Coast and we miss him already.

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I find it strange looking through Tilda's filmography and realizing that of all the movies she's made it was the one starring Keanu Reeves where she won me over, but there it is. I was too young to get Orlando the first time I saw it (I've since fixed that), and of the few things I saw her in before seeing Constantine I'd liked her but not fallen for her. For example, she's obviously fantastic in The Deep End and I remember admiring her work there very much, but I wouldn't say I fell for her with it. She didn't become TILDA, force to be reckoned with and worshiped. Every else I love her for I'd see later - like, I've only started seeing her work with Jarman recently. So it was with golden ringlets and filthy swan wings as the hateful archangel Gabriel that something clicked into place, and it's been nothing but acolyte duty since. Thankfully she's proven her worth time and time and time and time and time again. And again. And again again. I just snoozed through Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control over the past two nights hoping for a couple more glimpses of her - far far too little her and far far too much Paz de la Huerta - and now I hold my breath in anticipation of what astonishments she'll deliver later this year with We Need To Talk About Kevin. Gimme gimme, I want it all.

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For this week's piece on this weekend's new movies at Celebrity Beehive, thanks to the release of X-Men: Muppet Babies, I was given the opportunity to do something I hardly ever get - mention Michael Fassbender. Imagine that! I also get to use the phrase "manly cerulean pelt," so keep your eyes peeled for that one.

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A note: Remember how Blogger went down last week, and all the posts I wrote on Thursday disappeared? Well Blogger's finally returned several (though not all of them, yet) of them to my saved pile, but not republished them at the appropriate in-the-past place. I'm too distracted today to figure out when they were originally scheduled, and also all the comments y'all made on them are gone now anyway, so I'm just gonna republish each one right now. So yes, you've seen these stories before, and yes they are nearly a week old. Let's do the time warp, et cetera...

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--- Swamp Sweat - The first clip with actual footage from the fourth season of True Blood is online and you can watch it at PopWrap. And yes, as you can see there to the ?, they are highlighting their finer points.

--- And speaking of the finer things on True Blood, Alexander Skarsgard has joined the cast of a movie where he will be married to Julianne Moore. I want to watch them make out.

--- No Escape - John Carpenter's The Ward is getting dumped released on VOD on June 8th. It'll then get chucked into a couple of theaters on July 8th. It is supposedly awful. Dammit, John. I'll watch it at some point no doubt, but just dammit.

--- We Need To Talk About We Need To Talk About Kevin - I mention all this in the comments of the post I'm about to link to, but I started reading Lionel Shriver's book We Need To Talk About Kevin last night and the ol' cliche came true - I couldn't put it down! I lay there til my exhausted eyes ached, completely and immediately sucked right in. Shriver's writing is wonderful. Anyway over at The Film Experience Nat's talking about the reviews coming out of Cannes today for the film adaptation with Tilda Swinton, and how he's staying away from those clips that came out earlier this week. Me too!

--- Block Busted - I'll be in Italy when these happen so I'm gonna miss it - and I'm not that unhappy about missing it since I will be in motherfucking Italy - but that "British kids fighting aliens" movie Attack the Block that's got every blogger from here to thither foaming at the mouth over it is screening in 25 cities on May 25th. Find out more at that link. Word is that it won't be out in the US for real until Fall.

--- Hard For Hammer - You can hear a few thoughts from screenwriter Dustin Lance Black on the subject of his latest politically minded movie, J. Edgar, over here. This bit was up my alley:

--- And finally, it's a fairly lengthy piece but it's really all sorts of wonderful - here's Alexander Chee talking about what the X-Men meant to him thirty-five years ago growing up bi-racial, and what they mean now in the world we live in.

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No sooner do I write up that Thomas Kretschamann's set to star in Dario Argento's 3D Dracula movie do I see this news at Screen Daily which has similarly blown my mind apart:

Um... did I do something especially good over the weekend that I can't remember that's made me deserving of this much good news smacking me in the face on a Monday morning? Monday mornings are reserved for misery, Universe, hello? What are you thinking, blowing your load this quickly? If we start out this high, can we possibly go higher? I have my doubts!

Anyway, sense of cinematic nihilism aside, whee! Tilda and Fassy and Wasikowska in a vampire movie! Will all three of them be vampires? I mean let's be honest, Tilda as a vampire alone is enough to blow my mind. Fassy as a vampire alone is enough to blow my mind. But togtehr? TOGETHER??? Somebody pinch me until blood sprays out right now, I've slipped into the happiest fucking coma of all time.

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