What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly collection of movie news, notes and links that will make you very happy that you decided to stop and take a look at what’s going on. Seriously, it’s the bringer of joy.
We begin tonight with a shot from this evening’s episode of Archer, which has mixed a little bit of Justified into its plot-lines. The AV Club has begun a campaign for a cross-over comic that would team Sterling Archer with Raylan Givens. I support this idea 100%.
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Don’t be surprised if tonight’s column points you in the director of several wonderful articles about Lord Oscar and his forthcoming night of magic. In case you haven’t heard, the Academy Awards are happening and there’s nothing you or I can do about it. We can read the best of what the web has to say, however, including this article at HitFix by Roth Cornet, Women and Oscar: And Other Things Rich White Men Like. Oh, snap! She also included this video made up by Melissa Silverstein of Women and Hollywood:
With the exception of We Need to Talk About Kevin (read: terrible movie), she’s got one hell of a point.
Over at Criterion, The Messenger and Rampart director Oren Moverman presents his favorite Criterion Collection titles, one of which is Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress. That one’s a good choice.
Hero Complex has a short, but interesting preview of a show I’m looking forward to, Tron: Uprising, a Disney XD show from Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, the guys who wrote Tron: Legacy. They speak at length about the freedom offered by doing an animated series. A freedom that led Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to do wonderful things with Transformers: Prime following their stunted collaboration on Michael Bay’s second live-action Transformers flick. Here’s hoping they pull it off.
For those who hadn’t realized yet, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is dense material. So dense that it confused its own star and its screenwriter. “If you simplify it too much you’d lose the flavor of it,” explained writer Peter Straughan. “You’re supposed to be in this dark shadowy world.” Thankfully they didn’t simplify, because it’s excellent.
Apparently Universal is using the pro-environment, anti-greed story of The Lorax to sell Mazda SUVs. This has put pundit Devin Faraci on a new plane of rage. I drive a Mazda, and I like it very much, so I’m conflicted. That said, using a movie that’s about the quest to save the environment (or something along those lines) to sell a gas-guzzling SUV is more than a little out there.
Speaking of Badass Digest, they inducted Judy Blume into the Badass Hall of Fame today. And rightfully so.
Disney has released a very neat poster for Frankenweenie, Tim Burton’s feature-length adaptation of his own 1984 stop-motion animated short film. As much as I loathe all of the crap Tim Burton has done lately, I can’t wait for this one. Anything stop-motion that he touches is brilliant. And even though he doesn’t have Henry Selick on this one, I’m sure he’ll do just fine.
Over at Film.com, veteran film critic Eric D. Snider looks back at his rave review of Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday and thinks twice about calling it “The Saving Private Ryan of football movies.” The only thing I remember about that movie is that one football player loses an eye. And that football players often have to take violent number twos during half-time. Okay, so that’s two things.
Gentleman journalist James Rocchi provides a number of suggestions for How Oscar Can Swing for the Fences, along with other sports analogies. In the end, he makes a number of good points. You could say that he was patient, deliberate, waited for his pitch and found himself content with a ground-rule double. That’s a baseball thing.
Geekscape wonders What if X-Men was made in the early 1990s?!? (The appalling punctuation is theirs, not mine). Excited punctuation aside, they do get around to dropping names like Jeff Goldblum as Magneto, Val Kilmer as Scott Summers, Nicole Kidman as Jean Grey (so basically it would be just like Batman Forever, then, only magnetism would find a way). And of course, Morgan Freeman.
Guy Lodge’s editor Kris Tapley called this one of the best pieces Mr. Lodge has written. It’s called The Long Shot: Don’t go to bed angry. It’s about an Oscar pundit’s thoughts as Oscar night comes within reach. And yes, it’s a really great read.
Movies.com asked a real life Navy SEAL to rate the authenticity of 10 Navy SEAL movies. How dare he call the Steven Seagal led 1992 thriller Under Siege ”such b.s.”! I believe he was referring to that lack of believability behind the part about Seagal being able to cook. (Side note: SWCC — mentioned in the last paragraph — is hardcore. Can’t wait to see them play out on screen in Act of Valor.)
NY Times Oscar expert Melena Ryzik, best known as The Carpetbagger, presents her 2012 Oscar Predictions. Surprise, surprise, she’s putting her chips in the corner of The Artist. Her and everyone else, that is. (Come on, Moneyball!) Also, The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence, a version that was aimed more toward adults than family audiences. It’s a fascinating diversion caught in a time capsule of absolute absurdity. Thanks to Laughing Squid for the heads up.