1) Films That Left Us Limp. The Wrap picks ten “Duds in the Bedroom: Erotic Movies That Bombed.” Some flaccid flicks: Body of Evidence, Lust, Caution, and the recent release Chloe. Don’t pick any of these films if you’re wanting to set a lovin’ mood with your date. (Editor’s note: Showgirls is about as sexy as a de-quilled porcupine, but it’s still a pretty awesome movie, seriously!)
2) When Film Becomes Media. As our own site blurs the line between old-school “movies” and new-school “online media, this blurring can be seen elsewhere in the movie industry, as Steven Saito reports in IFC‘s IndieEye blog. Saito points out a few bellwethers: the interactive “film” 11/4/08, the inaugural DOC NYC Festival, “New York’s first and only festival celebrating documentary storytelling across the fields of film, photography, prose, radio and other innovative forms,” and the approval of a new credit “Transmedia Producer” by the Producers Guild of America.
DENNIS HOPPER — actor, filmmaker, photographer, art collector, world-class burnout, first-rate survivor — never blew it. Unlike the villains and freaks he has played over the decades — the psycho with the mommy complex in “Blue Velvet,” the mad bomber with the grudge in “Speed” — he has made it through the good, the bad and some spectacularly terrible times. He rode out the golden age of Hollywood by roaring into a new movie era with “Easy Rider.” He hung out with James Dean, played Elizabeth Taylor’s son, acted for Quentin Tarantino. He has been rich and infamous, lost and found, the next big thing, the last man standing.
– Manohla Dargis, from the opening of her magnificent tribute to the original easy rider in the New York Times. Over at the Moving Image Source, Matt Zoller Seitz offers an Oscar show-worthy montage of Hopper’s career highlights, a panorama of seat-of-your-pants expressivity.
