Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

Did you see how simple the posters for Martha Marcy May Marlene have been so far? Even the ones that relied on the internet code to send out a message (risky move too!) were so haunting and beautiful in a way. The efficiency of the concept is that it gets across several points: Elizabeth Olsen, all the Ms and Elizabeth Olsen again.

My Week with Marilyn debuted its first official poster and the result is so lifeless. Michelle Williams might deliver a stunning performance but in all the publicity shots and now this one sheet, she looks like a morbid morgue project. We get she's playing Marilyn but she has been looking like some sort of postmortem strange postmodernist experiment (let's see if you can play Marilyn as a mannequin!). It's strange that the marketing people at the Weinstein Co. even went with this image at all when just a few weeks ago we got one where at least Williams seemed to be alive.

How do you feel about all the Ms this week?

It's No Secret...

...that Jeon Do-yeon might be one of the most interesting working actresses! Check out my review for her breakthrough, Secret Sunshine, over at PopMatters.

Life is Life.

Head to PopMatters and read my review for Life During Wartime.

Style Sunday.

Julianne Moore is a vision in this lovely little Jason Wu cocktail dress. Gotta love how she turns what could've been a housekeeper look into a sexy librarian outfit. The pattern shoes complete the ensemble beautifully.

Oh Diane Kruger, you insatiable fashionista...the beautiful actress rocks the hell out of this stunning Prabal Gurung sheath. Gotta love how the appliques and tiny details make it seem as if the dress was sewn on top of her, the level of organic convergence this woman achieves with clothes is otherworldly.

Love Diane or would you rather be spanked by Juli?

"What I wouldn't give to have tired of you?"

Super 8 ***

Director: J.J Abrams

Cast: Kyle Chandler, Elle Fanning, Joel Courtney, Ron Eldard

Bruce Greenwood, David Gallagher, Riley Griffiths, Gabriel Basso

Ryan Lee, Noah Emmerich

From its opening shot, Super 8 reaffirms something we've always sorta known: J.J. Abrams is a natural born storyteller. In an exceptional display of economy he lets us know the location of the story (the fictional town of Lillian, Ohio), the time frame (1979) and using a tiny bit of backstory, lets us foresee the future of its leading character, 14-year-old, Joe Lamb (Courtney) who after losing his mom is left under the care of his stoic father, Deputy Jackson Lamb (Chandler) who, to say the least, has no idea how to deal with the child.

Fast forward a few months and Joe is now helping his best friend Charles (Griffiths) produce an epic zombie film using a simple Super 8 camera. Their world is shaken when school beauty Alice Dainard (Fanning) agrees to be in the movie. Joe, Charles, Alice and their other friends, Preston (Zach Mills), Cary (the scene stealing, precociously Truffaut-esque Lee) and leading man Martin (Basso) leave their homes in the middle of the night to shoot the film's centerpiece at an old train station.

While the boys gasp in the presence of Alice - the way in which Abrams captures prepubescent awkwardness is delightful - they hear the loud noise of an upcoming train. The Herzogian Charles decides that this event will only help make their movie better and orders for the cameras to roll as the train suffers a derailment and consequent explosion. The children leave unharmed but realize the train had an enigmatic cargo that now has been set free upon their little town.

To say more about the film's plot would be to take away one of the film's many pleasures which is the rich feeling of everlasting discovery with which children face their summer vacations and miniature adventures. Of course, this being a movie and all, their adventure demands to be seen on the big screen, yet under the expert hands of Abrams, the film never loses that sheer cinematic delight which invites audience members to think things like these might happen to them as well.

Shot as a loving tribute to Steven Spielberg's E.T.: the Extra-terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the film reminds us of a time when going to the movies assured us that we were in for a treat. Abrams not only pays homage to Spielberg by recreating his cinematic style (along with the superb DP Larry Fong who despite his overuse of flare achieves some stunning work by reminding us that images can be epic and economic) the director also manages to emulate the emotional content of these iconic films in ways that not even Spielberg himself can achieve now.

Abrams' directing of children is astonishing because he lets them be without having them forget that they are after all playing parts in a movie, this is especially poignant in scenes where the kids shoot their own film and it can arguably be said that Abrams has them playing characters on three different levels.

Despite all the makings of a geek landmark, the film is especially admirable because it's able to work as entertainment and aesthetic treatise, notice the way in which Abrams toys with genre and reminds us that cinema has always tried to position itself in two different aspects of existence. Perhaps the film might have some autobiographical touches - the aforementioned character of Charles for example - but it also succeeds by becoming a mirror onto which the audience can project their own life experiences. It might be corny to say so but more often than not Super 8 is a reminder of why we even go to the movies in the first place.

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

Ralph Fiennes' adaptation of Coriolanus seems destined to be one of the highlights of this cinematic year and our first looks at its marketing campaign shines with promise. Gotta love the almost tribal feel the painted faces and colors give the image. Look closer and you shall see those are not tribal markings but guns! Or wait, are we already receiving a message from the film?

Is it just me or does Ralph Fiennes have one of the most beautiful noses in the industry? Excited about Coriolanus?

Last Night ***

Director: Massy Tadjedin

Cast: Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, Eva Mendes, Guillaume Canet

Stephanie Romanov, Daniel Eric Gold

When did Keira Knightley become such a fascinating actress? Her performance in Last Night sneaks up on you in completely unexpected ways, proving that she's become one to watch. In the film she plays Joanna Reed, a modestly successful, but insecure writer married to real estate agent Michael (Worthington). Minutes into the running time the young couple arrive at a party where Joanna meets Michael's new coworker, the voluptuous Laura (Mendes), she watches her husband and this woman together and becomes convinced that they are having an affair.

Back home they engage in a discussion where she tries to squeeze the truth out of her husband, however she wants to hear the truth she thinks is real.

Massy Tadjedin's Last Night then slowly begins to show its true colors, it's not a standard drama in how it follows a chronological order, instead it's more of an exploration of what shapes our lives as adults and an oneiric study of what exactly constitutes love after marriage.

Some scenes are insterspersed with other scenes to highlight specific passages or to make us doubt what we are watching. This happens mostly in latter scenes where Joanna goes out with former lover Alex (Canet) while her husband is away on a business trip with Laura.

Director Tadjedin may not always be subtle, in fact some of these bits are enough to make your eyes roll as we can tell that she does indeed like some characters more than others and there are some stories she wished she'd pursued more.

Why then does she seem to punish some of the characters by condemning them to lives they obviously do not want? The truth is that the director faces these truths as absolute and wonders why have we created the need to adjust ourselves to the unwanted?

Last Night goes beyond being a Closer redux about how adults in romantic relationships hurt the hell out of each other and turns into a clever questioning of the power of love. Notice how she quietly reveals her interest in discovering whether two loves can live within the same heart. It's fortunate for the audience that she gives Knightley a real chance to show her chops and it's her character that haunts us the most after the movie ends (the last two minutes are a thing of real beauty).

To be fair though, everyone in the cast is superb, Worthington tries to imprint his character with a bit of mystery and turns out delivering a performance of troubled feelings, Canet has to do little more than smile to make us woo and wish we could leave our entire lives for him and surprisingly Mendes turns in some stunning, affecting work as the femme fatale who might not be one at all.

Last Night is a delightful reminder that movies about adults don't need to have screenplay gimmicks in order to catch our attention, this film, like having too much wine leaves you lingering on a cloud of fuzzy guilt and craving for more the following night.

Long Live the Queen.

Madonna turns 53 today. May her second foray into film directing turn out as magnificent as we all expect it to be!

What are your bday wishes for Madge?

I'm in the Jungle But...

the internet still keeps me - and my love for the city- alive. What better way to keep my spirit present than by reading my fashion talk with Nat and Kurt over at The Film Experience?