Amy Winehouse swears the producers of Quantum of Solace will be sorry that they hired Jack White and Alicia Keys to record a Bond theme instead of choosing her, still-unrecorded tune. Without giving Amy too much credit, Vulture points out that the wrong bond songs have been left behind before. If Amy’s in a club with Scott Walker and Pulp over one with Madonna and Sheryl Crow, she should probably keep her mouth shut.
From Mental Floss’s list of “4 Alfred Hitchcock Secrets”: why Hitch’s initial plan for the end of North by Northwest was foiled, and how Hitchcock came to be okay with it.
The TakePart Blog points to the above Star Trek spoof, in which Kirk deports illegal alien Spock, and then, when he can’t figure out how to do anything for himself, lives to regret it.
At least once a month I see another headline claiming that Amy Winehouse is singing the title track to Quantum of Solace(aka Bond 22). But with the latest story, from BBC News, I finally understand why the internet rumor mill keeps on pumping out the claim without word of a confirmation. According to music producer Mark Ronson, he and Winehouse are merely recording a demo of a song they hope winds up on the Quantum of Solace soundtrack:
“They asked Amy, and I think Amy said that if she did it, she’d want to do it with me. So hopefully something will come of it,” he told the station’s Music Week’s show.
“The demo sounds like a James Bond theme, hopefully. But I don’t know if it’ll get used.”
He added: “I’m sure there are loads more really famous people that probably we’re competing with and we don’t know about. I’m not sure.
“But hopefully I’ll still be alive for at least 12 more Bond themes. If we don’t get this one maybe we’ll get another one.”
Kristin Thompson weighs in on the “I Drink Your Milkshake” phenomenon. “But great art has always been subject to humorous treatment and tends to come through unscathed. Marcel Duchamp stuck a mustache on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa and put it in a museum, and the act is considered a daring stroke of avant-garde art…The internet has accelerated such of manipulation of artworks and made us more aware of them, but its not new—and it is inevitable.”
Michael Musto reports from last night’s Film Forum screening of Sidney Lumet’s unlikely “lovely chick bonding” flick, The Group. Arrested Development fans, cover your eyes: according to Musto, Jessica “Lucille” Walters says she was ” desperate to play the Candice Bergen lesbo part.”
The strike may be over, but UnitedHollywood isn’t. The WGA’s unofficial bloggy club house is warning that comment management will be slow for a while while the site preps a relaunch.
Young girl with problems writes song about said problems; song becomes major international hit, thus putting girl in situations that feed those same problems; girl hits rock bottom one month before major awards show and a big, public deal is made of getting her help for the problems she said she didn’t need help with in the song; shy and contrite but somehow still aggressive, girl performs the now-mythic song on said awards show; almost immediately thereafter, she is told via television monitor that she’s won a major award for the same song; over the course of a few seconds on live television, she falls apart, asks for help and then miraculously and brilliantly regains her composure––thus essentially reenacting the above cycle in a compressed space; girl is welcomed, problems or not, back into the embrace of semi-polite mainstream culture.
I’ve expressed my doubts about the media event that is Amy Winehouse before. I don’t deny that the girl has been photographed in some bad situations, but the whole crack video to rehab to Grammy triumph trajectory just seems a little contrived, a little too perfect a story of celebrity redemption. But whether her much-documented problems have been exaggerated, or even underplayed, there’s no denying the power of the clip above as an exclamation point on the end of this narrative. Just those few moments where she appears to be taking in the news of her Record of the Year win via the satellite monitor, and her face cracks and her hands grip for something that isn’t there––this is Judy Garland stuff. You can’t make that shit up.
Above: John C. Reilly, in character as Dewey Cox, performs Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab.” I still think Walk Hard looks terrible, but I have to admit, he’s got the hip swivel down… [Via The Playlist]
OMG, it IS real! The A.V. Club taste tests Brawndo: “I can’t see slamming one of these, or even drinking more than one a year, but it beats the flavor of most energy drinks. And you’re doing your part to help the world of forgotten film with every can.”
Whitney at Pop Candy points out that Strange Culture, my favorite doc from Sundance 2007, is premiering on the Sundance Channel tonight at 9:35 ET. I’ve written about the film here and here.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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At least once a month I see another headline claiming that Amy Winehouse is singing the title track to Quantum of Solace (aka Bond 22). But with the latest story, from BBC News, I finally understand why the internet rumor mill keeps on pumping out the claim without word of a confirmation. According to music producer Mark Ronson, he and Winehouse are merely recording a demo of a song they hope winds up on the Quantum of Solace soundtrack:
Kristin Thompson
