The above clip, a mashup for scenes from The Bandwagon and Daddy Long Legs set to Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal,” is just the latest in a long line of mashups, through which Fred Astaire magically dances from the 1930s, 40s and 50s into the 80s, 90s and beyond. There’s “Fred Astaire’s Billy Jean“, “Fred Astaire Hip Hop,” “Fred Astaire Brings SexyBack,” “Fred Astaire Is Bringing SexyBack,” and surely more I’ve yet to come across.

Although each clip has its nice moments of intertexual collage (I especially like the way the same footage from Royal Wedding is recycled to different ends: in “Billy Jean,” set to the line, “The kid is not my son,” it’s a contemplation of paternity; in “Brings SexyBack,” it’s a placeholder for seduction) “Smooth Criminal” really draws attention to this way this method of mashup makes the entirety of filmed dance history seem less like a timeline than a series of arrows pointing back to the same point. For all of their ability to tap into and inspire the zeitgeist of their respective heydays, dancers like Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake resemble Astaire more than anything else in their contemporary cultures. For whatever reason, the iconography of the solo male dancer is always looking back, as if there’s nothing new do with the male body set to music that Fred Astaire hadn’t thought of.

This theory does give short shrift to Gene Kelly, who had a distinct style and presence that was not chiefly Astairean, but for whatever reason, the evidence suggests he’s been less influential on pop stars of the future. Maybe it’s because, compared to someone like Timberlake, he was built like a boxer, and with the exception of Singin’ in the Rain, his characters were often (gasp!) working class, or at least certainly not the blinged-out party crashers that Astaire tended to play, which make his images so compatible with lines like “VIP, drinks on me,” never mind lyrics that equate seduction to some kind of surreptitious crime. Does Gene Kelly have an analgous modern pop star? And if so, where’s that mashup?

• Above: a detail of the special edition Julian Schnabel-designed Diving Bell poster that we’re giving away. The deadline to enter our giveaway was supposed to be earlier this week, but whilst at Sundance we got too busy to promote it. So, we’re extending the deadline to Wednesday, February 6. Full details on how to enter here.
• David Pescovitz at BoingBoing links to The Mindscape of Alan Moore, a documentary about the creator of Watchmen and V for Vendetta, which you can watch online.
• Amelie Gilette at The Onion A.V. Club “always thought that Jamie Foxx’s natural career progression would be Booty Call, Ray, Oscar win, release of the R&B album Unpredictable, release of the R&B album Hot Tub, Academy Award (These Are The Words I’m Sayin’ To You), followed by the launch of Academy Award Winner: The Fragrance (musky ego with notes of ugh).” She was wrong.
• “In 1993 Justin Timberlake joined the Mickey Mouse Club. In 1993 I officially joined the Mrs Doubtfire Fan Club. While membership is small, we all still share a love of vaccuming to Aerosmith’s ‘Dude Looks Like a Lady.’” Paul Scheer breaks down what sets him apart from the superstar with whom he shares a birthday.
• “It’s all in there,” James Toback tells Michael Musto of his upcoming Mike Tyson documentary. “The ear biting, the rape charge, which was indeed a setup, and the solitary confinement. Mike’s survived, but he’s not sure into what future. He talks about being 40 as if it were 105 because a lot of people around him are drugged out or dead. Where does he go now?”

If Southland Tales is to survive its Cannes drubbing and crap box office to become the cult classic that it has the potential to be, it will be thanks to two primary factors: in-depth, after-the-fact considerations of the film’s power to seduce even those who want to resist its sloppiness and vulgarity, like this one from Steven Shaviro; and the Justin Timberlake musical number at the center of the film, which is the target of much of Shaviro’s swoon.

Shaviro’s certainly not alone in this–virtually everyone I’ve talked to who finds themselves unable to entirely dismiss Southland Tales talks of that scene, set to “All These Things That I’ve Done” by The Killers. I’ve thought that it was the final image of the scene that really did it for me–Timberlake’s facial expression when the hallucination starts to fade is maybe the only truly felt moment of acting in a film that’s otherwise pretty much about bad acting–but Shaviro nails something about the whole cocoon of it:

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Wow — I guess this means they’re really going to release it (see previous coverage of the drama surrounding Southland Tales’ wavering release date here, here and here). I’m a little wary of the Mystical Female Asian Character, but we’ll see.