From today’s “Things I Always Meant To Do, And Sort Of Did Once, But Not Like This” File: Nathaniel R at The Film Experience has launched a series of posts breaking down the cinematic reference in episodes of Mad Men (which returns with new episodes this Sunday). In the first installment, he unpacks a reference to Gidget in the series’ very first episode. I can’t wait until he gets to the Palm Springs episode’s dose of Bonjour Tristesse.

We at SpoutBlog love Jon Hamm tremendously, but we don’t get to write about him much because we’re primarily a film blog and don’t feature much discussion of either Mad Men or 30 Rock (we’ve slipped praise into posts here and there, of course). Fortunately for us, Hamm has made a new video for FunnyorDie.com, in which he references movies. Specifically, he portrays Lex Luthor and alludes to plot points from Superman: The Movie, Superman Returns and even Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.

And as if this video (watch it after the jump) weren’t funny enough, we can now hopefully look forward to Hamm appearing in more Judd Apatow-related comedies — at least if the guys at Vulture have any influence. Or, maybe Hamm could actually be cast in a future Superman movie (was this video a response to requests for Warner Bros. to make him the new Man of Steel?), as either hero or villain — or both!?!?

Again, check out the clip and what other bloggers (some TV bloggers, but whatever) are saying about it after the jump:

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A favorite on these pages for her clever 08′ SXSW hit My Effortless Brilliance, a sort of comedic cousin to fellow Northwesterner Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy featuring former Harvey Danger frontman Sean Nelson (not the kid in Fresh and American Buffalo), Lynn Shelton will be back on the fest circuit in 09′. Her new film Humpday, which will bow at next month’s Sundance Film Festival, goes right back into the breach of examining the follies of male companionship. We caught up with Lynn to discuss stealing techniques from Kira Muratova, finding kindred a kindred spirit in Sherman Alexie and just how much KEXP in Seattle has shaped her musical tastes. …Read more

Because there’s nothing like waiting until the last minute to do some holiday shopping, we’ve compiled this handy-dandy shopping guide to the best DVDs of 2008 that you can use now, or wait until the dust settles and clean up with any cash that Santa or Hanukkah Harry happened to leave you. It’s broken down by the person you’ll be shopping for to make things easier, even if that person happens to be yourself.

When noted, we’ve picked the Blu-ray version over the standard definition, because we try to be all about 1080p and other technical terms whenever possible. But, the regular versions are just fine as well. Still, it’s true what they say: once you go HD you’ll never go back.

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One of the biggest travesties about the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still is that Jon Hamm only has a bit part in it. Frankly, if he’d played Klaatu, this might have been a movie worth watching. He’s spent the last two years winning our hearts and wardrobes over as Don Draper on AMC’s Mad Men, and he’s worth a lot more than a small part in a science fiction remake.

WIth that in mind, here are five classic science fiction remakes that we’d like to see Jon Hamm take the helm in. If he brings along any of his television co-stars, that would bring some bonus points. But his slicked-back hair and calm demeanor don’t need any assistance. Check out the list after the break and hope that someone at a studio somewhere is paying attention.

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Just in time for Halloween, Kevin Smith’s new film Zack & Miri Make a Porno hits theaters tonight. The only scary thing about it are the dirty jokes that flop, but the movie as a whole is quite funny. Is Kevin Smith a juvenile genius? Is Zack and Miri his Fitzcarroldo (as Paul claims)? These are the things we ponder amidst a plethora poop and dick jokes.

Karina offers her reflections on Mad Men now that the second season has ended. She also implores us to watch The Bride of Frankenstein, and we do. Paul has some additional thoughts on the 1935 classic.

Be sure to keep up on all things FilmCouch by following us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/filmcouch.

 

 FilmCouch 94 [41:53m]: Play Now | Download

(Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday)

0:00 - Intro

3:17 - Zack & Miri Make a Porno

21:49 - Karina on Mad Men, The Bride of Frankenstein, Moonlighting

31:45 - Paul on The Bride of Frankenstein

37:16 - Outro, who’s better: Smith or Tarantino?

filmcouch-94

TV and film critic Andrew Johnston (long with Time Out New York, more recently a contributor at The House Next Door) died over the weekend at age 40, after a battle with cancer. I didn’t know Andrew personally, but I knew his writing through his Mad Men recaps at The House, which this season I began religiously checking every Sunday night after watching each new episode twice in a row. Now House Next Door creator Matt Zoller Seitz has published a tribute to Johnston, which is a must-read whether you’re familiar with his criticism or not.

Two things pop out: first, Johnston leaves behind a legacy of supporting other film and media writers, most notably by helping them get jobs. As Seitz writes,

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The leaves are turning, the air is crisp, it could only mean one thing: the time is now for the best Simpsons episode of the year, The Treehouse of Horror Halloween Special. They’ve done a good job this year of building buzz, especially around the portion of the episode that spoofs Mad Men. The episode airs Sunday, November 2, and 8 pm on Fox.

In the above video we get a glimpse of the segment’s title, How to Get Ahead in Dead-Vertising. This is fantastic news: it means that the piece will be properly ghoulish, and it also means that it may not be only an homage to Mad Men, but also to the classic 1989 advertising satire How to Get Ahead in Advertising. In that film, a successful ad executive suffers from a horrible boil on his neck. One day he wakes to find that the boil has developed into a face, which becomes his evil alter-ego. I would love to see that scenario played out with Homer on the Madison Avenue of the 1960’s.

This also gets to the point of why The Simpsons Halloween episodes are always the best: there are way more movie references than usual. I was an obsessive Simpsons fan as a kid, and the Halloween episodes alone upped my pop culture literacy by several notches. The segment based on The Shining is a favorite of mine, and the Frankenstein spoof where Mr. Burns’ head ends up grafted on Homer’s shoulder gave me nightmares for weeks.

Rosemarie DeWitt is best known for her role as Don Draper’s beatnik-artist-in-residence Midge on AMC’s hit show Mad Men, but her turn as Rachel in Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married is already getting rave reviews. She’s been acting since 2001 and has done a lot of television work, but after this performance she may be ready to turn the corner and move into film.

Read the full interview after the break to find out how she got the role, and what it was like working with Anne Hathaway and Jonathan Demme.

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Michael Tully does alittle bit of everything. He’s a musician. Journo/blogger/critic. Oh, and he’s directed a pair of acclaimed films, the down and out on drugs in Jacksonville narrative Cocaine Angel and the David Berman rock doc Silver Jew, which will be released on DVD next week by Drag City. Michael is currently the editor of the indie film criticism blog Hammer to Nail, creator of indiewire’s Boredom and Its Boredest blog and occasional contributor to Spout and Filmmaker Magazine. Here’s his take on why The Wire is our young century’s greatest artwork, what’s so special about Max Richter and just how tough it is to get the rights to Richard Yates stories. …Read more

Twitter, the popular micro-blogging service, has turned into a powerful tool in the hands of not only consumers but marketers of all stripes as well. Comcast, Paramount Pictures and a handful of others have all latched on to it as a way to communicate with customers, acting not only as a distribution platform but a conversation hub and customer service hub as well. Some of the biggest names in the social media marketing world are spending serious time brainstorming how to use Twitter for marketing, debating its usefulness and otherwise hashing out a series of best practices for utilizing the service.

Media outlets have also turned to Twitter for many of the same reasons. TV Guide, Fox News and even Spout have a presence there to, again, promote their content and, in some cases, even engage in a back-and-forth with readers.

But did you know that Darth Vader is twittering? How about Cobra Commander?

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“Three episodes into this second season, Mad Men already has delineated the shadings between good and evil — between a sense of fairness and callousness — in a way far more profound than anything in The Dark Knight.”

That’s Steven Rosen, in a Cincinatti City Beat story in which he considers Don Draper, the protagonist of my beloved Mad Man, as “sort of dark knight himself,” and the “moral compass” of a world that may not have devolved into the violent chaos of Gotham, but underneath its outwardly controlled facade is melting into a soup of generational conflict and moral relativism.

Rosen cites the men of Mad Men’s various reactions to the 1962 crash of American Airlines’ Flight 2, the real-life event that inspires the fictional conflict driving Season 2’s second episode, as proof of his point:

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Screw it. I am herewith declaring Mad Men fair game for this movie blog, even though it is not technically a movie. It’s inspiring too much good bloggishness to ignore.

• Emily Nussbaum has gotten some grief for posting a spoilery clip in her Vulture post, but her short, salty take on maybe the biggest “They can’t do that!” scene of the series so far has been indelible. I’ll redact the spoiler: “But this scene, the one with Don Draper [redacted!] an odious she-manager into submission, sent a message. You think this is escapism, lifestyle fun, Entourage with better suits? Wrong-o.”
• Two different interpretations of the final scene. First, Andrew Johnson at The House Next Door: “[Betty is] unexpectedly happy. Like her husband, she’s just paid her freight by sucking up to the people who pay for her lifestyle–and, like Don, she just did so by managing expectations. The episode ends with something we rarely get from Mad Men–a scene in which Don and Betty feel like both a real couple and a real team.”
• And then, the one I’m more inclined to agree with, from Alan Sepinwall: “As Betty sits in that car at episode’s end, reflecting on another night of her husband using her as window dressing for a deal — or, in this case, worse: bait for the leering of a famous drunk — she can’t hide from it anymore. She plays to Don like she’s happy to be part of his life, but she’s crying because she realizes that, yes, she is profoundly sad, and has no idea how to go about improving this state of things.”
• Finally, a word from What Would Don Draper Do?: “The face in the mirror and the name I’ve claimed almost become one. But no matter how many times I answer or accept responsibiliy, just almost. I’d give anything to bridge almost - to fill myself out completely, leaving no empty spaces, not even the fingertips.”

• Though Pineapple Express had a better per-screen average and walked away from its first five days with a more than adequate $40 million, it couldn’t block The Dark Knight from nabbing its fourth consecutive weekend box office title. Currently at $441 million, the Batman sequel is expected to overcome Star Wars as the number 2 domestic grosser of all time.
• Entourage star Adrien Grenier is making a documentary about the 14 year-old paparazzo (unnamed in this Hollywood Reporter report) with whom he’s developed a friendship. Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, Eva Longoria, and Rosie O’Donnell will make appearances in the film, which is said to “interweave the relationship portrait with philosophical interviews in the style of Richard Linklater’s Waking Life.”
• The drift away from R-rated horror is already starting to pay off for Lionsgate. Thanks to a combination of factors––home video successes like Rambo, theatrical moneymakers like The Forbidden Kingdom, the surge in hotness of TV titles Mad Men and Weeds––their total revenue was up 50% in the first fiscal quarter.