…The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus would be as popular as Avatar.

Ok – I still don’t have a name for my weekly film-related harvesting of the Webinets – I’ll come up with some sort of snappy, happy-happy catchphrase at some point.  Anyhew, I won’t let the lack of a branded identity for this post stop the magic – here’s a wrap-up of some film related stories from the past week – enjoy.

1. Noted director of motion pictures, Eric Rohmer, passed away. To quote Jarrod Whaley, “Let’s mourn the passing of Eric Rohmer by sitting in a room, talking endlessly. I jest. One of my favorite filmmakers. Goodbye.”
   
2. The Avatar screenplay has been discovered online – you can download the PDF here.  I looked over it to find the bits of dialogue that I thought were actually added some character to the flick, (“Do you think I felt like a shave-tail louie?, etc.), only to find they are not there.  Perhaps added by the actors while filming?, (notice how the “what are you smoking?” line reads in the script versus Ribisi’s interpretation in the flick).
3. More Avatar stuff :  I Don’t See You - Steven Santos over at The Fine Cut eviscerates everybody’s favorite blockbuster Avatar.  His secret is to treat Avatar as a motion picture – I think he has a point – the film stinks, if you view it as a motion picture. Another  way of looking at Avatar is as pure spectacle – the film it most reminds me of is not a film at all but the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Pure massive spectacle – you know how they said at the time that “only China” could put on that kind of show?  Same thing with Avatar – “only Cameron” could make that pic.
   
4. Continuing with the Avatar theme, (let’s ride that Cameron horse as much as possible folks), Noah Harlan at the 401st Blow notices that Jake Sully’s ‘rallying the troops speech’ not only can’t hold a candle to Henry V – it can’t even go toe to toe with Braveheart. Yikes.
   
5. Roger Ebert continues his vast volume of blogging with ‘Nil by Mouth’ – thoughts on having to say goodbye to eating and drinking.
   
6. Nashville’s very own Jason Shawan interviews ‘My Son My Son What Have Ye Done’ protagonist Michael Shannon – excerpt: “Ostriches are just heathens. They’re really rotten; I didn’t want to interact with them at all. The flamingos, well, they would peck at me sometimes, but it didn’t really hurt. I liked the flamingos.”
   
   
7. The most important US film of the 80’s, They Live, gets the ‘re-cut trailer’ treatment – and becomes a touching a love story, (but really, wasn’t it always?)
   
8. The always necessary Indie Wire is hiring – they need a Media/Traffic Coordinator.
   
9. Apparently Sam Mendes is in talks to direct the next James Bond picture.  Make of this what you will Dear Reader.
   
10. And finally Nic Cage as Everyone rectifies that hole in our heart we always knew was there.

Oh, sure I’d like to go all Avatar here - discuss in detail my response to this most Camerony of films – but that’ll have to wait till this weekend’s podcast Dear Reader.

Instead I proffer some experiences of the last few days and a some selected gems from this week’s trawling of the webs:

First off – The Film Talk now has a weekly newsletter!  Click here to for weekly-newsletter-signup-action!

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Next up – below is the latest viral rage – a 70-minute (!) tearing apart/analysis of ‘The Phantam Menace’.  I appreciate the intense yawns just the idea of this might generate – but it’s worth watching, (especially Part 1 – the later ‘Basement’ activities are distasteful), for its spot-on Robert McKee-esque explication of mainstream/standard story-telling structure.

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Hey film fans – today’s the last day to get your free movie from premium streaming movie site The Auteurs:

For your free movie click here to go to The Auteurs – and use promo code: thefilmtalk

The Auteurs have been great in spreading the word to their members about ‘The Film Talk’ – so please reciprocate by signing up, (it’s free!), and selecting from their superb selection of films from around the world, (even more free!).

And don’t forget that if you want to thank us here at TFT for all this free goodness then click here to become a Member and get tons of TFT-insider goodies for only $3 a month, (it’s not free!).

Hey there The Film Talk listeners, (and hopefully members!), I’ve been very impressed, like you I’m sure, with the good Dr.’s posts of late – blogging from a film set in New Zealand, his prose inspires; these musings on the transcendence of our experience on this tiny globe is some of the best writing I think he’s ever done for the site.

Which puts me in a quandary.  My posts seem shallow and short-lived in comparison – especially the one I had planned for today, involving my award for “The Decade’s Most Contrived Plot Device”, (see image above of AMEE – folks who’ve seen Red Planet will know what I mean).

So, what do to?

Well, I’m going to think laterally here – instead of a regular post that would have a hard time competing with Gareth’s, I’m doing something unique in the history of the show.  You see The Film Talk is edited – we often have problems while recording, (on occasion we’re too heated in our arguments – other times we just don’t make any sense).

Yesterday we had a different problem – with Gareth down in New Zealand the broadband access was irregular, so we had a hell of time getting a decent ‘line’ to record on.  In fact, this episode, 104, wins the prize for most failed attempts at doing the show – the ‘line’ kept dropping and we must have recorded bits and pieces of the episode a dozen times over.

This was so frustrating in fact that when we finally got a decent connection between us, yours truly could not keep it together.  So for your interest and amusement, I present to you a short clip of a never revealed ’TFT – Behind the Scenes’, (warning – the link is NSFW):

TFT-104-Corpsing

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One more thing: today and tomorrow is the last chance you have to take advantage of our great offer from premium streaming movie site The Auteurs – click on the banner below and use promo code thefilmtalk to get a free movie!