Cinematical

The countdown has begun, and we are just 17 short days away from the arrival of the vamp-romance, New Moon, so why not celebrate by re-enacting some of your favorite scenes with your very own Bella and Edward? That's right, Mattell has released Edward and Bella Barbie as part of the Twilight Barbie Collection, but for those of you on Team Jacob, you will be sad to discover that he hasn't gotten a doll yet (although the thought of the additional 'werewolf' Jacob could be fun).

Now, considering some of the other Twilight themed products we have been subjected to, a couple of Barbie dolls don't seem so bad, I mean at least they are age-appropriate. The dolls are modeled after the infamous 'sparkling reveal' from the first film, but when I took a look at the final product my first question was: "Who the heck are these two people supposed to be?" I've seen Twilight and even I wouldn't have recognized Bella and Edward.

But I'm sure that is not going to stop you hard-core collectors out there, so head over to Walmart.com or Barbiecollector.com where you can buy them online for the suggested retail price of $24.95 -- but something tells me you are going to have to act fast.

After the jump: more recent examples of bad movie tie-in toys...

It has been my experience that there are two types of people in the world: those who love Magnolia, and those that don't (and the ones that don't, man, they really don't). I fall into the first category, and I'm still occasionally surprised by the people who will come out of the 'Magnolia closet' as either a fan or someone who just ''doesn't get what all the fuss was about". Now I'm not going to spend the next couple of paragraphs defending Anderson's flick, but it does feel like I'm forever trying to explain just what I think is so fascinating about a film centered on the intersecting lives of a group of damaged individuals living in the San Fernando Valley.

So it really doesn't matter what you tell me about how ridiculous you thought it was when the frogs fell from the sky, or that Anderson is an overindulgent director, or even that Cruise was just playing himself. Nothing will diminish my love for this movie that is in equal turns funny and heartbreaking, hopeful and cynical -- and, not to mention, it allowed me to say a phrase that I will (most) likely never say again: Tom Cruise really did deserve that Oscar.

After the jump: why I love Wise Up and one of my favorite movie openings of all time...

Well, it's just about 'All Hallows Eve' and if you're anything like me, then you have already depleted your candy supply and you've been watching as many horror movies as you can get your hands on. And as I've watched everything from The Wolf Man to 13 Ghosts I've been thinking how few movies actually scare me -- the rise of torture porn was nauseating, sure, but scary? Not really. Over at Den of Geek they've compiled a list of movies that scare them and it has inspired me to think about what flicks have given me the honest to goodness heebie-jeebies over the years.

Usually when I watch horror, it's with an eye for comedy and usually the lamer the film, the better. But occasionally there's a film that actually does what it's supposed to: scare the crap out of me. But as much as I tried to find a common denominator for what scares me on the big screen, I came up empty. In fact, there's never really any way to tell just what is going to hit the right buttons when it comes to horror, but I guess that's what makes it so much fun.

After the jump: 5 movies that guarantee me a 'bad night's sleep'...

I usually don't like kids in the movies all that much. Maybe I'm missing that maternal gene, or maybe I'm just not that into the little rugrats. But suffice to say that I sometimes have a pretty dark view of children, and that's why I love The Bad Seed -- and I especially love little Rhoda Penmark. The Bad Seed was based on William March's novel about a murderous little girl who terrorizes her family and friends, and by the time it's all said and done, she comes up with relatively respectable body count. The 1956 film was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starred Patty McCormack as the pigtailed terror, and in spite of a tacked-on ending to satisfy the Hays code at the time, the film is still considered on of the penultimate 'creepy kid' flicks.

But what set Rhoda apart is that usually when you have murderous kids, the moral caveat is usually that they are outside the 'normal run of things', leaving our heroes to dispatch the bad guy without any hand-wringing about harming children. So most films give you kids like Damian (the Antichrist himself) or those creepy little buggers from Village of The Damned who come from another planet -- but with Rhoda, there is no one to blame but her. Although in both the film and the original book, there is an argument that she is just the victim of her family tree, but that's not exactly the same as the supernatural kids in those other horror films. There is no excuse for why Rhoda is the way she is, and she reminds you that evil can come in all kinds of packages -- and that's why to this day, the sight of her skipping away with her braids swinging remains as one of my most beloved movie villain moments.

After the jump; some of Rhoda's creepier moments and a tribute to her lasting inspiration to the macabre everywhere...

As much as I love James Franco (for reasons both personal and professional) I sometimes worry he's going to wear out his welcome with these shorts that keep popping up wherever you look. So far, we've had acting lessons, re-enactments of The Hills, commencement speeches, and even abstract art ... and now we've got Gucci. Over at Funny or Die, they have the latest comedy short which is presented as outtakes from the actor's turn as a spokesmodel for Gucci, and even though you know what to expect from the moment you hit play, that doesn't mean that it won't make you laugh (in my case there was even a little snorting involved).

But maybe the genius of Franco is that you can never quite guess what he's going to do next (I mean, I don't think anyone saw the General Hospital stint coming). He's still a movie star after all, though, and his upcoming roles in the Steve Carell and Tina Fey comedy Date Night, along with his portrayal of Beat poet Allan Ginsberg in Howl, guarantees that his comedic and dramatic skills won't be going to waste any time soon. But as this short proves, maybe his most memorable attribute will always be that he's never afraid to make a complete ass of himself -- a lovable quality if there ever was one.

After the jump: what Gucci didn't want you to see and another Franco classic....

The lovable and hilarious Steve Carell is a bona-fide TV star, but his big screen career has never taken off quite the same way. There were plenty of successes along the way, and he hasn't had an honest to goodness flop (actually, Evan Almighty lost a whole lot of money), but he just hasn't had that movie role that makes you think "Uh-oh, I think Scranton is going to get a new branch manager," you know? I don't know if Carell's latest will be the role that makes him into a full-fledged movie star, but The Hollywood Reporter's Risky Business Blog is reporting that the comedian is in talks to star in the golf-comedy Missing Links.

Links is based on Sports Illustrated writer Rick Reilly's novel by the same name, and it centers on a group of working class friends who scheme to sneak into an elite country club to escape their crappy public golf course. Reilly has some experience as a screenwriter, having already written the period sports comedy Leatherheads, but for Links, The Break Up's Jay Lavender will be in charge of the script. Carell has yet to commit to Warner Bros for Links, and he already has a pretty tight schedule with his role on The Office, the upcoming sequel to Get Smart, and Brigadier Gerard, so I guess we will have to wait and see if he signs on the dotted line.

After the jump; moments from other great golf comedies -- and no, I didn't include Dorf...

You all remember the romantic rite of passage known as the mix-tape, right? Where you would try and convey how deep, charming, profound, and downright cool you were by compiling a group of songs for your intended? In the world of movies, filmmakers use songs all the time to create a mood, explain an emotional 'state of mind', or even to fill in what they don't have time to explain. As it turns out, so do we, and that's where the art of the mix-tape comes in. But this isn't just about music, and Cinematical is a film site after all, so I thought it would be fun to put together a little mix tape of songs I've come to love thanks to hearing them in the movies.

Now before we start, I should warn you that my mix tape isn't just a collection of run-of-the-mill love songs, because as I keep telling everyone, I'm not a run-of-the-mill girl. Instead, I've put together a 'celluloid compilation', that if given to me would guarantee that I fell head over heels into film geek love.

After the jump; some movie songs that would woo me right off of my feet (in no particular order)...

There has been talk of a live action Ghost in The Shell for some time now, and while I knew that a US remake was probably inevitable, there was still a small part of me that thought that maybe this time, we would be spared another inferior North American 're-imagining' of a pretty spectacular anime. But I guess I'm not that lucky, because Variety is now reporting that Dreamworks has just hired Laeta Kalogridis (Shutter Island) to adapt the manga for a live action 3D film, bring the film that much closer to reality.

Street Kings writer, Jamie Moss, had originally been hired to write the story of "...the exploits of a member of a covert ops unit of the Japanese National Public Safety Commission that specializes in fighting technology-related crime." But I guess Dreamworks wasn't thrilled with the final result, because now Moss is out and Kalogridis is in.

Details about the film are still pretty scarce, and there are plenty of things to decide on, but maybe the most important detail will be casting. The story of GITS is a strange and complicated one, but it all hinges on The Major. It will be crucial to find the right actress for the role if this film has a hope in hell of succeeding -- so I thought I would have a little fun and make a few suggestions to who I think could rock the Thermoptic Camouflage.

After the jump; Five ladies I think could be Major Motoko Kusanagi...

Perception is everything, and I don't mean to get all metaphysical on you, but sometimes it's how the world sees us that can define who we are -- but what if the world thinks you're a psycho? In an interview with American Psycho director Mary Harron, she was reminiscing about the black comedy, and as it turns out, her star Christian Bale based his vision of the murdering yuppie on -- wait for it -- Tom Cruise. According to Harron, she and Bale had been collaborating on the character when "...he [Bale] called me and he had been watching Tom Cruise on David Letterman, and he just had this very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes, and he was really taken with this energy."

Actors take inspiration from all kinds of places, but you can't help but wonder if Bale saw something that we would all be made painfully aware of: the 'crazy' side of Cruise. And it was that same energy that worked so well in P.T. Anderson's Magnolia when Cruise played motivational speaker Frank T.J. Mackey. But for me, what made this story truly funny, is that who could have predicted that soon enough Bale would be dealing with his own troubled image in Hollywood as a rage-aholic and something of a bully? On the upside, though, maybe Bale's on-set rant will one day inspire another young actor (ahh, the circle of life).

These guys aren't the only ones to battle troubled reputations (whether or not they're deserved), and after the jump: a few more stars who have run their reputations into the ditch...

I never claimed to have the most refined taste when it comes to movies (and if you need proof, take a look). Sometimes my taste is downright mind-boggling, and no amount of public scorn can stop me from sitting down for multiple viewings of flicks that most of you out there wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. So, on that note, today I'm going to tell you about a movie I love that usually earns me my fair share of some blank stares: About Last Night.

This '80s 'classic' was directed by Edward Zwick (a far cry from his war epics, I know) and was based on the David Mamet play, Sexual Perversion in Chicago. The film starred 80's wunderkinds Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Jim Belushi and Elizabeth Perkins (providing most of the comic relief) in a tale of romantic misadventures among young professionals in Chicago. The film was my first exposure to 'serious' romantic drama, and when I first watched it as an 11-year-old girl, I felt like I was quite the grown-up -- mainly because for once, I understood most of the dirty jokes.

The film may have blunted some of the edge of Mamet's play and provided a happy ending that didn't exist in the original, but as a time piece of pre-AIDS sexual politics, this movie can't be beat. About Last Night was the perfect antidote to the easy and simple romance I had seen up on the big screen, and no matter the time or the place, if I catch this movie on TV, I'm hanging in until the very end.

After the jump: in defense of bad taste, and one of the many reasons I love this movie: obscure 80's love songs....