Considerations...: Cover Me

Word of the day : maquette : a usually small preliminary model (as of a sculpture or building)

Let's not beat around the bush. Here are the movies opening up this weekend:

The Expendables 2    The first was atrocious, nowhere near as fun and campy/self-aware as it was promised to be. This one has Sly, Jet Li, Dolph, Jason Statham, Bruce, Arnold, and Mickey back. Joining them for this go-round are Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Liam Hemsworth, and John Travolta. Sounds like the pits, honestly. Sly penned the script again, and Simon West (Con Air) directs.
Verdict: Not Interested

ParaNorman    Here's one for the kids. A 3-D stop-motion comedy about a misunderstood boy who is the only savior for a town that has been overrun by zombies. Among the voice actors: John Goodman, Anna Kendrick, Leslie Mann, and Casey Affleck. Good reviews.
Verdict: Not Interested

The Awakening    A good old British ghost story, with Rebecca Hall as an author who has spent her career exposing hoaxes and ghost sitings. It's 1921, post-war London, and she is called upon to investigate the death of a student at an all-boys boarding school. Good atmosphere and mood, though the conclusion is supposed to be underwhelming. Co-stars Dominic West.
Verdict: Interested

Sparkle    A remake of the 1976 musical, with Jordin Sparks in the Irene Cara role, and Whitney Houston in her last movie appearance. It's about a Motown girl group. Not screened for critics.
Verdict: Not Interested

Cosmopolis    I'm a big fan of director David Cronenberg (A History of Violence), but even I have no interest in this pic. One reason is that it stars Robert Pattinson as a billionaire who spends the entire movie being shuttled around Manhattan in his limo, a witness to (from what I can tell) the oncoming collapse of civilization. Two, it's based on a Don Delillo novel - not the most cinema-ready of modern authors. Juliette Binoche, Paul Giamatti, Samantha Morton, and Jay Baruchel co-star. It's getting solid reviews, though.
Verdict: Not Interested

The Odd Life of Timothy Green    Filmed in and around Atlanta, this looks like an odd Disney concoction. Directed by Peter Hedges (What's Eating Gilbert Grape?), it stars Jennifer -yowza! Garner and Australian Joel Edgerton as young parents forced to deal with a mysterious child left on their doorstep. Of course, the kid has a magical effect on everyone around him - a list that includes Dianne Wiest, Common, Rosemary Dewitt, Ron Livingston, M.Emmet Walsh, and David Morse. Below-average reviews, with critics finding it too syrupy.
Verdict: Not Interested (even with Garner)

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Today's entry in the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time:

Why not?

Michael Douglas
as Grady Tripp in Wonder Boys (2000)

As a lazy, half-awake, creatively constipated literature professor getting into trouble on a Pittsburgh campus holding a writers' festival, Douglas has a shambling, shuffling doe-in-the-headlights look. He's a funny, bemused, burnt-out old sadsack, and Douglas makes you love every bit of him, without softening the old screwup's flaws. This is a great movie - a sterling adaptation of Michael Chabon's novel - with a great central performance; it's as if we're seeing Douglas (whose characterization is both grandly clownish and lived-in) for the first-time.

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Yesterday it was quarterbacks. Today, one day nearer to football season, we deal with cornerbacks.

15 Greatest Cornerbacks of My Lifetime:

1. Darrell Revis
2. Rod Woodson
3. Deion Sanders
4. Darrell Green
5. Charles Woodson
6. Aeneas Williams
7. Ty Law
8. Champ Bailey
9. Eric Allen
10. Ronde Barber
11. Troy Vincent
12. Chris McAlister
13. Asanti Samuel
14. Nnamdi Asomugha
15. Dre Bly

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Ready for the next entry in Professional Photographer's "100 Most Influential Photographers of All Time"? Me too.

Norman Parkinson (#57)

Parkinson (1913-1990) was one of Britian's greatest fashion photographers of all time. Among the publications he worked for: Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Queen, Town & Country. His style was inimitable: spontaneous, funny, lively, unstructured. His images always, without fail, told a story. He liked to adapt a silly, eccentric persona behind the lens (he was six feet five!) to reassure his sitters and models, but he was a class-act professional. He profiled Britain through the war years, the Swinging Sixties. He often shot Hollywood stars and the Royal Family, and in the 1970s created a body of work often shot abroad, in exotic locales.