Joy

Whenever I feel blue, I can count on this clip of Joseph Gordon-Levitt from Marc Webb's (500) Days of Summer to lift my spirits. Go ahead: I dare you not to smile while you watch it.

Take 2: More Fantastic Fest coming attractions

Those wild and crazy guys at Fantastic Fest have announced another batch of titles they’ve confirmed for the Sept. 20-27 edition of their annual genre-movie extravaganza in Austin. Among the most attention-grabbing, complete with official FF12 plot synopses:

SINISTER -- A frightening new thriller about a true crime novelist (Ethan Hawke) who discovers a box of mysterious, disturbing home movies that plunge his family into a nightmarish experience of supernatural horror. 

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING -- Surviving Unisols Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren) battle anarchy to build a new order ruled by Unisols without government oversight. To accomplish this, they weed out the weak and constantly test their strongest warriors in brutal, life-and-death combat. (Lundgren and co-star Scott Adkins will be on hand for the FF12 premiere.)
 
LOOPER -- In this futuristic action thriller, time travel will be invented - but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past, where a “looper” -- a hired gun, like Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) -- is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good -- until the day the mob decides to “close the loop,” sending back Joe's future self (Bruce Willis) for assassination. (Gordon-Levitt and writer director Rian Johnson will be on hand for the FF12 premiere.)

HERE COMES THE DEVIL -- Fantastic Fest veteran Adrián García Bogliano (Penumbra) returns – really, he’s actually going to be there in Austin -- with his latest supernatural horror. When two children who went missing while exploring a cave are found, it quickly becomes apparent something evil has come home with them.

But wait – there’s more. And you can read all about it here.

Happy New Year from Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Watching this charming video makes me think: At a different time in Hollywood history, these two would be co-starring in musicals once or twice a year.

Sunday linkage: A scriptwriter takes control, a graphic novelist strikes b.o. gold

In the Los Angeles Times, veteran scriptwriter Scott Frank (pictured above, left, with actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt, center, and Matthew Goode) charts the long and winding road he took to directing The Lookout. And in Variety, ace industry observer Anne Thompson explains how a graphic novelist may be helping to change the game plan for action movies.

Also in Variety: Peter Bart muses over the fact that, not for the first time, some film critics appear to be out of sync with mainstream moviegoers. He is brutally sardonic -- and, I have to admit, more accurate than not -- when he notes the scathing reviews for the high-testosterone 300 and cracks: "[I]f you've ever met a film critic, you"ll know they're not big on either the pectoral, deltoid or other muscle groups." Sounds very much like Charles Bronson's notorious observation that most movie critics are "pear-shaped." Ouch.