I'm with Movieline on this one. Werner Herzog on the Colbert Report is one of the highlights of not just the week, but the month. It washes all of the Snookie crashes into police car stories away.

With that, from Movieline:

"You know how some mornings you wake up and go to work and browse the Web and wonder what you ever did to deserve the psychic flogging colloquially referred to as “popular culture”? And then some mornings you do it all over again despite thinking you simply can’t put yourself through another… freaking… pace… of… any of it? And then there’s that one rare morning when the dawn is just the right hue, the coffee is just the right flavor, and the culture gods you thought long dead or absentee at best actually signal their interest in satisfying you, if even for only five and a half minutes and preceded by a 30-second ad? This is that morning.

"That’s really all there is to say about Werner Herzog’s appearance on Monday’s edition of The Colbert Report, wherein the filmmaker spoke of the artwork, mythology, and radioactive albino crocodiles populating his splendid 3-D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams. This is the anti-Weiner we all need right about now."

 

"X Men: First Class" opens today and the reviews appear to be stuck on the same speed, albeit revving between faster and fun to just one notch below an entire downshift. They all just feel ... pretty good.

Here's a nice instillation -- I'm trusting this middle of the line take from the NY Times' Manohla Dargis:

"With its spy-on-spy globetrotting, old-fashioned villains, flirty but prematurely swinging minis and fan-boy bits (look for an eye-blink-fast tribute to "Basic Instinct" and a cameo from the cult actor Michael Ironside), the whole enterprise has an agreeable lightness, no small thing, given its rapidly moving parts."

I don't have it in me to get super angry about movies these days. For example, the idea that the "Pirates" movie is absolutely soul crushing doesn't really surprise me. I'm not going into the thing thinking it's going to change my life or even offer me some escape. I mean, what were people expecting? Are these sequels based on a series of pirates movies directed by Ingmar Bergman? What?

Anyway ... I need another anger inducing "Inception" to throw me into a tizzy.
 

Men. They're really not that much different from women sometimes. Let Justin Timberlake explain why.

From WENN:

"Singer-turned-actor​ Justin Timberlake has ruled out stripping down for more movie roles, saying his upcoming nude scene in "Friends With Benefits" will probably be his last.

"The star bares all with Mila Kunis in the sex-charged comedy, but he doesn't plan on repeating the experience, at least once he's older.

"He tells Vanity Fair, "It was fun, but I can't say I'm going to be butt-naked in a movie again. I only did it because I'm young now, and everything's where it's supposed to be. I figured this is the time, before gravity gets the best of me."

 

Did you know that Fairy Tale movies are going to be all the rage, and soon?

From "Snow White" to "Sleeping Beauty" to "The Wizard of Oz" to a possible "Peter Pan" Vulture takes you through the newest projects and ideas.

"This summer may be crowded with caped crusaders, but just wait: Inspired by the billion-dollar worldwide gross of 'Alice in Wonderland' last year, studios have begun developing a flood of fairy-tale movies to ensure that in 2012, superheroes will be outnumbered by handsome princes and wicked queens.

"The rush to fantasy has happened so quickly, in fact, that many fairy-tale projects are going head-to-head, meaning that we'll soon get two — and sometimes even three — variations on the same classic story. How will you know which witch is which? Let Vulture be your guide!"
 

Forget that long discussed Frank and Dino, movie, Scorsese is looking towards Liz and Dick.

Here's the exclusive from Deadline:

"Paramount Pictures is finalizing a deal to develop a feature about the romance between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, as a directing vehicle for Martin Scorsese. The film will be produced by Julie Yorn, Gary Foster and Russ Krasnoff of Krasnoff Foster Productions, and Scorsese through his Paramount-based Sikelia banner. They are assembling the resources to tell Hollywood's most  famous star-crossed love story.

"They've optioned 'Furious Love,' the book by Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger that was published by HarperCollins last year. At the same time, the producers have a rights agreement with Burton's estate, and a pledge of cooperation from his widow, Sally Hay Burton, to make his library available as a resource. The filmmakers have also reached out to the estate of Taylor with the same hopes. A screenwriter will be hired shortly."
 

It's June 1st and, as always, I'm happily, sadly and at this point, superstitiously back to her again. Norma Jeane, Marilyn, MM, or as Norman Mailer called her, "more than the silver witch of us all" -- Marilyn Monroe. Every year I must celebrate with her -- it would feel wrong if I didn't. At this point, even the thought of not mentioning her makes me sense something terrible will happen. It's just a birthday but, it's something else too. So, June 1st. Today. She would have been 85 years old.

And as usual, her day makes me think of Montgomery Clift,  who, at least on screen, performed a heroic action for his beautiful fellow misfit -- he untied those damn horses.

In John Huston's The Misfits, their only movie together, the two share a powerful kind of chemistry that is uniquely their own. World-weary and haunted, knowing and childlike, they're akin to the picture's fading cowboys. Both are movie stars for sure, but they reveal a gorgeousness that's a little worn almost, sick of themselves. It's painfully poignant to watch them at the end of the road. The movie reflected their own lives: As much as they enjoyed their status, as talented and as lovely as they were, both might have wanted to hang it all up.

But then, do they really? And to do what? And with whom? What to do in this life except settle down with Clark Gable's cowboy? But is that such a great idea? Thinking that in real life, Monroe's author was her husband (Arthur Miller) and her character was inspired by her, it's tough not to separate how doomed all of this feels. Miller and Monroe would end it, Gable would die after making the movie, Monroe would slide into a pill addled depression and would soon, infamously pass away. And then Clift would follow a few years later. I always wished Monty and Marilyn (in the movie and in real life) would have run off together, no matter how unstable the match. Yes, both were probably too damaged, too self destructive, too complicated to take care of anybody but themselves and Clift was a tortured homosexual but ... oh maybe it could have worked. You feel it when Clift says to Monroe: "I don't like to see the way they grind up women here ... Don't you let them grind you up here." He doesn't just love her, he understands her. 

Especially when he performs the heroic task of untying those Mustangs for Monroe. I think because it's Clift and because it's Monroe that this noble gesture becomes so overwhelmingly moving, so eloquent. Yes, it's a movie, but again, I will eternally love Monty for saying forget the money and letting loose those horses. For her.

And I will forever love Marilyn. How can one not love Marilyn? So I return to my ode for her day, her birthday, the birthday of cinema’s ultimate fractured sex goddess. Happy Birthday Marilyn Monroe.

 

In not so surprising news ...

From The Wrap:

"With the overall box office up around 47 percent over last year's sour Memorial Day market, the movie business has found some momentum after struggling mightily through the first five months of 2011.

"The Legendary Pictures-co-produced​ 'The Hangover Part II' led the way this weekend, narrowly missing the all-time record opening for an R-rated film. That five-day mark of $144.4 million was set in 2003 by 'The Matrix Reloaded.'

"The comedy sequel, which returns stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Ken Jeong, was reportedly shot for around $80 million.

"'Hangover Part II' also grossed $59 million opening in 40 countries worldwide."

 

"The Hobbit." Or rather, "The Hobbits."

Here are the dates and here are the titles. Prepare your time and ponder these titles accordingly.

From E:

"Circle these dates, fans of Peter Jackson and J.R.R. Tolkien: Dec. 14, 2012 and Dec. 13, 2013.

"Those are your tentative release dates for The Hobbit films, currently being filmed back to back in New Zealand, according to the film's official Facebook page.

"Barring any, you know, unforeseen setbacks.

"But wait, there's more! The Hobbit movies have also gotten titles.

"The first will be called The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and the sequel will be The Hobbit: There and Back Again. (While the first is a play on one of the book's chapter headings, the latter is the part of the book's complete title, The Hobbit or There and Back Again.)