Oscar's reigning quartet to present, as is the tradition.

I've somehow never seen this photo of Mark Rylance trying not to step on Brie Larson's train. Adorable.

AMPAS has announced that last year's acting winners will each be presenting on Oscar night. One assumes they will present their corresponding opposite-sex category as is the tradition, but who knows. Perhaps Oscar will mix it up. I'm all for tradition at the Oscars, don'cha know, but I don't mind a curveball now and then. You?

Alicia Vikander is back on screens February 24th (Oscar weekend!) with long delayed costume drama Tulip Fever  in which she dumps Christoph Waltz for Dane DeHaan because who wouldn't.

Brie Larson is back on screens April 21st in the ensemble crime comedy Free Fire, from Ben Wheatley (High-Rise).

Mark Rylance is back on screens July 21st in Chris Nolan's WW II epic Dunkirk.

...and Leonardo DiCaprio is back on screens in... 2018? 2019? 2020? He appears to have taken a whole victory year off after winning the Oscar and still has no immediate plans to be in front of the camera. It was just announced that he'll headline The Black Hand because what the world really needs more of is mafia movies (sigh) but in truth that one is a long way off since there's no screenplay yet. There's also the possibility of the Olympic bombing movie The Ballad of Richard Jewell which Leo was once set to star in but might only be producing now. Whatever happened to The Devil in the White City with Martin Scorsese? That project was announced just over a year ago and not a peep since. If they've dropped it, I hope it becomes a miniseries instead because that book is dense with information, history, cause and effect through lines, and reams of characters. 

Link Link Land

The Daily Beast Michael Musto talks to an anonymous Oscar voter about who they're voting for. They're very unhappy with Meryl Streep's 20th and La La Land's 14
/Film Barry Jenkins chooses movies from the Criterion Collection -wonderful. (And people forget how obsessed people were with La Haine when it came out)
Variety ABC picked up a pilot starring Toni Collette. Please let it be good. Miss her so much. Totally the best actress that directors aren't using which I will NEVER understand
Cinematic Corner Sati falls for The Handmaiden

Film School Rejects on Stranger Things SAG acceptance speech and season two
MNPP Jason lets Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) take him on a train of thought and it is a joy as is that movie or at least Gable and Franchot Tone in it
Village Voice Bilge Ebiri's 10 favorites from Sundance include Where is Kyra? and Mudbound
World of Reel Ben Affleck will no longer be directing The Batman movie 
Pajiba has news of an incredibly problematic sounding new Mel Gibson movie about police brutality.
Four Two Nine good piece on LGBT characters still being stuck in the "best friend" / "helper" mode despite many more gay characters in film and television  
Tracking Board HBO developing a movie about the behind-the-scenes on The Godfather (1972). I mean who gets to play Marlon Brando and Diane Keaton. Those seem like tall orders (lots of people can do a decent Al Pacino)

Off Cinema
Playbill Hamilton is doubling the amount of seats in its lottery starting... yesterday. Good luck!
Village Voice fascinating piece on the billionaire subgenre within romance novels
Los Angeles Times on how the travel ban is worrying Hollywood the business aspects of Hollywood and the talent pool
The Guardian Johnny Depp is suing and being countersued... and he's spending money as wildly and foolishly as Nicolas Cage once did (if you're wondering why they both make so many bad movies) 

Dune Again
As was previously rumored but is now true, Denis Villeneuve has signed on to direct Dune. He mentioned this as a possibility in our interview recently and sounded very excited about it, having been a fan of the novel his whole life. But still, TWO reboots of two beloved sci-fi properties back-to-back with Blade Runner 2049 up next? And right after your Oscar nomination after such deserved momentum from doing your own thing (Enemy-Prisoners-Sicario-Arrival)?! I guess this is cashing in while also fulfilling a dream but it worries this fan of Villeneuve doing his own thing.  

Though the David Lynch film from 1984 had its issues it also had some deeply memorable imagery so at the very least it will be interesting to see how his version measures up.

New to Prime: Dirty Grandpa, Sabrina, and Nuts!

If you've caught up on all the Oscar nominees and want to watch movies at home instead, the first of the month always brings lots of options. As is our on again off again tradition, we've freeze framed new-to-streaming options on Amazon Prime at entirely random places and shared whatever we saw there. Will you be watching / have you loved any of these films?

I think you're both a couple of tramps."

Frankie & Johnny (1991)
MICHELLE! We have you're enjoying our Michellebration of the RePfeiffal on Saturdays. You're probably anxious to get to the movie-movies and they're right around the corner. Grease 2 and Scarface will sandwich Oscar week so that's something to look forward to! I haven't seen Frankie & Johnny in FOREVER but that's a few months away in the retrospective. 

Six more screengrabs of randomness starring Zac Efron, Audrey Hepburn, Susan Sarandon and more after the jump...

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Let the new "Girls Trip" teaser be a salve for your weary spirit

Robert here! Boy, these are some trying times to be alive and conscious in the world. Luckily no matter what shenanigans are going on in Washington, Hollywood continues to churn out entertainment to allow us a few hours of blissful ignorance to the outside world. In the spirit of that I present to you the first teaser trailer for Girls Trip, in theathers July 21st. The film is a raunchy R-rated comedy starring Queen Latifah and front woman of the nu metal band Wicked Wisdom, Jada Pinkett Smith, along with criminally underused comedians Regina Hall and Tiffany Haddish. Check out the trailer and more details about the film after the jump...  

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Nicole Kidman for Aquaman?

The Aussie goddess, most recently spotted defying fashion rules with parrots at the SAG Awards, maybe should have worn seahorses instead? She's in talks to play Atlanna in Aquaman (due October 2018). For those of you who don't know -- I wasn't a DC kid growing up so I also didn't know this -- Atlanna is the mother of Aquaman. Never mind that Nicole Kidman is only 12 years older than Jason Momoa, you know how Hollywood do. (If you've been following along, previously she was supposed to be Wonder Woman's mother but that didn't work out.)

Comic books are always rewriting their own histories so who knows if this is considered true anymore or was true for any longer than five minutes but from my understanding Aquaman is only half human, from the father's side, while she's more of an underwater goddess sea-dweller and Queen the way Triton was King in The Little Mermaid. If Kidman is going to be stuck playing supporting moms from now on, we hope she collects a big paycheck and they go really crazy with her underwater couture.