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Monday
Nov212016

The Furniture: Wednesday Addams Sets Thanksgiving on Fire

"The Furniture" our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber

Happy Thanksgiving! In three days, Americans will gather together to cook, feast and argue. The acrimonious presidential election has launched a multitude of think pieces on the subject. How do you talk to your relatives who voted differently than you? The classic stereotype of the young, liberal, usually-white urbanite going back to conservative “middle america” for turkey is certainly more fraught this year than it’s ever been. Does that scenario now come with the moral obligation to speak up?

This may seem like a weird way to begin a column about Addams Family Values, a comedy sequel without an overt political message. But there's some Thanksgiving advice to be found in the Oscar-nominated design of legendary production designer Ken Adam (The Spy Who Loved Me) and set decorator Marvin March (Annie). Beyond the social satire of the early 1990s ("But Debbie...pastels?"), a blunt clash of historical narratives is built into the sets for Camp Chippewa...

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Monday
Nov212016

Tweetweek: Amy Adams, Cognitive Dissonance, and Apocalyptic Futures

 Amy Adams double feature (Arrival & Nocturnal Animals), 2016's grimness, Actressy fierceness, and more after the jump...

 

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Sunday
Nov202016

Podcast: 'Nocturnal Elle's Halftime Walk'

We're back to weekly podcasts! This week Nick, Joe, and Nathaniel discuss the latest films from Tom Ford, Ang Lee, and Paul Verhoeven, only one of which we can recommend.

Index (42 minutes)
00:01-17:22 Ang Lee's awkward Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk starring Joe Alwyn and Garret Hedlund

17:23-29:45 Tom Ford's revolting Nocturnal Animals. We don't understand the initial acclaim at all

29:46-42:00 Paul Verhoeven and Isabelle Huppert's provocative collaboration Elle, France's Oscar submission (mild spoilers)

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments.

Nocturnal Elle's Halftime Walk

Sunday
Nov202016

Fantastic Box Office and Where To Find It... 

Where to find it? With franchises, naturally. Audiences are quite predictable that way.

Fantastic Beasts won the weekend easily and though it's opening wasn't really at the Harry Potter level it's got the Thanksgiving weekend coming up to make mountains of money to store in Gringotts to help fund further endless more installments. We'll never be free of Harry Potter. But, dear reader, I'm personally skipping this one. Those films just weren't my scene so unless this one also nets Oscar nominations I need a break; four years off wasn't enough! Among the other new films opening Edge of Seventeen and Bleed for This  failed to excite moviegoers landing toward the bottom of the top ten. Ang Lee's soldier drama experiment Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk had a disastrous wide expansion taking in less than 1 million dollars in its first weekend...

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Saturday
Nov192016

Oscar Trivia: "Arrival" and Best Original Score Eligibility

by Chris Feil

Like his Denis Villeneuve Sicario collaboration last year, Jóhann Jóhannsson's score for Arrival is powerful and one of the most memorable components of its film. One of the special aspects of Jóhannsson's work with Villeneuve is how his scores both embody and inform the thematic landscape of the film. The composer was Oscar nominated for his pulsing Sicario score and you can easily imagine him returning this year.

But before we guess too quickly, take stock of the moving final piece that plays over the film's finale because you may have heard it before. The gorgeous track, "On the Nature of Daylight", is actually by Max Richter and has been used in previous films like Shutter Island.

None of this is to discredit Jóhansson's terrifying and soulful work, but one wonders if such prominent and integral use of Richter's work could hurt the composer's nomination chances...

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