More Early Looks at "Beauty And The Beast"

Chris here with more early looks at next year's live action Beauty and the Beast revamp.

While we've only had the briefest of glimpses at what's in store for Disney's next reimagining/bastardization (potato, potahto) of a favorite, we have already been given enough to incite both excitement and dread. However, what the trailer was missing was any kind of hint of how the characters might visually borrow or differ from the original animated masterpiece. Now it looks like we'll be getting a little of both...

Yep, that's Dan Stevens as the transformed Beast in human form giving a very literal interpretation of the open-chested flowy frock of the original. But the design of Lumiere and Cogsworth (voiced by Ewan McGregor and Ian McKellen) is, shall we say... certainly different - any concerns of reliance on CGI will not be abated by this reveal. Whether the film will take the approach of "more is more" (Cogsworth is walking filigris) or "less is less" (human Beast wasn't so modest, Mr. Stevens) is still to come.

What do you think of the character design? Would you rather see the characters close to the original or an entire new take?

Stream This: Young Adult, Saved!, Weiner-Dog, and more...

It's that time again. Let's look at what's new to streaming on Amazon Prime this month, by random screengrabs wherever the scrolling bar drops us in the movie...

Oh Mary, please don't tell me you're a lesbian."

Saved! (2004)
I've never seen this Christian high school movie but given how often its devout fans bring it up or quote it perhaps I should? 

Please help us...

Interview with the Vampire (1994)
Don't do it, Brad! Kiki is BIG TROUBLE even though she comes in a tiny cute package. 

six more movies after the jump...

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Derek Cianfrance: the Now and the Next

by Josh Forward

Derek Cianfrance, the man who made cinema fans everyway sit bolt upright with excitement at his stunning debut Blue Valentine is about to release his third feature The Light Between Oceans. Both films, and his second, the multi-generation epic The Place Beyond the Pines, show his preoccupation with the dark intricacies of doomed romances and families pouring out into gripping cinema. His talent with actors is evident again: Reviews are mixed to positive for the film overall, but leads Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander, along with supporting player Rachel Weisz are all solidly praised.

Opening wide and based on a popular novel, this is Cianfrance's first dalliance with what could be considered a "mainstream" film. As much as his cinematic fascination with the mucky and the unflinching darkness in human nature can be mainstream at least. But it does have a more traditional narrative and sweeping landscapes to match. The words "sentimental" and "soap opera" are even being bandied around.

His next project, announced this week, may prove a progression of this trajectory. It's another literary adaptation, this time of S.C. Gwynne’s “Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History". The scale of the story is epic, and it could be his biggest movie yet. Although this is a story without tortured lovers (at least as its driving force), when Cianfrance discusses it, it still sounds firmly in his wheelhouse...

The passing of the torch, passing of pain, and decisions, and the ripple effect of decisions".

The same quote could easily be said about The Place Beyond the Pines.

This film has taken a long journey to screen. A screenplay based on the same book was developed in 2010 by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry, the Oscar winning screenwriters of Brokeback Mountain. This would have been their first film since that masterpiece in 2005, but this adaptation appears to have nothing to do with this development, with the script written by Cianfrance himself with his Pines co-writer Darius Marder over the last three years. It's a shame we won't see another script yet from current one hit wonders McMurty and Ossana, but Cianfrance has certainly earned his auteur stripes and screenwriting chops. 

No actors have been attached yet, but cross all fingers and toes that some great Native American actors find representation on our screens.

September Means We're Not So Far From Heaven

If you've been melting from the heat all summer, the thought of orange foliage and fallen leaves sweeping in the wind feels as welcome and cozy as a smart headscarf and sensible jacket. And now that sweltery August has thankfully come to a close, let's pretend like autumn's official kick-off isn't a couple of weeks away and start celebrating at the stroke of September - shifting weather patterns, ignored.

Without reservation, the first film that comes to mind when I think of fall is Todd Haynes' other magnificent 50s-set melodrama Far From Heaven. Away from the stuffy judgment of suburban social mores, Cathy Whitaker escapes from her plastic shackles and finds that seasons change swifter in nature and far more beautifully than they do around the cul-de-sac. Thankfully, the camera is under the trees with her.

Which movies instantly transport you into the sweater-draped headspace of the autumn months?

Smackdown '84: Glenn Close, Dame Peggy, Lahti, Crouse, and Page

Presenting the Supporting Actress Class of '84. The Academy looked way back in time for this vintage collecting characters from the 1920s through the 1940s: a British senior on an excursion to see "the real" India, a Depression era beautician, the ex-girl of a ballplayer, and a former singer working in a factory during World War II. The sole contemporary character was a chain-smoking furious mother from Greenwich Village...

Glenn Close and Geraldine Page were the regulars... about to lose again!

1984 
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN  

THE NOMINEES: The 1984 Supporting Actress list skewed more mature than usual. Lindsay Crouse, surely buoyed by the love for Best Picture player Places in the Heart, and the promising new star Christine Lahti who was the least familiar face to moviegoers at the time, were the youngest, both in their mid 30s. Glenn Close, on her third consecutive nomination in the category, and Geraldine Page with a surprise seventh nomination from a long and revered acting career, were the "names" of the category... and they were both about to lose again - this time to the stage actress Dame Peggy Ashcroft who had only rarely made films. 

Shut-Outs: There was very little consensus about supporting actresses beyond Ashcroft & Lahti who fought it out for the critics awards...

BAFTA & Globe nominees that failed to make the Oscar cut were many: Melanie Griffith (Body Double), Drew Barrymore (Irreconciliable Differences), Kim Basinger (The Natural), Lesley Ann Warren (The Songwriter), Tuesday Weld (Once Upon a Time in America) and Jaqueline Bissett (Under the Volcano); Other key women that voters could have chosen that year: Sigourney Weaver (Ghostbusters), Elizabeth Berridge (Amadeus), Polly Holliday (Gremlins), Sabine Azéma (who won the NBR for A Sunday in the Country), Holland Taylor (Romancing the Stone), Sharon Stone (Irreconciliable Differences), Dianne Wiest (Falling in Love), Amy Madigan (Places in the Heart) and Lonette McKee (The Cotton Club) 

THIS MONTH'S PANELISTS

Here to talk about the nominees are our panelists: Sheila O'Malley (The Sheila Variations), Noah Tsika (Assistant Professor of Media Studies at Queens College, CUNY and author of "Nollywood Stars"), Joe Reid (Decider.com), Nick Davis (Associate Professor of English and Gender & Sexuality Studies at Northwestern and author of "The Desiring Image") and your host Nathaniel R (The Film Experience).

And now it's time for the main event... 

1984 

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