Yes No Maybe So: Southside With You

Manuel here. Seeing as today seems to be the first day where New York City seems to have finally begun to embrace Springtime, it's no surprise I found myself lured by the warm, sunny vistas in Richard Tanne's first trailer for his Sundance flick Southside with You. The film follows the first date of an African-American couple in Chicago. Not just any couple, mind you. It's the Obamas' first date. That obviously raises the stakes though from the looks of it (and from the notices out of Sundance) the film still plays like a low-key romantic drama focused more on the couple's dynamics with a pair of eye-catching performances at its heart.

And so, let's put the trailer through our patented Yes/No/Maybe So format after the jump to see whether Tanne's film is ready for its close up.

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Review: Avengers 3 aka "Captain America: Civil War"

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad. It is reprinted here in a slightly expanded version.

Captain America and his man, the Winter Soldier

Poor Captain America. You know how it is. You’re frozen in a block of ice and when you wake up several decades later the world has gotten so complicated! Everyone you loved is dead except your 96 year old girlfriend with Alzheimers (Agent Peggy Carter) and your brainwashed homicidal boyfriend (Bucky/The Winter Soldier) who is totally ghosting you.

New friends are plentiful but also trouble. Either they have two faces (Black Widow/Agent 13) or they’re constantly vanishing for personal reasons (Thor/Hulk/Hawkeye) so you totally can’t rely on them.

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The Furniture: Joy's Emerald City of Home Shopping

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber on Joy, now available on DVD and Bluray

It seems impossible that production designer Judy Becker has only received a single Oscar nomination, if not supremely unfair as well. At the very least, she should have snagged a second nomination for Carol. Her resume includes such diverse triumphs as We Need to Talk About Kevin, Brokeback Mountain, Shame and I’m Not There, as well as a neat early credit as a set dresser on Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. And so it seems totally appropriate that Becker is the first production designer to merit a repeat appearance in 'The Furniture'.

Becker’s most fruitful collaboration has been with David O. Russell. She's worked on every one of his features since The Fighter and she earned her lone Oscar nomination for American Hustle. Her sets for Joy, particularly the charismatic QVC studio at the film’s core, are among the best design work of last year. They also make quite a one-two punch with Carol, Becker showing a remarkable affinity for the stylistic underpinnings of American shopping. [More...]

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Eddie to be Heard, Not Seen

Perhaps sensing that everyone will be sick of looking at him by the tail end of 2017 (what with the multiple Oscar nominated transformations, the actual Oscar, and that new Fantastic Beasts franchise), Eddie Redmayne will give his ginger mug a wee break from gigantification on the big screen. Instead he'll be leading the voice cast of Aardman's Early Man which just went into production for release in 2018. The best part of the news is that Nick Park will be directing and he's been absent from that particular chair for too long. (His last feature was 11 long years ago, the Oscar winning Curse of the Were Rabbit.)

You can pencil it in for a Best Animated Feature nomination right now (albeit two years from now) because Aardman has quite a track record of delights (sorry Flushed Away!). They've got a heavy shelf of awards to prove it including Oscar nominations for A Grand Day Out (1989) and A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008), The Pirates: Band of Misfits (2012), and Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015) and four Oscar wins via Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995), and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).   

Are you sick of looking at Eddie Redmayne yet or do you vow to never tire of that weird handsomeness?

I've Loved Kristin Scott Thomas So Long

Josh here to celebrate a very particular mother. It’s 'Girls Gone Wild' month at The Film Experience, so it seems appropriate to visit one of the best performances of the last decade with Kristin Scott Thomas in I’ve Loved You So Long. She plays Juliette, a mother who everyone views as a someone who went “wild” once, committing a murder. Despite her cool exterior, everyone is waiting for her to break again at any point. This was writer/directors Philippe Claudel’s directorial debut after an esteemed writing career, and the novelistic approach to his characters pays off well; Juliette's still waters run deep...

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