Oscar Isaac Joins Alex Garland's Annihilation, Not Even Most Exciting Part

One would be forgiven for thinking a movie called Annihilation sounds a little too close for comfort to a cataclysmic retread in the vein of Batman v. Superman. And if someone told you that all signs currently point to Oscar Isaac joining the cast, you’d politely let them know that they must be thinking of the also very loud sounding X-Men: Apocalypse, where he’ll join fellow motion captors and prosthetic prisoners Lupita Nyong’o, Josh Brolin, and Idris Elba in what sounds like the cell to be! in franchise jail. But no earplugs necessary, just your rapt attention, because Annihilation is writer/director Alex Garland’s follow-up feature to Ex Machina and a rousing science fiction thriller by the sound of it. Per Variety - not only is Isaac set to partner up for another dance with the director but join what is already shaping up to be the most promising and diverse fist pump of an ensemble for a 2017 release.

On second thought: maybe hold onto those earplugs. While no one can hear you scream in space, here on Earth the names “Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, and Gina Rodriguez” are enough to break the sound barrier. Annihilation, based on Jeff VanderMeer’s novel of the same name, tracks the expedition of a four-woman team charting a mysterious territory chocked full with deadly unknowns of both chemical and zoological varieties. Portman is set to play the biologist – whose husband (Isaac) may or may not be dead – while the other three top-tier actresses will gear up as an anthropologist, surveyor, and psychologist. Point me to the nearest fainting couch!

Where to begin. How about the mere fact that Black Swan, Amy Archer, Sam White, and Jane the Virgin are about to do a Mission Movie together that promises a journey into the unknown packed with scares and science? This could be the Ghostbusters of paranoid, alliance shifting, contamination adventure movies. Television’s brightest shining star, and reliably sharp eye of the storm, Gina Rodriguez is one big screen smash away from the boundless stardom she’s projected since before her Golden Globes speech. Tessa Thompson perfected the art of cool and detached authority in Creed and Dear White People, so she’s a no-brainer for this crew. And Isaac? He’s just the cherry on top of the sundae.

Which of this beloved quintet would you most want watching your back while on expedition?

Q&A: Artists in Movies and Uninspiring Best Pic Lineups

For this weeks Q&A I asked for an art theme to celebrate the joint birthday of Vincent Van Gogh and Francisco de Goya on this very day! So we'll start with a few art-focused topics before venturing to rando questions.

TOM: Which film about an artist (in any field of the Arts) that you were not particularly knowledgeable about made you want to see/hear the real work by that artist? 

I vastly prefer non-traditional biopics so I'm susceptible to stuff that piques curiosity rather than gives you a greatest hits. So I like bios like Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993). I have some problems with I'm Not There (2007) which is my least favorite Todd Haynes film but I respect the hell out of it conceptually. In terms of movies about painters I definitely became more interested in Francis Bacon after Love is the Devil (1998) and not just because of Daniel Craig in the bathtub! I already cared about Caravaggio before seeing Derek Jarman's Caravaggio but I hope people see that one, too. 

BRIAN: If you had to recommend a budding Cinephile a movie based on an artist, a work of art, or has artistic themes what would it be?

Hmmm. A lot of movies about painting aren't very good (Watching someone paint being only a notch more interesting than watching someone write). So let's do "artistic" theme and the answer there is easily Amadeus (1984). It's such a useful movie to reference in ways both commonplace ("too many notes!") and contemplative (what makes the difference between competent journeyman skill and true genius?). One of my other favorite "art" movies is High Art (1998)...

8 more questions after the jump

Click to read more ...

Patty Duke (1946-2016)

As I'm sure you've heard Patty Duke, the third youngest actor ever to win an Oscar (she was 16 when she took the industry's top prize for The Miracle Worker) and the former President of SAG, has died at the age of 69. Her birth name was Anna Marie Duke and by the time she was 14 she was already a famous thespian. She originated the role of blind and deaf Helen Keller in the hit Broadway play "The Miracle Worker". She and her Tony winning co-star Anne Bancroft both transferred over to the film version two years later to bring Helen Keller's incredible story to millions more. It really is a shockingly good movie, with two stellar performances, and it's devoid of the sentiments and easy comforts that you're expecting if you've only heard of it secondhand; that movie earns its "triumph of the human spirit" appeal. 

Photos, her son Sean Astin, and her charity work after the jump...

Click to read more ...

HBO’s LGBT History: Bessie (2015)

Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.

 Last week we looked at the grim, if necessary, doc Hunted: The War Against Gays In Russia which dove right into the ugly homophobic “hunting gays for sport” pastime which has been legitimized by a Russian government that, ahead of the Sochi Olympics, passed propaganda legislation that made it all but illegal to openly support and advocate for gay rights. This week, we’re turning our eyes to Dee Rees’s Bessie.

It’s a film that’s already been discussed quite a bit around these quarters. Angelica Jade Bastién wrote an in-depth review upon the film's release which, as she reminds us, “wonderfully explores the way black people relate to each other.” Anne Marie looked at it as part of her Women’s Pictures series, singling out the way queerness and blackness dominate the proceedings. I won’t rehearse their arguments because, frankly, I don’t think I could improve on their canny assessments of this ambitious film. Instead, I figure we could use the film to talk about the oppressively whitewashed LGBT representation that even a forward-thinking network like HBO cannot help but replicate.

Just as I was sitting down to write this piece, thinking that perhaps I was setting myself up for the usual cries of “ugh, another diversity article? Why must the PC police continue thumping that tired ass drum?” a mini-tweetstorm kerfuffle was taking place.

Click to read more ...

Links: The Beguiled, Real O'Neals, Celebrity Politics, and More

Let's try to cover everything we haven't mentioned lately (whew). The biggest and most obvious is that Sofia Coppola, whose plans to follow up Bling Ring with a live action Little Mermaid are no more, is now supposedly working on a remake of the Clint Eastwood romantic drama The Beguiled (1971). The film will star two darlings of TFE Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst. Plus Elle Fanning so Coppola already sold all the tickets to our crowd. The Clint role is as yet uncast.  They're said to be looking for a 'Chris Pratt' type but what this surely calls for is a watch of the original film to familiarize ourselves.

Let's do it together shall we? It's available on Amazon and iTunes so let's all watch it by April 8th or so and we'll discuss. Deal? 

Other News
• Playbill Julie Andrews will direct a 60th anniversary production of My Fair Lady this fall at the Sydney Opera House. Tell us how it is Aussie readers!
• Tracking Board Julia Roberts lines up another thriller Fool Me Once. Can she step off the thriller train please. She's always screaming. How about a romantic comedy revival?
• Coming Soon Naomi Watts joining Brie Larson in Destin Cretton's (Short Term 12) Glass Castle.  

• Coming Soon Kristen Wiig replaces Reese Witherspoon in Alexander Payne's next satire Downsizing
• Guardian Woody Allen's Cafe Society will open Cannes this year but what other premieres might we see there? 
• Comics Alliance First i'm hearing this but apparently April 26th is "Aliens day" and a bunch companies are going to be selling Aliens stuff, including Reebook who will be releasing replicas of Sigourney's hideous red white and black velcroed shoes from that 1986 classic
• Broadway Blog Aaron Sorkin's A Few Good Men getting the live TV treatment in early 2017 -- it's not just for musicals anymore
• /Film Channing Tatum's Gambit delayed yet again. Hopefully he'll realize soon he doesn't need to do it at all. I mean it'd be nice if ANYONE other than Leonardo DiCaprio stayed away from the superhero genre. Just for you know some variety in our top male stars
• BBC Hans Zimmer officially retiring from scoring superhero pictures after Batman v Superman 
• Cinematic Corner Speaking of. If you're not done hating on that movie read Sati's righteous fury about it. She points out something I didn't notice: Zach Snyder can't even do cameos right. He uses THREE of his Watchmen actors (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino) and I didn't realize that any of them were involved! 

i couldn't find a good video of this gay date scene but its adorbs

Recommended Reads 
• Towleroad an interview with Noah Galvin, the talented funny star of The Real O'Neals. Try this show if you haven't. It's a delight.
• MNPP Which is Hotter: Ed Skrein or Ed Skrein
• Mike's Movie Projector shares an excerpt from an old Joan Fontaine autobiography
• Film School Rejects on Superheroes needing a dash of silliness even in their "dark" outings 
• Interview talks to Sophie Okonedo about Broadway's revival of The Crucible. She plays Goody Proctor
• MNPP loved seeing Benjamin Walker in tighty whities for over an hour as Patrick Bateman in the Broadway musical version of  American Psycho and since Jason hates musicals that is more than enough recommendation for me who loves them. I hadn't yet realized that 

Can This Election Be Over Instead of 8 Months Away?
• Boy Culture agree with Matthew in this piece on Susan Sarandon's recent irresponsible political comments. I'm so ready for this election to be over and it's still 8 months away!
• Towleroad and icymi the genius Tony Kushner was a guest on MSNBC and discussed how baffling Sarandon has been about this (They're both heroes of my youth. I don't like it when mommy & daddy fight!)
• The New Yorker suggests that maybe Superman is Republicans and Batman is Democrats and now I just want to die rather than think about Batman v Superman for a second longer. DEATH TO INTERNET THINK PIECES ABOUT SUPERHERO MOVIES! (I'm suddenly dreading Captain America: Civil War and dreading a Captain America movie is not something I feel comfortable doing... at all. In other words: stop it internet!)