Links: Streep in Berlin, Tarantino in Hot Water, Garber at the Altar
Wednesday, October 14, 2015 at 12:15PM Oscars Cometh
Awards Daily Love and Mercy is pulling out all the stops for their Oscar campaign including Brian Wilson concerts
Twitter everyone is excited that Mad Max Fury Road is getting an Oscar campaign but most hits get this treatment even the ones that have no chance.
Academy Conversations Truth is on the campaign trail, too with this recent conversation in NYC. Pssst. I believe NY's BAFTA chapter also hosted a screening just last night at the theater I was in (though I was there for a different movie)
NYT Style "The Gonzo Vision of Quentin Tarantino" like Matt Damon before him he might do his latest Oscar campaign good by just shutting up. In this new profile he infuriates a lot of people with his anger about his racial criticisms of his work and even has the nerve to be chauvinistically condescending about Kathryn Bigelow's beating him at the Oscars
Look, it was exciting that a woman had made such a good war film..."
General Linkage
Variety WOW. Meryl Streep, who has never really been a film festival queen like some respected actors will be president of the Berlinale jury in 2016. It's her FIRST film festival jury. Naturally she starts at the top as president of an A list fest
AV Club on a fun new instagram movie/tv mocking account "Night Lotion" LOL
EW a roundtable with the creatives behind Aladdin for its Blu-ray release
TFE did you vote on our Aladdin inspired poll?
The Tracking Board collects all the recent Jennifer Lawrence news... which is a lot and frankly we don't have the strength this week. Can we talk about any other actress for a change? She doesn't even have a movie out right now. Can we at least wait for her to be in movie theaters again?
Gothamist Lena Dunham's next HBO series in development is called Max about magazines and second-wave feminism in the 1960s
Guardian Sir John Hurt's given the all-clear from doctors after his chemo for cancer. Yay!
Guardian in extremely confusing Hollyweird news Paramount is developing a remake of The Ten Commandments (1956). Didnt they notice all the money lost on the last one (Ridley Scott's Exodus)?
Vulture goes to the set of The Knick
NYT Playboy magazine will no longer feature nudity but tone down their pictorials to "suggestive"
EW want to be naked with Miley Cyrus and The Flaming Lips? Everyone gets naked (including the audience) for the video for "The Milky Milky Milk"
/Film on recent Marvel news - the biggest of which is that Hulk will co-star in Thor: Ragnarok
Playbill interviews the huge stage talent Danny Burstein. He is really remarkable on stage but has a low profile on film and TV. I was pleased to see him pop up recently in The Family Fang and Blackhat albeit in tiny roles. If only they were making great screen musicals and casting appropriately.
Pajiba collects the best tweets from the Democratic Debate last night. Some really funny ones here
Variety Julianne Moore lead Hollywood committee fighting for gun violence prevention
*throws rice*
Finally, congratulations to Victor Garber (Alias, Titanic, Argo,The Flash). He married his boyfriend of 16 years, the artist Rainer Andreesen this week. They eloped apparently. Photo via Rainer's instagram
Sing-Along to Go
Here's Victor Garber singing Elton John's "Last Song". Since nearly the entire cast of The Flash has beautiful musical theater voices, can we please get a musical episode? Pretty pretty please. I don't care if it has to be on an Alternate Earth.
Reader Comments (19)
Since Hollywood has seemingly lost the ability to make an entertaining Biblical picture it's crazy to keep trying. To return to the Ten Commandments well is even more misguided.
The 50's version isn't perfect but probably about the most entertaining movie to be gotten out of that particular piece of the Bible. Modern filmmakers apparently fail to understand that what comes between the big CGI generated set pieces has to be entertaining. For that you don't need the best actors available you need MOVIE STARS!! Charlton Heston wasn't much of an actor but he was a commanding screen presence so you bought him as Moses and he carried that movie. In fact subtle, low key acting would be all wrong for this type of film. Look at Anne Baxter she was a fine disciplined performer but she, and DeMille, were canny enough to know that the shaded work she did in All About Eve would never have fit Nefretiri.
Tarantino is becoming really obnoxious. The fact that he chooses to focus on Kathryn Bigelow and Selma illustrate how sexist he is. And combine the Selma comments with how he talks about the critics within the black community on Django, and seriously, he needs to shut up. It all reeks of ignorance and perceived superiority.
Tarantino is a douchebag in real life, but a good director. sigh
I don't really want to defend Tarantino, because he doesn't need it and who cares, but "it was exciting that a woman had made such a good war film" is pretty much the narrative that I remember from that awards season. Just sayin'.
Shouldn't we be celebrating the fact that there are still public figures like Tarantino not concerned about 'good PR' and just say what's on their damn mind, Oscar campaigns be damned. I may not agree with him but at least he's not a cookie cutter PR machine celeb.
So glad QT is not prolific.
Selma deserved an Emmy is the most offensive thing he said. He was simply discouraging and dismissive of Ava Duvernay as a cinematic voice.
What he said about Bigelow isn't sexist. A woman directed a sausage fest and was awarded for it.
Hulk in Thor: Ragnarok: They want to run down Ruffalo's contract. He might be appearing in Captain America: Civil War and is definitely appearing in both parts of Infinity War and this gets them to the end or near the end of his original contract. But it's also, unfortunately, highly improbable that a blood transfusion in his future, if you get my reference.
Speaking of that: let's overview the schedule changes.
Black Panther now February 2018. (Good, if only because it's a little earlier (makes sense, as the guy's already cast), but debatably tasteless. Still, let's grade this change a 7/10.)
Ant-Man and the Wasp slides in to July 2018. (On the gender equality stakes, this is good, but the dating leaves me sighing. Scott Lang is good as a bland, low risk, proof of concept, yes, and I think Rudd and Evangeline Lilly should still have a role in these, but it indicates a probability (not an impossibility: Batman Returns was somehow a June cinematic release, after all) that Marvel's plan probably involves avoiding an adaptation of Ant-Man's Big Christmas. Avoiding that story: 5/10. Embracing a version of that story with a new Ant-Man (Charlie Day as Eric O'Grady) and a new Wasp (Brie Larson as an un-aged Janet Van Dyne?): At least an 8/10.)
Captain Marvel falls back to March 2019. (Ooh. Pushing back the movie where the ONLY title character is female is a bit harsh. I'll cut SOME slack due to the character not being cast yet, but I'd say: 5/10. True anger should be reserved for it getting dropped completely.)
Victor Garber had that man laying next to him for 16 years?
*bows down*
Danny Burstein! He was so lovely when I saw him in Cabaret.
Thanks for sharing the Danny Burstein interview! I was a theater minor at UC San Diego (which has a surprisingly robust theater department), and he was a grad student there at the time and served as the TA in my acting class. He was a great guy, and it was been wonderful seeing his success. And, yes....more on TV and film!
Rami, that sort of logic is what got us Donald Trump leading the Republican polls.
That's great news about John Hurt.
Jestifer, it's this type of environment where people have to self censor all the time and couch their opinions so as not to offend that has led to the creation of the Donald Trump phenomenon. I don't agree with Trump on pretty much anything but I can understand his popularity at this moment in time in our culture.
Also Tarantino isn't running for office, and if his or Matt Damon's Oscar chances are hurt by what they say in the media and they are denied awards/ noms that should be based on merit ideally (I knew other factors weigh in to awards in reality) then well its a sad state of affairs.
OT: Agents of Shield isn't going to make it through to another season. (And Agent Carter is probably going to get cancelled as well.) Their first replacement for it as "ABC's spine of the MCU show" is to do a Damage Control show. Good choice. (It's a workplace comedy at a firm that rebuilds in the wake of superhero attacks. That'll be fun.) But if Marvel Cinematic Universe tied Network TV is going to continue, they ALSO need a "show" that has joint input and resources brought together from all three divisions: Network (meaning ABC) TV, Netflix TV, Film. This one will be for an anthology focusing on Marvel universe short hour long stories. I'm talking "Jen Walters in the hour or so before the transfusion", "adaptation of Fantastic Four #489: Inside Out aka 'A Very Arrogant Man Who Did Something Very Stupid'", "Katie Jarvis as Elsa Bloodstone pitching her monster hunting exploits as a form of nature documentary", "Punisher hunting Spider-Man" kind of stuff.
Smiley Virus and the Flaming Lips. I used to be a fan of the Flaming Lips but some of their recent antics with Miley and hanging out with some ultra-conservative individual has turned me off. Now they're touring with her...... they're dead to me now.
GET IT Victor Garber. Also yay for John Hurt!
When it comes to Tarantino - well, I have to say that I don't think he's ever done anything worth watching, Pulp Fiction included. I disliked it when it first appeared and time has only made me feel smug about my assessment. I try as hard as I can, but I cannot think of a redeeming feature of any Tarantino film, apart from a few songs. They mean nothing, they are poorly - almost randomly - directed, the actors have to rely on their own instincts (which often isn't enough) because the director obviously wasn't much help and couldn't spot a three-dimensional character in a pop-up storybook. He was a 12-year old with a camera; Django Unchained proved he is still a 12-year old with a camera but with more pocket money.
His view of human nature would be depressing, except that he hasn't quite understood that there's a 'human' part to it. He isn't challenging because everything he's done has been done before, and he isn't innovative because everything he's done has been stolen from someone else.
And what have you done in your life, Ringo Lam, the critic?
@ Marcello - So we have to qualify to have an opinion on Tarantino's work? What have you done with your life?