August. It's Nearly a Wrap
Monday, August 29, 2016 at 1:44PM The eighth month of the year is -- we've reached the final third of 2016 already? That was quick. Fall film season here we come. Summer was dreadful for movies unless you were smart and caught platform releases like Little Men, The Fits, Captain Fantastic, Morris From America, Disorder instead of the big budget spectacles. In fact, 2016 is shaping up to be a very rough year for mainstream cinema which could make the Oscars disastrous if they don't get creative and look further afield than they're usually prone to. We shall see.
This past month we've been celebrating 1984 for the Smackdown (coming your way Wednesday) but here are some other highlights in case you missed any.
8 Favorites
• The Art of Disavowing Your Film No, Jared Leto, no.
• The Lobster's Phony Flowers another great episode of The Furniture
• Beauty vs Beast Bridesmaids Wiig or Byrne. Tough choice, right?
• That time Oscar loved Tarzan Revisiting the grand Greystoke
• Judy by the Numbers Judgement at Nuremberg -a different kind of singing
• Florence Foster Jenkins off-tune fuss & fun
• Q&A Gender and the Oscars Plus Streep
• Sausage Party buns, dogs, filth, and stereotypes
8 That Spurred the Most Conversation
• Cast This: Clue Yes, they're making another movie from the game
• 1984, Year of the Heroic Farm Wives Sissy & Jessica & Sally
• Posterized: Woody Allen How many have you seen?
• Posterized: Natalie Portman How many of her films have you seen?
• Best Films of the 21st Century? That BBC List
• Monty (RIP) The Film Experience's beloved cat pundit has passed away
• 198 Oscar Performaces Ranking the Nominees (2000-2009)
• 120 Oscar Performances Ranking the Nominees (2010-2015)
Coming in September
• Festival Season! Nathaniel leaves for Toronto real soon
• Emmy Awards
• 1963 is Our "Year of the Month": Tom Jones, The Sword in the Stone, Lilies of the Field, I Could Go On Singing, and more...
• BluRay: A Bigger Splash, The Conjuring 2, and Civil War revisits coming your way
• New Releases: Bridget Jones's Baby, Sully, Miss Peregrine, The Queen of Katwe, The Dressmaker, Magnificent Seven, and many more
ANY REQUESTS?
Reader Comments (8)
I'd really like to know how you go about planning for Toronto?
Do you have a full schedule planned before you go, or is there room to discover movies that hadn't even crossed your mind before you leave?
BJT -- i write up a full jampacked weeklong schedule before i leave but due to the nature of press & industry screenings (not traditional tickets) and premiere and party invites and such there are ways to adjust throughout the 10 days to chase a particularly interesting title that people are talking about or to meet friends or industry people or what not. And some titles always drop off because I do not function well at all seeing 5 movies a day. That's too many for me so they end up blurring together or my eyes hurt. I wish I could handle that many (some people do) but i know myself and i can only do that once or twice during a festival.
So it ends up being 3ish movies give or take it all depends on how far behind i get on writing and whether key industry things get in the way. and how long my body/eyes/mind holds up. etcetera
Requests? As in requests for September?
Well, the world needs more love for Margaret Rutherford, so I would love to read a longer article from you on her - as in: more than just a write-up of her Oscar winning performance as part of the smackdown. (Her performance in 'The V.I.P.s' is good, but admittedly it is not even the best performance by a supporting actress in the movie - that would be Maggie Smith's - and it is certainly not hands-down best performance of her career.)
Margaret Rutherford must be the most huggable person to have ever appear in the movies. I love this woman to tiny bits and pieces, I love every performance I've ever seen from her (in my universe, she's a three-time Oscar winner with an additional three nominations, the standouts being Madame Arcati in 'Blithe Spirit', her Miss Marple that even delighted Agatha Christie herself despite being nothing like the character in the novels, and her one scene in 'A Countess from Hong Kong', which is the only reason to watch this movie in the first place), and considering her unconditional support for her protegé Dawn Langley Simmons (which should make her among other things one of the earliest champions of the LGBT community), she must have been a great human being, as well.
Wow, I missed that Jared Leto // Suicide Squad item.
It's pathetic that Leto is behaving this way AFTER he won an Oscar. It's like he's trying to cram 20 years of missed opportunities (to establish himself as a serious actor) into two, three years? He's not exactly Brando. He's lucky to have had one successful, easy charge at winning an Oscar. And he has the statuette to prove it. This revamp of Leto's reputation is as rushed as his performance in Suicide Squad.
Jared Leto is missing an integral chip, but he more than makes up for looking like that.Dayum!
Posterized Retro Molly Ringwald or Martha Plimpton please.
Best performance lists for the 1990s and 1980s. A phone call or two.
Mom -- cute