Links: Letitia, Lists, Lady Gaga, and 'Live-Action' Remakes
Sunday, December 30, 2018 at 2:00PM • Slate a rant about Vice's insulting post-credits sequence. A *lot* of people really hate Vice. Will that stop the Academy from voting for it? The studio controlled the conversation for a long time with the embargo and it built up real awards steam. We shall see.
• Cartoon Brew looks into Disney's weird stance about their Lion King remake. They keep saying "it's not animated" but we all know it is!
• /Film the live action remake of Japanese hit Your Name will be 'Americanized'
• Deadline Dame June Whitfield of Absolutely Fabulous fame has died at 93
• Into the Spider-Verse the screenplay is online if you're interested
• Vulture a survey and exploration of what Asian-American art meant this past year featuring Burning, Crazy Rich Asians, Searching and more...
• The Atlantic has a series of articles called "And Scene" that's worth checking out zeroing in on great scenes from the year
• Coming Soon supposedly Bird Box had the best first week of all time for views on Netflix but the company is still totally cagey about stats and numbers so it's hard to trust. We don't even know what counts as a view really - did you have to finish watching it for example?
• The Root Letitia Wright crowned box office queen of 2018 (it helps to be in the top two grossers of course)
• Vulture "horror is not defined by what scares you"
• MovieWeb More news on what Disney+ streaming service is planning (i.e. tons and tons of Marvel shows)
List-Mania
• IndieWire 52 directors choose their favorite films of the year. This is a good read and the variety of titles cited is noteworthy, reminding you more than critics lists have how different each person's experience of cinema in a particular year can be.
• Cinemablographer chooses 20 best performances of the year and Nicole Kidman makes the list twice! Some unusual picks here but thankfully no category fraud!
• Furious Cinema top 20 of the year, in no particular order featuring Suspiria, Spider-Verse, and more
• Jesse Knight best movie taglines of 2018 beginning with... Dog Days (lol!)
• Vulture 10 best podcasts of 2018
• The Guardian Mark Kermode's top 10 list with BlacKkKlansman, Leave No Trace...
• Vulture 10 best film scores of 2018
Exit Video
Lady Gaga performs inside a mecha-robot in her new Las Vegas residency show "Enigma"
I’m gonna be thinking about this for a few days... the POWER... #ENIGMA pic.twitter.com/4Yj9orazre
— LG Updates (@LadyGagaVegas) December 29, 2018
Reader Comments (26)
Gaga is wonderful. The Oscar(s) is coming.
VICE pissed me off more with their cutesy mid film end credits takeout.
Hated the editing as well. This movie was all over the map
*fakeout
I hope the wave of “Vice” hate keeps cresting - it’s an outlandishly busy but utterly empty vessel of glib, vague, condescending horseshit. Bale is fine in an artfully artificial performance, but he can’t add a soul to a soulless enterprise. A few gambits work (I loved the fakeout credits), but most don’t (the narrator, Alfred Molina, that terrine Shakespeare gag), and it’s hard to pinpoint a film in my memory that has more disdain for your intelligence - it sinks below preaching to the choir, shouting and flailing with very little to say that you don’t akready know, though, boy, it presents itself like the second coming. I want Amy Adams in the winners circle as much as anybody, from way back, but she shouldn’t even be at the ceremony for this one. If this gets rubberstamped in major categories, I... I just don’t know.
*terrible
"Some unusual picks here but thankfully no category fraud!"
So, you're accepting Rachel Weisz is supporting in The Favourite (I haven't seen it so I don't know, but so far you've been calling category fraud on that one)?
Nat, I don't know if you know this but those 'And Scene' articles on The Atlantic are written by David Simms, host of the podcast 'Blank Check' where he mentioned following this site's Oscar predictions as a teenager (I think it may have been on their 'Brokeback Mountain' episode but I can't guarantee it). When listening I remember thinking it was a strange symbiosis of my online habits.
So you really liked Letitia Wright (the brilliant inventor) and Danai Gurira (the warrior general) in “Black Panther” and thought they were really good? You are absolutely right!
Letitia Wright is now acting on the London stage at the Young Vic in a play by playwright/ actor Danai Gurira, called “The Convert”.
Reviews for Gurira the playwright:
- “meticulous, gripping, and emotionally devastating drama” (Time Out)
- “provocative intelligence” (The Guardian)
- “modern classic”
Reviews for Wright the actor:
- “superb” (The Stage)
- “captivating” (The Guardian)
- “incredibly moving” (Hollywood Reporter)
- “stunning on-stage vocal performance” (Metro)
Lady Gaga as a giant robot. Everyone else right now.... try and top that.
Richter Scale -- oh well, if someone makes one error I have learned to let it go. And Rachel is closer to a borderline than Emily Blunt or Thomasin McKenzie or Emma Stone (who are all so leading role it hurts that people are even making arguments) so I'm not going to get all worked up.
For all ABFAB fans the passing of June Whitfield is not unexpected (93 yrs old) but still sad. A devastatingly good actress who knew how to get more out of one line than anyone. She was in her 70's when she joined up with Jennifer Saunders, that's a great last act.
I don't know...I kinda loved the end credits scene for Vice. Felt it was the filmmakers making fun of themselves a bit.
My favourite June Whitfield line on Ab Fab:
Edina: There's a thin person inside of me just waiting to get out.
Mother: Just the one, dear?
Other thing about Vice...it is flawed (voiceover a big part of that), but spare me the whining about McKay condescending to his audience i.e. voters.
News flash, Russian hijinks or not, 2016 proved one thing more than anything: American voters aren't very bright.
They are all Leads in The Favourite but arguments can be made for making a supporting actress out of Wiesz but Stone and Coleman are Leads as Betty Gabriel says in Get out "No No No".
Blunt may get in for supporting but not in Lead,has anyone entertained that scenario,opening a spot for Kidman,Pike,Theron etc to sneak in.
Disney should call their pointless "Lion King ' remake what it is - just an excuse to make money.
I really really really want to love Kidman’s
performance in Destroyer. I want to join all her admirers
on this site. I onlylove 3 of
her performances up til now: To Die For,
The Rabbit Hole and The Others. And YES I have
Seen most all of her movies because my husband likes her.
For me Letitia Wright is still the girl from Cucumber
About Bird Box which I did not really enjoy, I guess the number of times people streamed it and not how many finished watching it is what matters. I mean, I walked out of the movie theatre several times and I was not refunded. Don’t you think it works the same way, Nat?
I read the entire directors lists on indiewire and I love that...
ROMA, Shoplifters and The Favourite made almost all lists;
A star is born just appear in one list;*
Blackkklasman and Black Panther only appear in five lists;*
Suspiria, Ready Player One, The Rider, Leave no Trace and You Were Never Really Were appear more than expected!
*Let's all be frank: there is an abyss between the director way of love and watch a movie and critics way of doing it. Seeing this three movies not appear as we think they could be is the proof that they are ok/mediocre works who are being awarded and praised only because of the star powers behind and in front of them. What a shame to the awards industry! SHAME!!
Another Americanized live action anime adaptation. Thanks, I hate it.
David Simms is great. I have been trying to catch up on back episodes of Black Check over the holidays. I only started listening to the podcast about a year ago, but it quickly became one of my favorites. They have just started their season on Tim Burton, which will motivate me to watch the few early Burton films I haven't seen (I'll listen to the episodes about the recent Burton films but I have no desire to watch the recent Burton movies I haven't seen - ugh). I have to watch Lust, Caution before I listen to that episode as well. The Jack, I believe you are correct, they do discuss TFE in the Brokeback episode.
I'm so happy that my instincts about Vice were dead on and it's proving to be the POS I was sure it would be.
FYI: Netflix counts a ‘view’ as having been at least 70% watched. And of the 45 million views, 16 million were in the U.S.
Just visited IMDB and the conservatives are giving VICE one star reviews. I am pretty sure they never saw the film and are just venting. Some of them just attacked President Obama. I think the conservative members of the Academy ie. Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Vince Vaughn etc will not vote for it. But are there enough liberal members willing to vote for it? We will have to wait and see.
Re: the Cinemablographer piece not having any category fraud: but Portman is a lead! So is Weisz, if you ask me. (Love the Carmina Martinez mention though!)