Links: Color Purple, Yuba County, and Rebel Wilson

Playbill very cool news. The tony winning The Color Purple musical will be adapted to screen. Smart of Cynthia Erivo to immediately focus on the screen following her Tony win for that show. Perhaps she can transfer the role now that she has a larger profile in the film industry?
Pajiba first photos of Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly offer an uncanny resemblance
Tod Phillips Joaquin Phoenix taking a smoke break on the set of The Joker
/Film Deadwood just began production on a movie with the TV series cast returning to their acclaimed roles

IndieWire held a little ceremony to honor some of this year's top film people: Charlize Theron, Amandla Stenberg, Ryan Coogler, and Alfonso Cuarón among them.
Tribeca Film Disobedience deserves a place in awards season
Variety Rebel Wilson in hot water after proclaiming (incorrectly) that she's the first plus size woman to lead a rom-com (if she had just admitted she was wrong, this wouldn't have blown up but for some reason she doubled down)
Variety Fun! Allison Janney and Laura Dern will be co-starring in a comedy called Breaking News in Yuba County for director Tate Taylor (The Help)
Awards Daily Best Song Oscar-winner Annie Lennox wrote a new tune for A Private War
Into on the erasure of both polyamory and bisexuality in Bohemian Rhapsody
Humanizing the Vacuum perceptive review of Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Showbiz: Norma's Win, Gwyneth's Breakthrough, and Sam Rockwell's 50th

10 random things that happened on this day (Nov 5th) in showbiz history...

1930 The 3rd annual Academy Awards are held for films released between August 1, 1929, and July 31, 1930... they hadn't yet settled on the easier full calender year system. The anti-war masterpiece All Quiet on the Western Front took Best Picture and Norma Shearer, the First Lady of MGM, won Best Actress for scandalous pre-code classic The Divorcée (which you really should see).

1935 Parker Brothers launches board game classic "Monopoly". Remember when Ridley Scott was going to do a movie version? That was so weird...

Click to read more ...

Podcast: Bohemian Rhapsody and the Best Actor Race

Nathaniel R, Murtada Elfadl and Chris Feil talk new films and the Oscar race

Index (65 minutes)
00:01 Bryan Singer's Bohemian Rhapsody, homophobic storytelling, and cat reaction shots
10:25 Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, the limits and strengths of the performance
14:08 The Best Actor race: Bradley, Ethan, Viggo, Willem, and Rami? Plus floundering campaigns for First Man and The Front Runner and the default possibilities of Vice? 
35:00 Lucas Hedges in both Ben is Back and Boy Erased
37:30 Boy Erased in general, Nicole & Russell's fine parental performances, and a bit of The Miseducation of Cameron Post on the side 
50:30 Recent DVDs: Mamma Mia 2, Leave No Trace, Skate Kitchen, and Sorry to Bother You
55:55 Return trips to both A Star is Born and BlacKkKlansman
01:02:00 Can You Ever Forgive Me? afterglow and Wildlife fade?

References / Further Reading
• Nathaniel's review of Bohemian Rhapsody
• Best Actor Chart 
• Murtada on Carey Mulligan
• Jorge's Mamma Mia obsession

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Bohemian Erased

Does Box Office Matter to Best Actress Hopefuls?

by Nathaniel R

Helen Mirren's The Queen was in many ways a completely standard win... a solid success before the nomination and an even bigger hit afterwardsDoes Box Office matter to Oscars? It does and it doesn't. And how much it matters varies from year to year and from category to category. It obviously matters, regardless, if you're either a flop or a big hit but anything inbetween (where most movies fall) is up for speculative debate.

For instance, just this year people have debated whether The Wife's box office take is strong enough for a Best Actress nomination for Glenn Glose (hint: it totally is... though winning will be harder) and whether it will matter that Roma won't really have that much of a theatrical presence (it might. it might not. The streaming only/mostly thing is relatively uncharted territory) or if the major success of A Star is Born will make a win possible for Lady Gaga (it won't hurt!)

For fun let's look at how much the Best Actress nominees films made before they were nominated for the past fifteen years and see what patterns emerge. The films in red won Best Actress Oscars.

BOX OFFICE RANK OF BEST ACTRESS FILMS
BEFORE THE NOMINATIONS (2003-2017)
AND WHERE THIS YEAR'S LEADING ACTRESSES CURRENTLY FIT...

Click to read more ...

Review: Bohemian Rhapsody

The review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

‘C’mon Gay Shame!’ That’s what we imagine the movies are shouting at us right now, spirits ablaze and fingers snapping. Though it’s surely a coincidence, the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody (‘yaaas, Queen’?) and the gay conversion therapy drama Boy Erased have arrived simultaneously. This accidental double feature is a double closeted whammy. 

It’d be wonderful to report that they’re both worth seeing, but only one might rock you. And it isn’t the one with the famous “we will we will rock you” chorus. But more on Boy Erased later since it’s just beginning a platform run on 5 screens and will be expanding as awards season heats up. Bohemian Rhapsody, on the other hand, is opening wide on 4,000 screens and hoping to fill them like Queen filled stadiums…

Click to read more ...