Homecoming: Season 1

By Spencer Coile 

With the recent wave of bona fide movie stars making their way to television, it should come as no surprise that someone as prolific as Julia Roberts would do the same. Her extensive career has proven time and again that she can master multiple genres, complex characters, and still be the best part of any ensemble (looking at you, August: Osage County).

That is what makes her performance in Homecoming, the latest Amazon Prime series from Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, all the more exciting. Based on the popular podcast that came before it, Roberts takes on the role of Heidi Bergman, previously played by Catherine Keener. Working for the Homecoming Transitional Support Center, Heidi’s job is to assimilate soldiers back into civilian life. However, unease and intrigue begins to set in, as Heidi soon realizes that her role is more sinister than she had initially thought...

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Podcast: El Angel, The Front Runner, Oscar's Screenplay Race

Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl talk new films and the Oscar race

Index (58 minutes)
00:01 The story of Gary Hart in The Front Runner starring Hugh Jackman
16:25 El Angel starring Lorenzo Ferro and Chino Darín which is Argentina's Oscar submission
27:22 Sidebar: My Fair Lady on Broadway
34:24 Best Adapted Screenplay: Bradley Cooper, Barry Jenkins, Gillian Flynn, Nicole Holofcener, Spike Lee, Armando Iannucci, Paul Dano & Zoe Kazan could all compete here but which of them will?
45:23 Best Original Screenplay: Roma, The Favourite and Green Book and...?
54:40 Beck claims he's recording a score for Roma... which has no score.

 References / Further Reading
• The horror of Beck's Tweet about Roma
• Chris's review of The Front Runner
• Foreign Language Film Submission Chart 
• Screenplays Oscar Chart

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? 

El Angel and The Front Runner

Soundtracking: "Let The Sunshine In"

by Chris Feil

Etta James’ “At Last” has to be one of the most cliched romantic song choices in the movies, diminished over the decades through overuse and reductiveness, its swooning sexual pull often taken for granted or sanitized in gauzed lensing. But leave it to an original like Claire Denis to capture the oft-revisited song with new ears.

With Let the Sunshine In, Denis delivers us her take on a romantic drama, with all of the structural turns outside of genre convention as she approached vampire films and science fiction alike. Instead of the kind of romcom story developments we expect to see in our stories of women struggling to find love, this film is turns that into a more expansive character study with Juliette Binoche as our protagonist Isabelle. It is essentially examining the desire to be in love as a state of being.

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Showbiz History: Network, Chicago, and Murphy Brown

7 random things that happened on this day (Nov 14th) in showbiz history

1941 Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion premieres. It reaps three Oscar nominations (including Best Picture) winning Best Actress for Joan Fontaine.

1976 Network, one of the most electric and prescient movies of all time, premieres in both LA and NY before a nationwide bow two weeks later...

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Happy 25th Anniversary to David & Michelle

Kelley and Pfeiffer, at the Golden Globes in January 1993One of Hollywood's greatest couples was married twenty-five years ago today, less than a year after they started dating. Shockingly for someone as private as La Pfeiffer, she took him to the Golden Globes (pictured above) less than two weeks after meeting him on a blind date!

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