Brian Dennehy, President of Saoirse Ronan's Fan Club

by Nathaniel R

No offense intended to the actual president of Saoirse Ronan's fan club (do fan clubs still exist?) but Brian Dennehy, who has been onscreen for my entire moviegoing life, is taking over. He just loves her. Since we love it when actors express non-generic a publicist could have written this admiration for other actors, we must share.

Dennehy was interviewed for The AV Club's fun series "Random Roles" in which they ask famous actors about specific roles in their careers without revealing beforehand which roles they'll be discussing. For Dennehy, it's an eclectic mix including Death of a Salesman (for which he won a Golden Globe), Rambo, Romeo + Juliet, Tommy Boy, She Hate Me, and more. When they get to The Seagull (2018), Dennehy just goes off on his admiration for three-time Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan.

He says...

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Ansel Elgort...is a Jet 'til his last dying day.

by Nathaniel R

The first casting announcement has hit for Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story: Ansel Elgort will play doomed romantic Tony, a sensitive white boy who falls for Puerto Rican Maria in the mean streets of NYC. Tony can't quite extricate himself from his friendships with local gang The Jets in order to live happily ever after. 

Elgort has definitely proved that he can move onscreen (Baby Driver was basically a musical without songs) and he sings, too. In fact he has already tried to start up a dual career as a singer and this might not be his only upcoming musical role as there was also talk of him headlining a Hans Christian Anderson bio earlier this year. But the West Side Story news will probably rankle a lot of people, if not me, because any remake of my favorite is suspect to begin with -- more after the jump...

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You Are My Link

• E News First look at Tom Hanks as Mr Rogers in You Are My Friend
• Variety Hugh Jackman getting the celebratory treatment at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, which has become such an Oscar stop to promote contenders, especially in the lead acting categories
• Film Comment Nick Davis, brilliant as ever, looking at some artful highlights from TIFF including Claire Denis High Life, Julianne Moore as Gloria Bell, and Rithy Panh's Graves Without A Name, a follow up to his earlier Oscar nominated doc

after the jump White Boy Rick, A Simple Favor, Alita Battle Angel, Sixteen Candles, Michelle Williams in Venom and Lee Pace as thirst trap...

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Beauty vs Beast: She's Got the Brainnnsssssss

Jason from MNPP here for another round of "Beauty vs Beast" and on a very special day at that - not only is today the first day of October, marking my favorite season of the year (the spookey season) but today is also the 50th anniversary of George A Romero's masterpiece Night of the Living Dead! There were "zombies" of a sort before NotLD came out - mostly folks put under "voodoo curses" or the like - but Romero refined the monster to its modern form and created billions upon billions of dollars for entertainment executives in the process. But nothing's gonna top the stark simplicity of that original 1968 nightmare.

Facing down the horde I was torn between choosing our hero Ben (the magnificent Duane Jones) or his leading (comatose) lady Barbra (Judith O'Dea) - I went with the latter because Barbra gets a bad rap if you ask me. Ben is the hero we'd like to be - Barbra is the we we're probably gonna be. People don't like to want to think we'd go into total shock in an apocalyptic situation but you know what? Watch your sibling get eaten by a strange man in a cemetery and get back to me.

web survey

PREVIOUSLY And speaking of siblings (and now I'm picturing a zombie rampage at the March house) last week's Little Women off brought the expected results, because Amy's awful, that little book burning witch, we hate her. Jo with 80-plus percent, huzzah! Said chasm301:

"Evil finds a human form in Amy March. Only Kiki stans are voting for her. But wow I love everything about this movie. I watch it multiple times a year. Winona is perfection and the score is one of my faves."

Prime in October: Pushing Daisies, Gods and Monsters, The Cell

Time to play Streaming Roulette. Each month, to survey new streaming titles we freeze frame the films at random places with the scroll bar and whatever comes up first, that's what we share. No cheating.  What does Amazon Prime offer us for free viewing this month? Let's survey...

Wasn't your old dog named Digby?

Pushing Daisies (Seasons 1 and 2)
In case you wanted something actually worth binge-watching. This series is so perfect, from its macabre plots, to its quirky romance, to its colorful design, through its curiously moving musical numbers. I miss it so much. Maybe we should watch the entire series again?

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