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Episode something or other.... [cue link theme]

• Racked Titanic's necklace almost bankrupted a whole company!
• My New Plaid Pants geeking out over Ms. Laura Dern who spoke to NYC at the Film Society of Lincoln Center recently
• Deadline an interview with the great production designer Santo Loquasto on Wonder Wheel 
• Out Ryan Murphy's Boys in the Band Broadway Revival has cast a bunch of its players already and it's basically all the famous gays: Charlie Carver, Matt Bomer, Andrew Rannells, Zachary Quinto some of whom at least have stage experience.
• The Muse talks to Glenn Close who has some interesting things to say about gossip, Harvey Weinstein, and being an older actor in Hollywood

• Indie Wire on the multi-pronged creative casting efforts for The Florida Project
• Vanity Fair interviews Joe Wright of Darkest Hour, Atonement, Pride & Prejudice fame
• Variety the Roseanne reunion sitcom will start airing March 27th. Wheeee
• Mubi on the Berlinale lineup or February 2018
• / Film If you only think of Disney/Fox merger in terms of superheroes, you'll probably be overjoyed
• Vox remembering what might be 2017's signature movie scene "No Man's Land" in Wonder Woman
• Broadway World the cast of Cats posing with adoptable felines. Awww
• Variety that young JRR Tolkien biopic starring Nicholas Hoult has wrapped. Biopics aren't always Oscar favorites anymore but we shall see. 
• Film School Rejects looked at new releases of old movies on dvd: Election, China Moon and more
• Deadline TV/film producer Martin Ransohoff has died. Among his credits The Sandpiper, The Cincinatti Kid, The Beverly Hilbillies and Jagged Edge

Star Wars Time Again
• The Verge thinks Rogue One is about net neutrality
• /Film 10 the greatest female characters in the Star Wars universe (wait, there are ten?)
• Vanity Fair the plea for LGBT characters in the Star Wars movies and why they've been ignored

Exit Video
James Corden's Crosswalk the Musical welcomes The Greatest Showman's Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron

Chicago Loves Lady Bird. AAFCA Loves Get Out

The Chicago Film Critics Association was established in 1988. Last year they broke big for the three arguable top dogs with Oscar so their tastes, shall we say, align. This year there were only two clear favorites were Lady Bird (4 prizes) and Call Me By Your Name (3 prizes) with a surprise Director win for Christopher Nolan and Dunkirk. 

Chicago's winners and the African American Film Critics Association prizes are after the jump...

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9 Foreign Film Finalists for the Oscar Race

by Nathaniel R

"The Wound" from South Africa might be the biggest surprise on the finalist list.The Academy's foreign film nominating committees have whittled down the 92 contenders to 9. If you've forgotten or never heard the procedure it involves multiple volunteers watching a certain number of entries to be eliglble to vote on them. The top six films advance from those ballots and the executive committee chooses another three which makes the 9 finalists. Then a final committee watches the nine finalists and votes to determine the five nominations. We correctly predicted 7 of the 9 finalist (you can peak here though we'll be updating that chart to reflect the official standings shortly)

A Fantastic Woman directed by Sebastián Lelio for Chile
In the Fade directed by Fatih Akin for Germany
On Body and Soul Ildikó Enyedi for Hungary
Foxtrot directed by Samuel Maoz for Israel
The Insult directed by Ziad Doueiri for Lebanon
Loveless directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev for Russia
Félicité directed by Alain Gomis for Senegal
The Wound directed by John Trengove for South Africa
The Square directed by Ruben Östlund for Sweden MORE AFTER THE JUMP...

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In Context: The Contentious Making of "Frida"

by Ilich Mejía

The New York Times published an op-ed by Salma Hayek where she discloses how working with Harvey Weinstein, then head of Miramax, affected the production of her passion project Frida. The film, centered around the life of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, was released in 2002 with Hayek portraying the titular character. In the article, Hayek relates her refusals to Weinstein's inappropriate proposals (massages, showers, sex) to his explicit sabotaging of the film and its release. Up next, we contextualize five of Hayek's most poignant tellings of how Weinstein's ruthless power machine compromised the making of a promising film.

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"Ocean's Eight" Awaits

Chris here. While the world is continually bad, one of our sustaining mantras has been the promise of female ensemble heisting with Ocean's 8. The main refrain of this meditation / mindfulness exercise is obviously its stars - say their names with me and feel renewed: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Sarah Paulson, Mindy Kaling, Rihanna, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, and Awkwafina.

Well done.

We've got a new poster and a photo of the assembled crew to distract ourselves, but even this is just a hint of the fun to come (you can expect a trailer to come very soon, impatient readers). Bullock will be playing Danny Ocean's equally conning sister Debbie, so the opportunity remains for some fun crossover with Steven Soderbergh's trilogy. The film's big heist will take place during the Met Gala and juicy cameos should be expected. Ocean's 12 already made a "Julia Roberts pretending to be Julia Roberts" gag, but it would be amusing to revamp the bit here. Rihanna is queen of the Met Gala, after all.

But our new looks are decidedly less fussy than that red carpet extravaganza, with the poster giving us coats and shades mystique and the image below has the team mid-planning. What is Debbie Ocean's octad looking at in their projector? The endless news cycle? Something from the screener pile? The trailer they're keeping from us? Hmmmm.