Thoughts I Had... While Staring at "Wonder Wheel" and "Tomb Raider" Posters

by Nathaniel R

Movie posters aren't everything. In fact, it's arguable that they do little to change whether or not someone wants to see a movie, at least not half as much as a trailer, commercial, or recommendation might. Still, there's a certain thrill in looking at them if you love movies. Reactions can vary all the way from amping up excitement about a movie you're already interested in, to puzzlement and pondering over how anyone in Hollywood marketing departments keeps their jobs. Every reaction inbetween those two poles happens, too.

So let's look at new posters for Wonder Wheel and Tomb Raider after the jump with unedited thoughts as they come. (Please to do the same in the comments!)

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Best Actress: The Shape of Sally. The Mouth on Frances.

by Nathaniel R

Sally says "Hi!" (I apologize profusively that my camera cut off her cute wave to all of you via this TIFF photo)It's getting hot up in the Best Actress race. The fall festivals have thrust a dozen or so women toward potential red carpet glory but how will time and general reviews and audience response and campaigning sort them out? It's nail-biting! At least until the first awards are handed out at which point things always narrow down too quickly.

But for now -- and it's early still (our annual refrain) -- it's appearing like it might be a battle between Sally Hawkins in The Shape of Water (which has won consistently strong reviews and the Golden Lion in Venice) and Frances McDormand who stars in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, the surprise winner of the Oscar bellwether "audience award" at TIFF. It's fun to think about the performances in tandem since Sally plays a literally mute woman and Frances a foul mouthed woman who will not be silenced...

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Beauty Break: TIFF Afterglow

TIFF documented their 2017 festival with a photo series of the stars of the screen. Take a moment out of your day to ogle at beautiful people in an artistic way.

Armie: Coat or cardigan?

Parts: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7

Soundtracking: "Across the Universe"

We're talking the 10th anniversary of Across the Universe in Chris Feil's weekly column on music in the movies!

Across the Universe came to the screens just as jukebox musicals were becoming especially grating on Broadway, but more of a curiosity for the big screen. The film promised stunning Julie Taymor-directed imaginative images set to a massive catalog from The Beatles - and delivered us something a bit more uneven than the creativity explosion that sounds like. Perhaps the high bar already set by invoking the biggest band in the history of popular music was an impossible goal, but the film does provide at least a fun reimagining for some of the best music of the century. A Beatles musical in any context? Yes please (with trepidation)!

The film plays best when it side-steps the plot in its musical sequences...

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Diane Kruger to Broadcast Hedy Lamarr's Hidden WWII History as Producer, Star of Miniseries

by Daniel Crooke

 Fresh off her Best Actress victory at this year's Cannes Film Festival for Fatih Akin's In the Fade (as well as Germany's official decision to submit the film as their Foreign Language Oscars play) Diane Kruger is out for revenge once more - this time, to rewrite the half-finished story of Classical Hollywood Cinema icon Hedy Lamarr for a new miniseries in which she plans to produce and star. Long defined by her immaculate beauty in films such as Samson and Delilah and Algiers, Lamarr's brains have shone a longer, even more luminous legacy on the modern world thanks to her penchant for invention. While ignored at the time, her work laid the bedrock for much of modern communication - including WiFi and Bluetooth...

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