The Link and I

Link time. Here we go...

Screen
/Film Deadpool 2 and X-Men Dark Phoenix have both wrapped, both due in 2018
/Film Turns out Beyoncé was offered Plumette before Gugu in the recent Beauty & The Beast movie. Insane that they offered Beyoncé a teensy part when Belle was right there. WTF, Bill Condon?
Coming Soon Gong Li will lead Martin Campbell's next thriller Ana -- the tone is said to be similar to La Femme Nikita.  We'd be super excited because Gong Li is always welcome in leading roles but Campbell's new one The Foreigner with Jackie Chan isn't exactly winning raves
Film Society Helen Mirren named as the honoree at next spring's Chaplin Award Gala in NYC. Robert De Niro was the honoree earlier this year

 

Into Todd Haynes talks about Wonderstruck and about meeting with Barbra Streisand to talk Gypsy !!!
Variety it's official The Current War has moved to 2018 as the Weinstein Company sorts itself out
Tracking Board Sandra Bullock's Netflix thriller Bird Box casts Patti Cake$' breakout Danielle Macdonald 
Variety Alfonso Cuarón talks about the Lumière festival, The Shape of Water, his new Mexican film Roma his first since Y Tu Mama Tambien
Coming Soon the young cast of those four Avatar sequels hit Disney World (only one of them is playing a human character). 

Page Turners
The Guardian Tom Hanks has written a book of short stories
NPR there's a new book out on the ultimate screen classic Casablanca

Stage 
Playbill Sir Ian McKellen will provide the voice of the demon in a new stage adaptation of The Exorcist
Playbill Kelli O'Hara likely to reprise her Tony winning performance in the West End production of The King and I next summer in London
EW Whoopi Goldberg & Maggie Gyllenhaal to star in a Damn Yankees concert, how fun!

More Sexual Harassment Stories
NYT Sarah Polley on the switch she felt moving from actress to director in terms of respect
Variety Eva Green has joined the chorus of women who have awful Weinstein stories to tell
BBC Woody Allen reacts to the Weinstein allegations
TFE Björk's harassment story (in case you missed it)
Boy Culture model/actor Ronnie Kroell speaks about how harassment happens to men in Hollywood, too. There are gay Weinsteins out there

and something a little lighter to end with...
Medium a hack for men (using The Rock as a mental example) who dont want to be accused of sexual harassment

Congratulations to Fassy & Vikander?

By Nathaniel R

Sadie Sadie... Married Lady?

Rumor has it that Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender, who've been dating for about three years, were married Saturday at a hush-hush ceremony in Ibiza...

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NYFF: Sing For Me, Lady Bird

by Jason Adams

Have you ever gone back to visit the school you went to as a little kid and realized how small it all looks now? I think we've all had that moment - you walk down the hallway feeling like Godzilla; you'd have to get on your hands and knees to use the drinking fountain. And yet as goofy as it seems - and depending on your experience filled with conflicting emotions as it may be - it pulls at you anyway, yanks at your heart. It is part of you. The pictures might've gotten small but they have crawled inside and curled up and they're not going anywhere.

Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird - that is her given name; she gave it to herself - thrums with that strange and bittersweet nostalgia...

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What did you see this weekend?

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office (October 13th-15th)
W I D E 800+ screens	L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide
1. 🔺 HAPPY DEATH DAY  $26.5 new	1.🔺 THE FLORIDA PROJECT $401k on 33 screens (cum. $623k) REVIEW 1, REVIEW 2
2. BLADE RUNNER 2049 $15.1 (cum. $60.5) REVIEW | SHORTS | "BESTS"	2. TIL DEATH DO US PART $319k on 400 screens (cum. $3.2)
3. 🔺 THE FOREIGNER  $12.8 new	3. THE STRAY $300k on 430 screens (cum. $1.2)
4. IT  $6 (cum. $314.9) REVIEW | 5 TAKEAWAYS	4. A QUESTION OF FAITH $155k on 228 screens (cum. $2.1)
5. 🔺  THE MOUNTAIN BETWEEN US $5.6 (cum. $20.5) REVIEW	5. 🔺 AMERICAN SATAN $132k on 55 screens new
6. AMERICAN MADE  $5.4 (cum. $40.1)	6. 🔺 MARK FELT $123k on 89 screens (cum. $257k)
7. KINGSMAN 2  $5.3 (cum. $89.6)	7. STRONGER $115k on 174 screens (cum. $4) REVIEW
8. LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE  $4.3 (cum. $51.5)	8. JUDWAA 2 $110k on 106 screens (cum. $1.4)
9. MY LITTLE PONEY  $4 (cum. $15.5)	9. 🔺 GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN $55k on 9 screens new
10. 🔺 VICTORIA & ABDUL  $3.1 (cum. $11.3) REVIEW	10. HUMAN FLOW $47k on 3 screens new
🔺 = new or significant expansion numbers (in millions unless otherwise noted) from box office mojo

It was a rough weekend for awards hopefuls that weren't named Victoria & Abdul. Dame Dench's new vehicle moved into the top ten in its fourth weekend when it finally went wide. Other movies seeking adult audiences had a rougher go of it. The biopics Marshall and Professor Marston & The Wonder Women both opened outside of the top ten despite plentiful screens. (I took in Professor Marston and though it's a niche subject, it's surprisingly good with yet another excellent performance from the ever reliable Rebecca Hall.) More biographical awards hopefuls Goodbye Christopher Robin and Breathe also failed to attract much interest in their platform debuts. It's a tough world out there for non-genre titles that would like adults to go to the movies again!

The weekend's best per screen averages went to the documentary Human Flow and A24's The Florida Project which added 29 screens in its second weekend. WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND?

NYFF: "First Reformed" and "Let the Sunshine In"

by Murtada

First Reformed
A middle aged priest in crisis sits down with a young man suffering from his own disillusionment with the status of our current world. Once the pleasantries are done with and the futility of existence and our doomed world become the topic of conversation, the alarm sirens start going off. It took the audience at the New York Film Festival screening a few moments to realize that the sirens are not part of the movie unfolding, but an actual false fire alarm asking us to vacate the cinema.

That’s how deeply engrossing Paul Schrader’s First Reformed is...

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