Five Lessons Learned from Valerian

By Spencer Coile 

Although Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is not particularly good (see Dan's review), it is at least somewhat fascinating. Luc Besson's world-building is admirable if bloated, and there is definitely a lot of thought behind the action. It would be easy to detail all of the film's shortcomings but instead, let's talk takeaways.

Five Notes on Valerian

01. Laureline really knows Valerian's name
You could turn the number of times Laureline says Valerian's name in one scene into a very dangerous drinking game. In every line she utters she repeats his name in case we've forgotten it or the film's title. The film's title was initially Valerian and Laureline and was later changed to Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. It's not enough that the demoted Laureline must say Valerian's name constantly, but must bombard us with his importance, too...

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Stage Door: Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane in "Angels in America"

by Sean Donovan

 

Roy Cohn, the devilish super-lawyer towering over Tony Kushner’s epic two-part play Angels in America, is introduced to the audience at his favorite place, his office telephone, shifting between various calls, screaming at his clients and associates, and relishing his position of supreme power and influence. In between calls he leans over to his protégé, closeted Mormon lawyer Joe Pitt, and remarks

I wish I was an octopus, a fucking octopus. Eight loving arms and all those suckers, know what I mean?”

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Meet Joe Link

good morning!

• /Film amazing story behind that funny "he's a friend from work" line in the forthcoming Thor: Ragnarok
• Variety talks to five members of the HFPA, aka the foreign press who vote on the Golden Globes
• Interview fun Q&A with Kathy Bates using ol' Andy Warhol questions. She reveals that she's a huge fan of Asghar Farhadi (yes!) and, uh, Meet Joe Black (noooo!)
• BuzzFeed Charlize Theron is a "broad" - how the actress charted her own course, while cashing in on her considerable beauty

• Financial Time amazing sit down with Isabelle Huppert who gives great quote over a 12 course meal
• Vanity Fair Lindsay Lohan's new publicist and how he's changing the conversation about her (as she works towards a comeback)
• Variety Broad Green Pictures, which started off strong with the hit A Walk In the Woods, is laying employees off. Uhoh
• Head Over Feels has a really fun alternative Emmys (and other categories) you can vote on
• Awards Daily on the Emmy's most competitive race: Outstanding Drama Series
• IndieWire Angelina Jolie upset that people have misinterpreted a casting exercize she used to choose child actors for auditions for her new film First They Killed My Father

Off Screen
• The Independent if you're in the UK this summer, snag tickets to see Tom Hiddleston as Hamlet for a limited fund-raising stage production in a tiny theater (160 seats only!) helmed by Kenneth Branagh himself (you may recall that Branagh already did a Hamlet movie in 1996 that was four hours long and nominated for four Oscars.
• Modern Love Actor Andrew Rannells on a night of casual sex that coincided with a family tragedy
• NPR the 150 greatest albums made by woman. This is an awesome list. Must listen to the ones I don't know
• Onion "Twitter Introduces Red X Mark To Verify Users It’s Okay To Harass"
• Cosmopolitan repainted Barbies as RuPaul's Drag Race queens. The Valentina and Trixie Mattel's are amazing
• Theater Mania last block of tickets on sale for Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly! (through January)
• Playbill the original stars of Kinky Boots (Stark Sands and Billy Porter) will return to the show in late September (hmmm, does this mean a closing date soon?). Since I've already seen the show twice, I'll skip... unless they can also lure awesome Annaleigh Ashford back in which case, I am there with bells (and heels) on.
• Gothamist the legendary Algonquin Hotel in NYC is getting a new cat-in-chief. This one's a ginger rescue.

And This Just In...
Jessica Chastain will be playing Empress Lilandra of the Shi'ar in X-Men Dark Phoenix. A kind of Catwoman to Xavier's Batman if you will (at least in the comics) because she's not exactly evil but not a hero either... and in this here classic storyline -- which I have little hope they can pull off in the movie but was so damn awesome back in the day in the comicbooks -- Lilandra was in direct conflict with her lover Xavier. So it's a mini The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him and Her reunion as Jessica reminded with this cute photo of her and her former and now future co-star...

Hey @jamesmcavoyrealdeal you ready for me up in Montreal? Im gonna make you cry so hard 😈 #xmen @simondavidkinberg

A post shared by Jessica Chastain (@jessicachastain) on Aug 1, 2017 at 3:29pm PDT

YNMS Quickie: Call Me By Your Name

The first trailer has arrived for Call Me By Your Name. I'm starting the book right now so pardon the brevity of this Yes No Maybe So. I'm sure you'll have more to add in the comments.

yes -Luca Guadagnino makes inarguably sensual movies. James Ivory (who did the screenplay) is an all time favorite. And gay romantic dramas getting the prestige treatment is very welcome.
no - How could it possibly live up to the hype?
maybe so - Will it be too lowkey? This lives or dies by the chemistry between the leads.

Valerian in the shadow of The Fifth Element

by Dancin' Dan

Luc Besson's comic adaptation Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a mess. But so was his magnum opus The Fifth Element, and that Bruce Willis-starrer went on to become something of a modern-day sci-fi classic. Only time will tell if Valerian will go on to a similarly charmed afterlife, but for my money it suffers under the weight of expectations.

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