Brief Takes: Blade Runners, Tennis Stars, Feisty Queens, Fish Men

In an effort to break out of my silence -- October is my favorite month so why has it been so hard? -- micro thoughts on 5 Oscar hopefuls I meant to review but didn't. Whoops. Please to discuss in the comments.

Battle of the Sexes (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)
The story of Billie Jean King's (Emma Stone) famous 1973 match with Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) and her efforts to make women's tennis viable in a sexist industry

Capsule: A timely well-crafted look back to the beginnings of a gender war that's depressingly still raging and a soupçon of queer romance to give it unique personality. Dayton & Faris's light touch is the right choice for this briskly-paced but delicately felt recreation of a pivotal American moment. Emma Stone is perfection as the heroic tight shouldered athlete at the center. Just discussed on the podcast. B+
Oscar Chances: This one could go either way. Much will depend on how smart Fox Searchlight is at selling it to voters. Though maybe don't bet against Emma Stone returning to Best Actress; she's very burrowed into King's skin but still as sunny as Emma Stone.

Blade Runner 2049, Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, Victoria and Abdul and the Shape of Water are after the jump

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Podcast: Battle of the Sexes, Beach Rats, and mother!

Nathaniel, Nick, Joe and Chris try and catch up with movies the podcast hasn't covered

Index (42 minutes)
00:01 Battle of the Sexes
12:00 mother!, interpretations, Q & A culture
28:30 Michelle Pfeiffer and Darren Aronofsky
34:00 Beach Rats
39:15 silliness and sign-offs

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

"the sink's not braced yet!"

Ask Nathaniel

Gloria Grahame. MeowYour host has been, you may have noticed, otherwise engaged. So let's consider Monday the kick-off for TFE's official Fall Season. A bit late but you still love us, right? Let's do a Q & A!

No theme this time -- though questions about current movies are most welcome since we haven't gone in depth on so many of them -- so ask away. Whatever you want.

Hint: Remember top ten lists requests and questions that would require full essays are not the way to go in this particular back and forth.

Dance Armie Dance!

Chris here. Call Me By Your Name is more than a month away from release and it's already a meme. One of the film's most escapist scenes has dropped online to much fanfare - a nighttime dance set to the Psychedelic Furs' "Love My Way". Now I'd argue that the scene does play as meaningfully out of context (most online clips don't), but the sheer delight of Armie Hammer's moves cannot be understated. And the internet has reacted in kind, overdubbing the scene with other songs to hilarious effect. Some tracks work better than others in this silly gag, but nothing matches the heights of the film's original track. Get ready to see a whole lot of dancing Armie in the coming months and to have a classic song completely redefined for you! What song do you want to see Armie dance to?

UPDATE: This wonderful account has been suspended, likely for copyright issues.

green light by lorde pic.twitter.com/8dHrsHeJIp

— armie dancing to (@armiedancingto) October 12, 2017

https://twitter.com/armiedancingto/status/9185294214092185

https://twitter.com/armiedancingto/status/918529421409218561

NYFF: Documenting Basquiat

by Jason Adams

I have only managed to make it to two documentaries during the New York Film Festival this year (which is a shame since they always have such a full program) - the doc on Steven Spielberg that I reviewed last week, and then this vividly lived-in one called Boom For Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat, which is also about an artist so great at what he does that he was destined to become the biggest brightest star of it at a very young age.

Of course things turned out pretty differently for Basquiat than they did for Steven Spielberg...

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