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movies

• Deadline we didn't believe this would ever actually happen but supposedly James Cameron starts shooting today on his FOUR consecutive Avatar sequels with an estimated budget of over 1 billion dollars
• Cartoon Brew this year continues to be weak for animated features but next year's trailers are already popping up. Peter Rabbit anyone? And, in case you missed it...
• TFE Isle of Dogs trailer
• Cinematic Corner Sati always keeps us up to date on what Hugh Jackman is doing. Apparently he's making a movie called The Front Runner but, alas, it is NOT an adaptation of that famous gay novel that has never managed to get a movie made despite numerous rumors that it would become a movie over the decades. Instead it's a movie about the politician Gary Hart.

• Out how's this for an odd sounding project. Moonlight's writer Tarrell Alvin McCraney is going to script a musical for David Oyelowo and Disney that is a cross between Othello and Cyrano. What the what now?
• Coming Soon Julianne Hough and Tyler Hoechlin among the cast of the new biopic about the fitness pioneer family the Weiders called Bigger
•  Deadline potentially big news for anyone hoping for a Sharon Stone comeback. The actress, previously with Gersh, has now signed with CAA for representation in all areas
• The Atlantic mother! as a descendant of Antonin Artaud’s 'Theater of Cruelty'
• my new plaid pants Luke Evans new film Professor Marsden will be part of New Fest, the LGBT film festival. That's potentially awkward given his history!

tv

• The Ellen Show Sterling K Brown strips down and drives a tractor (?) for Ellen DeGeneres
• The Daily Beast Dynasty's Gordon Thompson comes out in his 70s. But he didn't play the often victimized gay character Steven Carrington on that 1980s blockbuster TV show but his evil half brother Adam.
• Vulture some fun comic nuggets about the new season of Will & Grace

randomness

• Londonist body art of famous painting on five models walking around Britain. The text keeps saying they're naked but they're not. They're all wearing pasties and underwear but it's still a neat art project if not cool "body painting". Give me Keith Haring in the 80s or Demi Moore in the 90s in their altogether. That was awesome body painting!

exit video

• Here's a cool video essay on the scoring of Wonder Woman

How Wonder Woman's theme music went from bombastic to smart from Dan Golding on Vimeo.

NYFF: Isabelle Huppert as "Mrs. Hyde"

by Jason Adams

Isabelle Huppert walks out and stands in front of her classroom in Serge Bozon's Mrs. Hyde and she seems to disappear into the wall - the chalk on the chalkboard has more color than she does. She's paste in sensible shoes. We first meet her being harangued publicly by her students, and in a slow painful succession of scenes she's humiliated by everyone she comes into contact with. This is no Huppert Dragon Lady, then.

And then, voila, she's struck by lightning. And given what we drag into the movie theater with us, given this film's title, we think to ourselves, "Cue the dragon!"

So the most interesting thing about Mrs. Hyde is simultaneously its most frustrating thing - it's as if Bozon took it as a challenge to deny us what we came to this movie for.

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Beauty vs Beast: Listen to the Lady in the Radiator

Jason from MNPP here -- this Thursday David Lynch's cult masterpiece Eraserhead is marking its 40th anniversary! 40 years have passed and I still haven't seen anything like it. Even among Lynch's work it still feels singular - you know how there's the blue key in Mulholland Drive that opens the little box? Sometimes I feel like Eraserhead is the blue key. Everything flows through it. It's his beautiful brain's Rosetta Stone, but good luck deciphering it. Anyway let's celebrate the film with this week's round of "Beauty vs Beast" shall we...

PREVIOUSLY You guys gave James Marsden a very happy birthday week, giving his Enchanted performance a whopping 85% against Patrick Dempsey's. That's one of the soundest beatings I think we've ever had. Said PoliVamp:

"Prince Edward all the way. He's so enthusiastically sincere that, even if the sex was terrible, he'd still find someway to make sure you enjoyed it."

Smackdown '85: Meet the Panelists!

The Next Supporting Actress Smackdown is on Sunday - get your votes in by Friday night please. Please only vote on the performances you've seen. Your host has been backstage doing the difficult (but exciting) work of wrangling up critics, industry professionals, and writers to discuss these Oscar years with you. (Coming soon: 1944, 2017, 1970, 1994)

MEET THE PANELISTS
Here's a little bit about our exciting panel to prep you for our conversation as we finish up our screenings. We're heavy on new Smackdowners and Los Angelenos this time which is a fun development.

First Time Smackdowners

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The Furniture: Death by Excess in What a Way to Go!

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

Any excuse to talk about What a Way to Go! is a good excuse. But the centennial of Ted Haworth is an especially excellent excuse. He was nominated for six Oscars, starting with Marty in 1955. He won for 1957’s Sayonara. Highlights from the rest of his career include Some Like It Hot, The Beguiled, and Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.

But none of those movies could hold a candle to the astonishing level of creativity on display in What a Way to Go! The epic 1964 comedy of love and loss stars Shirley MacLaine as Louisa May Foster, a many-time widow and heiress.  Each husband, with one particularly tragic exception, begins the marriage as a near-pauper who wants nothing but love. But their passion inevitably leads them on a wild pursuit of wealth, which tends to end in a coffin. It should be noted, of course, that Louisa herself has little interest in cash.

There are far too many brilliant design elements to fit into a single column...

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