TIFF: Foreign Oscar Hopefuls from Hungary & Belgium

by Nathaniel R

On day one of TIFF two official Oscar foreign film submissions, one emphatically weird but kind of irresistible and the other mainstream but lush and erotically charged.

what's that panda doing in her bed?

On Body and Soul (Hungary)
Written and directed by Ildikó Enyedi 

Ildikó Enyedi first came to niche fame in 1989 winning the Camera d'Or at Cannes for My Twentieth Century the story of identical twins separated as children who both board the Orient Express as much different adults unaware of the other. The film had a succesful arthouse run in the US and was submitted but not nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars. 28 years later Enyedi is winning prizes again for another film that concerns doubling...

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Ryan Murphy Is "Cuckoo" for Netflix

Chris here. In what is surely one of the most side-eye worthy prequel adaptations to come along in an era full of them, Ryan Murphy is creating an original story for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest villain Nurse Ratched. The series will be Murphy's first for Netflix (surprising it's taken this long, right?) and run for 18 episodes over two seasons. The title? You guessed it: Ratched.

On the plus side, the series will be another collaboration between Murphy and main muse Sarah Paulson. If the project seems wholy unasked for or in ill-fitted hands, we can rest assured that Paulson can deliver nothing less than a worthy portrayal of a legendary character. Maybe Nurse Ratched won't turn out to have been so evil after all - at least before Murphy got his hands on her. And if long running series are as daunting for you as they sometimes are for me, the promise of only an 18 episode run is glorious indeed. The series begins filming next year with Murphy set to direct the pilot.

Can Murphy and Paulson do justice to Louise Fletcher's Oscar winning performance?

Thor Ragnarok Pride!

You guys Thor Ragnarok is celebrating Gay Pride with its new character posters. Thanks, Marvel. It's not quite enough to forgive you for trying to throw us off the Cappy/Bucky romance with that weird kiss your lover's niece thing in Civil War but noted and appreciated.

 Click on any of them to embiggen.

Okay, okay, nitpickers. This is probably just a celebration of the rainbow bridge to Asgard where Thor and family reside but we'll allow for the double meaning.

P.S. We did have to eject a poster of Anthony Hopkins to make this work but the designers made him so superfluous by repeating Loki's color and Hopkins is already filler in that Emmy race he's in so he'll sit this one out! 

Mélanie Laurent, Nick Kroll Join Operation Finale

by Ilich Mejía

Back in March, Oscar Isaac first announced he would be producing and starring in Chris Weitz's Operation Finale. Weitz (Rogue One, The Golden Compass) will be directing a script written by newcomer Matthew Orton. Set in 1960's Argentina, the film is based on the true story of a number of Israeli spies on a mission to capture Nazi official Adolf Eichmann (history as spoilers if you've been meaning to get to those History Channel documentaries, but keep watching Barefoot Contessa instead). Actress turned director Mélanie Laurent and comedian Nick Kroll join the already announced cast of Isaac and Ben Kingsley as real estate brokers looking to buy major acreage in next year's Oscar race...

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IT: A Monster We Can All Believe In

by Seán McGovern

At some point in our lives, we all saw something that we weren't old enough to see. In the case of movies, they were ones late at night, at a friend's house, or when your folks were out. The 80s was a decade filled with monsters who bled into the 90s - Freddy, Jason, Thatcher - and their names and faces were etched into our minds. The 1990 two-part TV adaptation of Stephen King's novel IT was memorable more for Tim Curry's Pennywise, than for how good it actually was (and the less said about Part 2, the better). The fervour for Andy Muschietti's remake is not down to nostalgia, but to be reacquainted with a monster that really knows how to scare us...

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