In Celebration of "Top Gun 2"...

The Dress Heard Around the Galaxy and the Year of Dern

By Spencer Coile 

As the year of Laura Dern rages forward, ignited by Big Little Lies, it was only a matter of time before fans learned a little bit about her character in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Marking her first appearance into the franchise, Dern's role is an invention of director Rian Johnson's, playing Vice Admiral Holdo, an officer of the Resistance. But if that weren't enough for us lucky fans, Annie Leibovitz of Vanity Fair went on set and snapped some stunning photos of numerous cast members of The Last Jedi. Pictured above is Dern's colorful, sweeping, elegant look (the film's costume design is by Michael Kaplan). I don't know about you, but this one photo is enough to help me make it to December.  

Arriving in December, The Last Jedi will put a nice cap on 2017 for Laura Dern. So let's look at what she is busy with this year...

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Kidman in Cannes. Part 3.

Church of Kidman pastor Jose here. Last we saw Nicole, she was killing sacred deer and being the toast of Cannes in her custom CK and Dior gowns. I was planning to hold a vigil until another apparition, when suddenly...

There she was gliding across the red carpet looking all effortless and regal. Then it appeared she spotted something that drew her attention. I present you now with...

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Missing Italy

by Eric Blume

We’re not far from crowning a new Palme d’Or winner at the Cannes Film Festival, and part of the fun and excitement for international film lovers is seeing which country takes the top prize.  The last ten years has marked three winners from France (The Class, Blue is the Warmest Color, and Dheepan), and in fact France has won ten times since 1955 when the prize has been named the Palme d’Or (there was a ten year gap in 1964-74 where the top prize had a different name, for those into these technicalities).   

Winning just under that number, with nine trophies, remains Italy.  Once a mighty force on the international film scene, Italy seems to have fewer major filmmakers emerging.  The last Italian film to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes was Nanni Moretti’s film The Son’s Room in 2001...   

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Is a Good Video Game Movie Possible?

Robert here. There has been a flurry of video game movie news this week. On Monday it was announced that new Spider-Man (or Spider-Boy, as it were) Tom Holland had been cast as a young Nathan Drake in the long gestating Uncharted movie.

We also got news that the Resident Evil film series which ended just this spring already on the reboot track. Not just a reboot but they're threatening an entire second hexalogy. (Does Resident Evil need 12 films?)  Meanwhile, the latest Tomb Raider reboot staring Oscar winner Alicia Vikander is trucking right along towards its March 2018 bow.

Movies based on video games have long been a profitable cash grab for studios, but they have a reputation for being bad to abysmal quality wise. Does this latest trio of features have any hope...

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