Q&A: "Strong Female Characters" and Future AFI Honors

Okay last round of reader questions before we have to ask for a new batch. These are culled from the last "Ask Nathaniel" column as well as the open thread. Let's talk Wonder Woman and Oscar, "Strong Roles for Women," and more.

MARIE: Who are the next 3 women that should win the AFI Life Achievement Award?

NATHANIEL: A timely question since Diane Keaton just won hers. But I had to look back at who has previously been nominated to come up with an answer. Living female winners number only five: Diane Keaton (2017), Jane Fonda (2014), Shirley Maclaine (2012), Meryl Streep (2004), and Barbra Streisand (2000) with the other twelve winners in this new century being men (both actors and directors have won). It's actually a tough question because they have to be alive and *really* famous to get this honor and also elderly (though Streep was young for this honor taking it when she was 54ish I think). They also have to be American (for the most part) so I looked only at people who are almost 60 or older and this is what I came up with...

 

I would probably choose from among these five next:

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Untitled Han Solo origin story loses its directors

Robert here! The Star Wars franchise has been enjoying a commercial and critically successful third wind with the release of new trilogy starting The Force Awakens and standalone, universe expanding film Rogue One. While the next installment of the main nonilogy of films, The Last Jedi, is slated to be released in December, the next standalone film, an origin story for series favorite character Han Solo, has hit a major snarl as directing team Phil Lord and Chris Miller have just announced that they are departing the project.

More after the jump...

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Soundtracking: "Big Little Lies"

It's Chris Feil's weekly series on music in the movies, this time on one of this year's television favorites...

Did you know that Emmy added a music supervision category this year? While this may seem a bit nebulous (Emmy sure does have a heck of a lot of categories!), at least we might get some great soundtracks and song choices recognized. Consider my soundtrack column this week an FYC (among others we've written) for what must be the inaugural front-runner Big Little Lies. Emmy: did you ever want it? Did you want it bad?

The musical landscape of Monterey is packed with soul tunes both new and old, weighted with a kind of timeless, cross-generational longing that ties together the various women of its ensemble. They way these songs ache deepen our understanding of each woman’s unique pain: the angry defiance of Jane running to “Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole”, Madeline’s romantic respite in “River”, and a lyrically literal reflection of Celeste’s sexual confusion with “Victim of Love”. For the audience, music helps us draw the connections between their shared pain, what ultimately unites them all. Big Little Lies’s musical identity is as distinct as the series itself.

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Would you rather...?

Would you rather...

... have a sudden Glee reunion with Jonathan Groff & Lea Michele in NYC?
... school Matt McGorry on how to beach?
... read with Kathleen Turner, Rosie, and Broadway's delicious Max von Essen?
... stand for a good cause (Casting Directors Union) with Cheyenne Jackson?
... do a reverse Xanadu and becoming one with murals alongside Harry Shum Jr?
... take a singing road trip with Garrett Dillahunt?
... dream of tapdance lessons with Hillary Swank?
... make babies laugh for no reason with James Wolk?
... or talk to Virginia Madsen on a 16th century contraption. Something called a "landline"? 

Pictures are after the jump to help you make this difficult choice... 

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Daniel Day-Links

• Vanity Fair the interrupted erupted into crazed outrage early today over fake news regarding Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman payday. Katey clears up the confusion

• Time has a gorgeously written profile of Sofia Coppola by Stephanie Zacharek as The Beguiled heads to theaters.

• Meanwhile, though, not everyone is happy with the film. Our own Murtada thinks the film lacks tension and should've switched its setting away from the Civil War. Slate details the whitewashing of the source novel that happened in both the 1971 movie and to an even larger degree in the current film. I think a couple of the Slate article complaints are overdoing it particularly when it comes to the dialogue addressing the absence of slaves -- that feels absolutely authentic as to how that particular character (Nicole Kidman's stone-faced self-serving Miss Martha) would dismiss the topic but there are enough valid ones that now I'd love to see a third version that is actually more faithful to the book because it sounds, at least in this article, like its more fascinating than either movie version. I guess we should read it.

• THR Young Han Solo loses/fires (?) its hot directors Phil Lord & Christopher Miller under the typical "creative visions" disagreements. The worrying part is that they're already several months into production. Deadline follows up with the bad news that they want Ron Howard to finish the film

• GQ Joel Schumacher looks back on the reviled camp of Batman & Robin. Has no regret about the Bat Nipples.

• Village Voice Transformers: The Last Knight wrecks Bilge Ebiri. Perfect. This review is perfect. 

 • And you have probably heard that Daniel Day-Lewis is retiring...
The Wrap reminds us that he's announced his retirement before but Variety goes with the sensational misleading "Shocker!" headline even though Daniel Day-Lewis hardly ever works by his own choice and thus it was only a matter of time before he did this. Letters of Note shares a cool story about how hard he fought for his breakout role in My Beautiful Laundrette. I personally think it's fine that he's retiring. He's clearly not a "hungry" actor anymore and actors are better when they really want it (just as people in all professions are). Also Lucy Prebble, Clarisse Loughrey, and Teo Bugbee had amusing notes to comfort us on this topic on twitter.

Naturally this means that Phantom Thread, his next Paul Thomas Anderson picture opening in December, would theoretically be his last. Cynics will tell you -- and have already told you online surely -- that this means he's a lock for the Oscar yet again. But let's not get carried away. People will have to at least really like the movie and Oscar voters will have to really want him to tie Katharine Hepburn's record for that to happen. Will they? We'll see.