Three Games for the News: Denzel and the Mias

by Murtada

News is coming at us so fast from the 70th Cannes, currently unspooling, that we can hardly keep up. Let’s then take a moment then to ruminate on a film that might screen at the 72nd edition in May of 2019...

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Hugh Jackman's P.T. Barnum Kicks Off The Party in "Greatest Showman" Images

by Daniel Crooke 

Between stints of slicing and dicing the big screen – let alone the ADR booth – as Wolverine, Hugh Jackman’s carved out a comfortable career for himself over the years as a jack-of-all-trades song-and-dance man. In fact, his greatest feats of awards success have all revolved around his fleet feet and tenacious tenor: a Tony Award for The Boy From Oz, his sole Oscar nomination for Les Miserables, and, of course, his instantly iconic turn hosting the 2008 Academy Awards. In light of Entertainment Weekly’s recently released photo spread from his upcoming P.T. Barnum (original!) musical The Greatest Showman, the question begs itself. Will Jackman land once more with Oscar for his latest tripping of the light fantastic?

More images and info after the jump... 

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"How to Talk to Girls at Parties" Tease x 3

Chris here. Slightly lost in all of the Cannes hullabaloo is John Cameron Mitchell's directorial return to the cinema with How to Talk to Girls at Parties (though not completely lost considering its part of Nicole Kidman's Cannes foursome). Granted, other than some tantalizing set photos ages ago, we haven't heard much on what to expect from this Neil Gaiman adaptation. But now non-festival goers have their first look at what Mitchell and co. has in store for us with three tiny teasers. They may be brief, but ooh boy are they wild:

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Interview: James Ivory on "Maurice" Turning 30

By Jose Solís.

 
Can you believe Maurice came out 30 years ago? James Ivory’s film adaptation of E.M. Forster’s novel was released in the fall of 1987, a year after the Oscar winning A Room with a View. While it was never as celebrated as the former, throughout the years it’s come to be more highly regarded for its groundbreaking LGBTQ romance, and as the film that launched Hugh Grant’s screen career.

The tale of forbidden love between the title character (played by James Wilby) and a male servant (Rupert Graves) is filled with pithy dialogue, handsome actors and a then unparalleled sensuality when it comes to conveying gay romance. Its influence can be seen in countless films that came after it, yet for decades it remained the happiest of LGBTQ screen romances. That's a position I discussed with Mr. Ivory as the film is being re-released in theaters this weekend in a 4K restoration to celebrate its landmark anniversary. (If you're in NYC it's showing at the newly renovated Quad Cinema which has its own rich history of showing LGBTQ cinema).

Our interview follows:

JOSE: You’ve mentioned you enjoy watching your films...

JAMES IVORY: I enjoy watching them on the big screen, let me put it that way. What I like to do is see them big, especially after I haven’t seen them in a while.

JOSE: Have you re-discovered anything about Maurice having seen it recently?...

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"Get Away from Her, You Bitch!": Revisiting the Alien Saga

By Spencer Coile 

The tagline for the first Alien film, short and deeply frightening, reads "In space no one can hear you scream." Written in tiny font, it is placed on the poster for Ridley Scott's first venture into the Alien-universe beneath what we soon learn is the egg from which the menacing title creature is born. The image is simple but punchy, rather like the power and artistry emerging from Alien, in very much the same way the monsters pop out of humans' chests. On paper, the series is simple. But only on paper. Revisiting the world of Ellen Ripley and co. as a lead-up to the release of Alien: Covenant this weekend, one thought kept running through my mind: these films are disurbing, because they get at the root of what it means to be a human, to be a monster, and to make sacrifices that benefit oursevles, but also the greater good. What may have started out as a cut-and-paste psychological horror from 1979 soon became a story that is deeply compelling and worthy of examination.

So let's put on our space helmets, grab our flame-throwers, and start exploring the storytelling of the Alien saga...  

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