Link Came Back

Vanity Fair's Emma Watson cover story (with a really cool photoshoot by Tim Walker that of course is getting flak due to one semi-topless photo)
Daily News JJ Abrams says Mark Hamill will be up for an Oscar for The Last Jedi next year. Uff, we're going there already? (What is it with blockbuster teams especially that like to make these predictions. Remember when Vin Diesel was sure Fast & Furious was going to be a Best Picture nominee?)
Variety a movie theater in London plays a prank, showing a bit of La La Land before a Moonlight screening
Variety a movie theater in Alabama, one of those states that just can't help being a stereotype of itself, won't show Disney's new Beauty & the Beast due to...
TFE ...the earlier announcement that there'd be a gay character 

Playbill Hairspray Live!'s directing duo will reunite for the live version of Bye Bye Birdie -- that's good news as I really think Hairspray Live was by far the best of these productions yet
THR strange cast assembled for what's billed as a romantic drama that has something to do with death. Irreplaceable You will star hotties with star hotties Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Michiel Huisman as well as Christopher Walker and Steve Coogan
i09 filmmakers discussing why video game movies always suck 
/Film Disney may reboot Tron for... Jared Leto. Hrmmm. 

Oscar Crumbs
Jezebel an Oscars story we accidentally didn't cover but for a brief mention on the podcast - Oscar winner Patricia Arquette is understandably upset that Alexis Arquette was left out of the In Memoriam montage 
AV Club Sir Ian McKellen's advice to awards show presenters to avoid the Beatty/Dunaway fiasco 

Off Screen
The Hairpin "Everyone wants to be this raccoon" Amen
Theater Mania Sondheim and Bernadette Peters attend the opening night of the new Off Broadway production of Sweeney Todd, with the theater transformed into a pie shop. The show has already extended its run all the way through December. Wheeee 

Mark Harris's Book Gets a Documentary Version
Yes, I wish we were talking about Pictures at a Revolution (because we can never get enough Oscar lore) but it's his book about Hollywood directors during World War II which is also fascinating. Here's the trailer for Five Came Back which premieres at the end of the month

Review: 'Catfight'

By Glenn Dunks.

I was recently chatting with a friend about Fist Fight, a new Ice Cube comedy that I honestly did not know even existed. They described how the film takes its entire runtime to work up to the titular action only to not have been at all worth it. No such problems with Onur Tukel’s Catfight, a brutal satire that is as subtle as a gut-punch but which certainly gives audiences exactly what it advertises. And does so over and over again. Early and often.

The film stars Anne Heche and Sandra Oh as old college friends Ashley and Veronica who find themselves consumed by hate and resentment towards each other for reasons of envy and self-hatred who soon wage a protracted game of revenge...

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On this day: Carmen, Moonlighting, and the Star Spangled Banner

Yesterday we missed celebrating Zodiac's 10th anniversary (the shame the shame) so we'll have to be more careful moving forward. So let's jump right back into daily anniversaries to reflect on and / or celebrate...

1845 Florida becomes the 27th State. It's been a problem ever since! I was born there so I can say that but seriously, Florida, get your act together. Between alligators, hateful politicians, legalized murder under deplorable Stand Your Ground laws, it's seriously a mess. Have y'all ever seen John Sayles Sunshine State? What other good movies about Florida are there besides Moonlight of course which just won Best Picture - woohoo!  

1875 Bizet's Carmen premiered in Paris. It would go on to considerable global fame and the story would be adapted several times for cinema...

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"Beauty" and the Gay Sidekick

Chris here. Anticipation for Bill Condon's live action Beauty and the Beast remake is up and down around these parts, and those feeling may have gotten a little more complicated. Speaking to Attitude magazine, Condon states that the film will feature Disney's first "exclusively gay moment" and for none other than... sidekick LeFou?

Aside from the suggestion that Condon has apparently forgotten about Disney's gayest hour, "Poor Unfortunate Souls", this bit of gay news is somewhat troubling. LaFou, played here by Josh Gad, is Gaston's dimwitted and devoted bufoon of a sidekick - and Condon elaborates that there may be feelings beyond comradeship:

LeFou is somebody who on one day wants to be Gaston and on another day wants to kiss Gaston... He’s confused about what he wants. It’s somebody who’s just realising that he has these feelings. And Josh makes something really subtle and delicious out of it. And that’s what has its payoff at the end, which I don’t want to give away.

This all sounds like a cousin to the kind of gay revisionism we've seen with the likes Dumbledore and Luke Skywalker, but more like being told in advance of queerness that remains subtextual. If Disney wants to applaud itself for depicting queer attraction, LeFou is an innocuous and fairly uninvolved character to the narrative to really represent that impact. If they want to make a push for representation, wouldn't it be more meaningful or worthy of this self-congratulation if that affection was also reciprocated? I mean, Lumiere and Cogsworth are right there!

Beauty and the Beast opens in two weeks! What are your thoughts on the potential of this "exclusively gay moment"?

Review: "Table 19"

by Chris Feil

Table 19 is a solid sketch comedy concept - a quirky table of oddball, mismatched wedding guests at the bottom of the acquaintance food chain - a trifle built to go down easy with even a modest amount of charm applied. Add in a winning cast (Anna Kendrick, Lisa Kudrow, Craig Robinson, June Squibb, Tony Revolori, and Stephen Merchant) and this should be a recipe for some simple pleasures at the very least.

Forget for a moment that the film goes to great lengths to prove to us that this ensemble amounts to anything less than the Cool Table. You’re trying to tell me I wouldn’t leap at the opportunity to get weird with Kudrow and Squibb at a tacky wedding? Hmmmmm.

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