Linky Snicket

LA Times talks to Tarell Alvin McCraney who wrote the original play that became Moonlight
Variety JA Bayona's A Monster Calls has become his third consecutive #1 of the entire year at the Spanish box office. He also won the film year there for The Impossible and The Orphanage. He hasn't had as much luck stateside but since he's helming the next Jurassic World movie that'll presumably change
THR three Asian action stars (Tony Jaa, Tiger Chen, and Iko Uwais) will star in the next film from the director of John Wick
Playbill Audra McDonald getting a "special moment" pre-transformation in Beauty & the Beast

 

MTV "Rachel McAdams, blink twice if you need to be saved from your own career"
Jezebel More LGBTQ character on TV than ever before finds new study
i09 First teaser for Netflix's Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events with Neil Patrick Harris as Count Olaf - looks fairly generic at the moment. We'll see.
Towleroad Rami Malek to play Freddie Mercury in a biopic with Bryan Singer. We'll believe this one when we see it because there's been a rumored Mercury biopic as often as...
TFE ...Janis Joplin biopics (ICYMI)
Variety now that Oscar has its producers Michael de Luca & Jennifer Todd, they're talking about the search for a host - Jimmy Kimmel's name keeps coming up
Antagony & Ectasy a terrific analysis of The Handmaiden 
Awards Daily the first look at Jessica Chastain as an artist among Indians in Woman Walks Ahead (She's determined to win that Oscar, guys. So many chewy roles lined up)
MNPP Kathy Bates will be playing Bette Davis BFF Joan Blondell in Feud
World of Reel has the perfect gif reaction to Jaden Smith's Doctor Strange review
Comics Alliance Benedict Cumberbatch's secret secondary role in Doctor Strange (spoilers)
Deadline They're moving forward with a JRR Tolkien biopic called Middle Earth 

Off Cinema 4 Fun
Boy Culture remember's Divine's awesome "Shoot Your Shot" 
Huffington Post amusing 10 suggestions for dealing wtih Election Anxiety including volunteering, masturbation, and preaching to your choir

OH AND REMEMBER TO VOTE TOMORROW! Take it away Rachel Bloom

HOLY SH*T (You've Got To Vote) from Funny Or Die

The Furniture: Terrestrial Fun in "Star Trek Beyond"

"The Furniture" our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber

Early in Star Trek Beyond, screenwriters Simon Pegg and Doug Jung wedge a dumb joke into the voice over narration of Captain Kirk (Chris Pine). He has led the Enterprise and its crew across the galaxy to fulfill an endless series of missions, many of them quite similar. His life, he explains, has begun to feel a bit “episodic.” Very funny.

Yet Star Trek Beyond is, in its own way, a self-contained episode of an ongoing series. The bulk of the film takes place on a single planet. No time is spent on earth, nor is the home world at any significant risk. There is no massive cross-galaxy conflict. The story is given a satisfying conclusion, without participating in a grand trilogy or teasing a far-off sequel. This isn’t Star Wars or, for that matter, the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

This means that the production design team, not tasked with a universe of diverse locations, focused on on just a couple of planets...

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On This Day: Marie Curie, Steve McQueen, Bush v Gore

On this day in showbiz history... 

15 Agrippina the Younger, the sister of the infamous Caligula and wife of Claudius is born. She's been played in movies for film and television by actresses like Barbara Young (I Claudius), Lori Wagner (Caligula), and Ava Gardner (A.D.) among others
1867 Pioneering physicist Marie Curie is born in Poland. 76 years later her biopic Madame Curie is nominated for 7 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Actress (Greer Garson). It's worth noting that there's a new Polish biopic about her life opening next month in Europe starring Karolina Gruszka 
1874 Political cartoonist Thomas Nast first uses the elephant to symbolize the Republican party in an illustration...

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Podcast: The Handmaiden and Other Heavenly Creatures

We're back to weekly podcasts! This week Nick and Nathaniel revisit a summer favorite that's now on DVD and have divergent feelings about The Handmaiden despite their mutual Park Chan-wook history.

Index (41 minutes)
00:01 A Heavenly Creatures revisit
05:10 The Handmaiden and that time Nathaniel and Nick watched a Park Chan-wook together
25:00 Almodóvar's Julieta and Farhadi's The Salesman
34:00 Doctor Strangé & Captain Fantastic briefly to wrap-up

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you?  

Referenced in this conversation:
Nick's Isabelle Huppert e-mail hack | Nathaniel's photo op with Viggo Mortensen | A recent rewatch of Witness | Alama Drafthouse Night Out | 1994 Oscar Races 

The Handmaiden Fantastic

European Film Award Nominations. Good news for 8 Oscar contenders

The Precursors are coming! The Precursors are coming! Though the European Film Awards hardly have Oscar on their minds when they vote (bless them) it's all part of the grand circus of November-February honors to commemorate each film year. Several European films hoping to score Oscar nods in the Foreign Language Film race have reason to be hopeful given their warm embrace here.

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