Sick Bed List Fever

by Nathaniel R

Okay, this is one of those "sick" calls you make to the boss when you're not really sick but you just absolutely can't. Getting out of bed since Tuesday has been quite a Herculean challenge. Hence the far lighter than usual posting (apologies! but by Monday we will figure out a way to be posting with the mad frequent abandon that awards season deserves). If you have any tricks for soldiering on whilst feeling despair do please share them in the meantime. It's not just myself who needs them.

One of the best activities when feeling under the weather, physically or spiritually or emotionally is arguably list-making. It is "busywork" so in one sense you don't need all that much energy and focus to do it but it is also fun if you choose the right list topic. Over the past couple of weeks I've been updating and fixing the top ten pages (which are always under construction in case we see a new old favorite) but if you'd like to investigate the various decades and see the lists please click away.

 
 
Check them out. If only we had time to write about them all...

27 Films Eligible for Best Animated Feature

[UPDATE: Variety shared a list of 22 a week ago jumping the gun a week ago and we followed suit. Now we've updated on 11/11 with 5 additional titles since the actual list has been revealed]

Twenty-seven films are officially in the mix for Oscar nominations for Best Animated Feature. Since the threshold to trigger a five wide shortlist in the category is only sixteen, we'll get five nominees this year. As per usual in this category the US will dominate but one or two of the nominations will surely be nabbed by formidable and lower profile threats from France and/or Japan. The list and a few notes follow...

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What are you seeing this weekend?

Just a reminder that three major titles open today

Elle
France's Oscar entry, directed by notorious provocateur Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Turkish Delight, Black Book, etcetera) features screen icon Isabelle Huppert in arguably the crowning role of her inimitable career as a video game designer chillingly obsessed with uncovering the identity of her rapist. Reviewed. Expect an Oscar nomination or (crossing fingers) two. Reviewed.
[Opens today in New York. Wednesday in Los Angeles]

Arrival
Denis Villeneuve's (Sicario, Enemy) awesome thinking person's sci-fi epic about a curiously immobile alien invasion. The aliens have arrived but what do they want hovering in 12 locations over our world? An expert linguist (Amy Adams, wonderful) is recruited to communicate with them in this superbly executed drama. Reviewed. It's also perfect for this moment for this movie.

Arrival opens this weekend. I can't imagine a better moment to go see a humanity affirming sci-fi movie about overcoming what divides us.

— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) November 11, 2016

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
Ang Lee's technically experimental adaptation of the political novel is about a soldier on leave from war paraded for the nation as a war hero. Joe Alwyn (as Billy Lynn) is a compelling debut actor and the film has curio value from this normally great director but the high frame rate technique MUST die a quick death: it doesn't look like cinema at all but like a cheap poorly filmed stage production. More thoughts.
[Opens today in New York and Los Angeles] 

Also Opening:
Wide: Almost Christmas a comedy starring Danny Glover, the Naomi Watts led thriller Shut-In; Limited: a 20th anniversary restoration of the lesbian classic The Watermelon Woman (NY only), three documentaries (Seasons, National Bird, The Anthropologist), and the Oscilloscope curiosity The Love Witch. Here's that trailer:

LOVE WITCH TRAILER from Anna Biller on Vimeo.

First Look at Luc Besson's "Valerian".

Chris here. With the events of this week, some cheesy intergalactic journey doesn't sound too bad if it means we get to escape our planet for a little while. Here for a quick distraction is next year's scifi saga from Luc Besson Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets:

Some quick thoughts:

• I can't quite decide if these visuals are exciting or ugly/boring. It's certainly energized, but still nothing we haven't seen before.
• Dane DeHaan is a strong young talent, but action movie material? Curious casting. But my goodness was he sultry in Kill Your Darlings, so maybe at best he won't be bland here.
• Speaking of casting, this romantic pairing is a bit icky considering they look like they could be siblings.
• This will come around the 20th anniversary of Besson's The Fifth Element. I'm not a fan, but Valerian might be a fun way to celebrate Element's milestone for the fanbase, especially as this appears to be chasing its vibe.
• ... but I do miss the Besson that gave us Leon: The Professional and La Femme Nikita.

Valerian opens on July 21. Thoughts?

Swing Tarzan Swing: Disney's 1999 Animated Take

We've reached the penultimate episode of our Tarzan series. Now sailing into Disney wilds...

by Nathaniel R

For over half a century in film and television storytellers didn't think Tarzan needed an origin plot but when the movies told it (Greystoke, 1984), it was as if everyone had always wanted to. Why not Disney then? Disney hadn't quite run out of classic fairytales to adapt by the mid-nineties but they were shifting their focus to boys. This was arguably due to their gargantuan back-to-back biggest-ever successes of Aladdin (1992) and The Lion King (1994), two animated features that deviated from their princess focus. Enter Hercules and then Tarzan. Neither were girly fairytales but both were still firmly embedded in fantasy and heightened enough for musical numbers.

Sort of.

By the time Tarzan rolled into town, Disney executives had clearly begun to wonder if audiences were done with the musical part of their Animated Musicals because Tarzan is only a musical in the sense that non-diegetic adult contemp ear worms keep popping up. They arrive without warning, with all the subtlety of a slasher movie jump scare.

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