5 Things That The New Poster For 'Zoom' Is Lacking

by Manuel Betancourt

Let's talk about the film Zoom. Have you heard of it? It’s this international co-production film that sounds like the hybrid lovechild of Stranger than Fiction and Adaptation, a third of which is animated, starring a 2D-animated Gael García Bernal. I caught the film earlier this year so I was fascinated (read: bemused) by the latest poster that puts the Mexican actor front and center alongside undersung actress Alison Pill. And yet, compared to the earlier poster that had been revealed for the film, this new floating heads one is pretty… uninspiring to say the least. It loses all the specificity of what makes the film worth seeking out.

But you should be excited for this unique movie. Here are 5 things that the new poster for Zoom isn’t telling you...

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Interview: Alice Winocour on Disorder, PTSD, and Joining the Academy

by Nathaniel R

Alice Winocour, writer/director of "Disorder"The absence of strong female representation behind the camera has been a constant sore subject this past year in the world of cinema. But there are shining exceptions to the rule. Though Alice Winocour began making shorts a dozen years ago and released her first feature in 2013, the 40 year old French director really broke through with the one-two punch of Mustang (which she co-wrote) and Disorder (which she co-wrote and directed) last summer at Cannes. Mustang went on to an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film (and much love - including right here). After serving on the Cannes International Critics Week jury this summer (one year after her own breakthrough double) she's making the rounds promoting Disorder which has finally hit US screens after its festival run.

I had the pleasure of seeing both films nearly back to back at AFI last November and I was stunned that the same person was involved with both. She admits that "it was funny to switch from one film to the other" during their festival runs. They really couldn't be more different, one a memoirish feminist drama and the other a tightly wound home invasion thriller. I had the pleasure of sitting down with her in Manhattan this month to talk about her big year.

NATHANIEL: Since you've written a few features was Disorder a conscious choice to show your directorial chops? Thrillers are not generally thought of as writer's pictures. 

ALICE WINOCOUR: Writing is an unconscious process. You don't think about it like that. You just fall in love with the subject or character and then you start to tell the story...

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Ben-Who? Weekend Box Office

The name "Ben-Hur" wasn't enough of a brand on its own to lure moviegoers to theaters this weekend for the remake. My guess: Those who know of Ben-Hur love the 1959 version too much to care about a 2016 version. I have zero desire to see it so if you dared the movie theater this weekend to do so, tell me this: did any of the 1925 sensuality or the 1959 homoeroticism survive in the 2016 version. Or is this just all antiseptic generic blockbuster action mode? 

Ben Hur in 1959, 2016, and 1925If you didn't see Ben-Hur, what did you see? Did you like it? More after the jump including the fate of Kubo and the Two Strings and the best thing I saw this weekend...

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"Best Shot" Finale

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Apologies that last week's episode was  delayed one week but real life got in the way. So this Tuesday I'll be discussing Baz Luhrmann's The Get Down and Splash will serve as our season (series?) finale of Hit Me With Your Best Shot next week. It'll also double as the wrap up of our Year of the Month (1984) just after the Smackdown.

And then it's on to fall film season, festivals, and Oscar build-up! 

This Tuesday Evening, August 23rd
THE GET DOWN (2016) 
Pick one shot from the first episode of Baz Luhrmann's Netflix series described as "a mythic saga of how New York at the brink of bankruptcy gave birth to hip-hop, punk and disco"... though from more intricate descriptions it sounds like it's mostly hip-hop we're talking about.  Can he bring that Moulin Rouge! magic? Was it worth the insane investment with a budget of $10 million per episode? (The first half of the first season -- six of twelve episodes -- began streaming on August 12th) 

SEASON FINALE  - Tuesday Evening, August 30th
SPLASH (1984)
With 1984 being our "year of the month" and a rumored gender flipped remake coming, we'll look back at the best live-action mermaid movie that I was obsessed with as a kid. Daryl Hannah's Crimped Hair forever!

On this day: Joan Allen, JCVD Movies, and Jacqueline Susann

On this day as it relates to showbiz history...

1858 Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution. That one that caused Spencer Tracy so much trouble in Inherit the Wind.
1882 Tchaikovsky debuts his "Overture of 1812". It's still used in movies two centuries later in a truly diverse range of movies including The Iron Lady, Laurence Anyways, V For Vendetta and The Blind Side
1918 Novelist Jacqueline Susann is born. Her trashy best-sellers become hit movies and even turn Oscar heads: Valley of the Dolls (1967 best score nomination)  and Jacqueline Susann's Once is Not Enough (1975, best supporting actress nomination)
1931 Fright haired boxing promoter Don King is born. Sixty-six and a ½ years later Ving Rhames wins the Golden Globe playing him in a TV movie. Remember that sweet but odd moment when Ving Rhames invited Jack Lemmon on stage with him to share the award he had just lost for 12 Angry Men? King's been played by other actors too including Mykelti Williamson (Ali), Tim Meadows (SNL), and in forthcoming movies he'll be played by Reg E Cathey (Hands of Stone) and Keith David (The Last Punch)

I promise you there's incredible actressy stuff after the jump including a must-see clip...

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