TIFF: Isabelle Huppert is "Elle"

Nathaniel R reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 8th-18th)

On any given day around the movie internet you will see the headine "What You Need To Know About ['Movie You Haven't Seen Yet']". It's clickbait. The sum total of what you need to know about a movie before you see it is nothing. Go to the movie theater and actually experience it. So if the promise of a new acclaimed Paul Verhoeven feature (his first since the riveting Black Book in 2006) that's been loudly labelled a "rape comedy" starring the world's most casually transgressive movie star Isabelle Huppert is enough to sell you a ticket I urge you to not read any reviews before seeing it, including this one. It's not that the film has twists that can spoil the experience if they're known ahead of time so much as it's in the way the movie is itself twisted.

Just how twisted is revealed through the careful deployment of its psychosexual landmines. And just how often they're successfully played for laughter ... albeit of the discomforting 'what am I laughing at?' variety. 

Two provocative legends (Verhoeven & Huppert) on set

Which is not to say that the rape itself is the subject of comedy...

Click to read more ...

"Jackie" Sells to Fox Searchlight. December Gets Yet More Crowded

The Oscar Race just got a lot more crowded.

Natalie Portman as "Jackie". Photo by William GrayWhile Natalie Portman may be enjoying the lion's share of buzz for playing the title character in Jackie (her best performance yet) if Fox Searchlight plays their FYC hand correctly the film could be a major player across the Oscar board (Portman and Sarsgard are the only acting possibillities. Greta Gerwig, Max Casella, John Carroll Lynch, John Hurt, and Beth Grant support them well but in extremely limited doses) including especially Costume Design, Director, Screenplay, and Production Design. The Cinematography, Editing, Sound and Original Score are also marvellous but the film is a little out of the box challenging so not everyone is going to respond to it; in its own caged bird way it's as angry as Pablo Larraín's Chilean pictures.

As expected given the festival raves and the film's connections to Darren Aronofsky, Fox Searchlight had first dibs. The deal took longer than expected but they will distribute on December 9th. That puts the film at the end of a flurry of major Oscar contenders opening between October and early December (Fences is the only possibly major player -- that is not a sci-fi/fantasy --  opening after Jackie. It opens Christmas day). 

Pablo Larraín and Natalie Portman in Venice for the premiereThe schedule right now of golden hopefuls:
Oct 7th -Birth of a Nation, The Girl on the Train
Oct 14th -Certain Women, Miss Hokusai (animated feature)
Oct 21st -Moonlight, The Handmaiden (if there were justice in the world but alas, South Korea didn't select it as their Oscar bid)
Oct 28th -Eagle Huntress (documentary)

Nov 4th -Loving, Doctor Strange, Bleed For This 
Nov 11th -Arrival, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, Elle
Nov 18th -Manchester by the Sea, Nocturnal Animals, Fantastic Beasts
Nov 23rd (Wed) Allied, Moana (animated feature), Rules Don't Apply
Nov 25th - Lion

Dec 2nd - La La Land
Dec 9th - Jackie, Miss Sloane, The Salesman (Asgar Farhadi) 
Dec 16th - Rogue One, Collateral Beauty, The Founder, and Neruda (also by Pablo Larraín) 
Dec 21st (Wed) - Assassin's Creed, Passengers, Sing! (animated feature)
Dec 23rd - A Monster Calls
Dec 25th (Sun) - Fences, Toni Erdmann (foreign film submission)

Qualifying Releases: Hidden Figures, The Red Turtle, and ???

Doc Corner: 'Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four'

Glenn here. Each Tuesday bringing you reviews of documentaries from theatres, festivals and on demand.

The title of Deborah Esquenazi’s film Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four is not an accident. It has been done to deliberately reference both West of Memphis and The Central Park Five. Those two films were also true crime documentaries that focused on cases in which the wrong people – bundled together under one umbrella with a numerical media savvy nickname – were convicted of a heinous crime. The mistrials of justice in both of those cases were so monumental that multiple films, non-fiction and dramatic, exist about each.

It’s doubtful the same will become true of the San Antonio Four given the crimes for which the four women at the centre of its terribly heartbreaking story were charged and found guilty of were not as sensationally savage as those other stories. In fact, as Esquenazi’s film details, there was no crime at all. No bloodied body for which somebody absolutely had to held accountable. Rather, just a particularly cruel and shockingly stupid lie that steamrolled into the imprisonment of four innocent women. [more...]

Click to read more ...

YNMS: "Live By Night"

by Chris Feil

Ben Affleck's Live By Night, his directorial follow-up to Argo, has been long-rumored to pop up as a late entry into the 2016 Oscar race. Could Warner Bros. be out for some Best Director retribution after Affleck famously missed the nomination for that film? Don't be surprised if its January debut is preceded by a quick qualifying run in the hopes of making up for that sting.

Now we have our first look at what Affleck has been working on between Batman gigs. His second Dennis Lehane adaptation, the film finds the director in his crime saga sweet spot before also taking over the Batman directorial duties. Will this be one to savor before he's wrapped up in that studio monster? Take a look at the first trailer:

Let's break down the Yes, No, Maybe So of this first look...

Click to read more ...

Red Carpet: Creative Arts Emmys

Purse first. Purse first. Jose here. First things first: congrats to RuPaul on his first Emmy! The iconic entertainer won on his first nomination as Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program for RuPaul's Drag Race. It only took him 8 seasons, but that's another story, Emmy as we all know is a notoriously slow learner who only starts liking things once they've stopped being cool, or once the uncool things they love have ended and they have no other choice but to reward cool things, which is why over the weekend Amy Poehler and Steve Buscemi also became Emmy winners <3

Keeping up with their tradition of loving the same things, the Creative Arts Emmys (which this year were awarded over two nights after hitting a record 82 categories!) also perpetuated the same red carpet trends, as the stars showed up in gowns that were either beaded or Grammy-esque, or both. Unlike the Oscars which continue being the epitome of glamour, or the Golden Globes which are its more playful cousin, the Emmys are usually about restraint and stars often show up in the same designers they did the previous year. This becomes even duller in the Creative Arts ceremony which isn't televised, which is my way of saying that coming up with looks worthy of discussion was quite the feat...

See the notable looks after the jump. 

Click to read more ...