Spielberg's Best Pictures and New DVDs

Time to check in to see which movies we all can check back in with or catch up with now that they've hit the home market. The big title, Oscar wise is Steven Spielberg's 10th Best Picture nominee as a director, the cold war drama Bridge of Spies with Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance both doing fine work as a lawyer and the spy he must bargain with for a prisoner of war trade. Only one of Spielberg's directorial efforts has ever won Best Picture (Schindler's List, 1993) but which is your favorite? I'd rank them like so...

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
2. Schindler's List (1993)
3. Jaws (1975)
4. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982)
5. Lincoln (2012)
6. The Color Purple (1985)
7. Bridge of Spies (2015)
8. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
9. Munich (2005)
10. War Horse (2011)

With the disclaimer that everyone knows I'm not a Spielberg aficionado really (the top three are the only ones I'm completely wild about from this list with Close Encounters of the Third Kind also a favorite but Best Picture was not among its 8 (!) nominations. [Trivia Aside: It's tied for second place with The Dark Knight and some other films for 'most nominations without Best Picture,' though the expanded Best Picture field will probably insure that no more films join said list. The all time record holder is They Shoot Horses Don't They (1969) which is completely amazing film but somehow missed a Best Picture nomination despite 9 other bids for the gold.]

ICYMI Murtada just got done ranking the Spielberg Nominated Performances so we're in that sorta mood you could say

Also New on DVD or BluRay

• Burnt Bradley Cooper is a chef. And lots of actresses orbit him
• Chi-Raq Spike Lee's randy funny raging update of Lysistrata (See: Best of 2015)
• Downton Abbey (Final Season) which I'm loving as it airs
• Freeheld in which Julianne Moore & Ellen Page fall in love and fight for their rights
• Goosebumps in which monsters come to life and Jack Black and kids fight them
• Our Brand is Crisis a rare flop for Sandra Bullock as a campaign manager
• Suffragette Mulligan, Streep and Bonhman-Carter fight for their voting rights
• Truth Cate Blanchett and her fabulous curls fight a losing battle to bring down President Bush with his sneaky draft-dodging

New to Netflix Instant Watch

• Better Call Saul (S1) in which Breaking Bad lives on to hold on to its Emmy slots. Now Streaming on Netflix.
• Lila & Eve Viola Davis goes vigilante. February 6th.
• Love (Gaspar Noe) in which Gaspar Noe splooges into the camera (in 3D!). This explicit sex drama should have really been something but Christ it's a bore. February 4th. 
• Mad Men (S7.2) in which we try to be all zen while saying goodbye to the greatest TV show of all time. February 5th.

READER'S CHOICE
We might start doing a poll where you choose which old movie, just released to Instant Watch, you want to force Nathaniel to watch and write up and discuss with y'all. What'cha think? Some of this month's new/old options are Charlie's Angels (2000), Cruel Intentions (1999), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Jennifer 8 (1992... I used to be really into this one because: Uma), Losing Isaiah (1995), Stardust (2007), Teen Witch (1989), and I Love You Phillip Morris (2009)

Sweet 16 Links: Colette, Noni, Gaga, and a Lynch Reunion

Variety Keira Knightley in talks to star in the biopic about the French writer Colette. Crossing my fingers about this one. Colette is fascinating (she wrote Cheri!)
Comics Alliance on Marvel, politics, and why corporations are not your friend
Towleroad TitanMen has offered disgraced Congressman Aaron Schock (the one with abs and a Downton Abbey fetish) $1 million to star in a porn film. LOL
Variety Clive Owen, Alba Rohrwacher, and more join Meryl Streep's competition jury at Berlinale

Kenneth in the (212) Shirtless Russell Tovey reportedly causes a Broadway audience member to faint. Ha!
Pajiba checks in w/ the Trainspotting cast, 20 years on 
i09 Naomi Watts reunites with Lynch for Twin Peaks S3
i09 Noomi Rapace not returning for the Prometheus sequel
IndieWire thinks "The Chickening," a short film remix of The Shining is insane and genius. Definitely the first part. As for the second... 
Towleroad a first for ESPN, actor Matthew Wilkas (Gayby, You're Killing Me) labelled "Gus Kenworthy's Boyfriend" during the X Games 
Coming Soon Tony winner Annaleigh Ashford (we ♥ her) has joined the cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show the next TV musical (though this one won't be "live") 
Salon "Where are all the women in American Film?" a SAG-AFTRA member reviews her screeners

I had seen four films, 75 percent of which completely leave women out of the story. But maybe women really don’t feature in West African war zones. Or in the history of NWA. Or in finance.

But of course we feature. It just depends what story you want to tell.

TODAY'S WATCH
Lady Gaga performering her and Diane Warren's Best Original Song nominee "Til It Happens To You" at the PGA Awards

LEFTOVER SUNDANCE BUZZ
Variety 19 breakthrough performances from the festival
Film School Rejects talks to the cast and filmmaker of the LGBT Korean-American drama Spa Night
The Guardian Oscar buzz from the fest including Manchester by the Sea, Ira Sach's Little Men and Rebecca Hall as Christine 

TODAY'S MUST (LONG) READ
"Winona Forever" by Soraya Roberts for Hazlitt. It's a great history of the star's youth and her sudden generational iconhood. And how we've trapped her adolescence ever since. 

Winona Ryder arrived at the perfect time. Film scholar Timothy Shary characterizes the teen genre as “cyclical.” Ryder’s first film, Lucas, was released at the end of the hyper-hormonal Porky’s era (AIDS and teen pregnancy ruined it for everyone), five years before the release of Boyz N the Hood. In the period between 1986 and 1990, during her teen career, there were about 250 American films about adolescents, the most memorable being nostalgic thefts of innocence such as Dirty Dancing (1987), Hairspray (1988) and Dead Poets Society (1989). Three of Ryder’s films—Great Balls of Fire, 1969, Mermaids—adhered to this theme. She was in a sweet spot: post sex-crazed, pre-violence crazed—the ideal landing pad for a wide-eyed alien.

“You’d be hard pressed to say who was an average girl in teen movies after the mid-80s,” says Shary. The Brats had moved on, and so had John Hughes (his last teen film, Some Kind of Wonderful, came out in 1987), though no one forgot about them. “[Hughes] showed that you could make sensitive teen films that didn’t have nudity that didn’t pander to the supposed teen sex urge,” Shary says. He thinks this was “a contributing factor in helping set up an actress like Winona Ryder who could come along in the later ‘80s and be taken seriously as a teen actress.” While Hughes muse Molly Ringwald pined for the rich guy, Ryder merely pined for herself...

It's a delicious read and for those of you who didn't live through the Depp/Winona years, a fine encapsulation of the generational fascination with their relationship.

TweetWeek: From Idris Elba Doubled to Grease Live!

It's been a busy week plus with SAG Awards, political caucus craziness, Grease Live! and continuing Oscar conversations so here's a brief collection of some favorite tweets from the past week plus, kicking off the very important news that Mad Max Fury Road's Oscar-nominated maestro George Miller has been named the jury president of the venerable Cannes Film Festival this May. That's one more feather in his cap in a very big season for the director.

More after the jump... 

George Miller, President of the 69th Festival de Cannes. On your marks for #Cannes2016! https://t.co/6ilOzFKDx1 pic.twitter.com/62etKFRFTr

— Festival de Cannes (@Festival_Cannes) February 2, 2016

Click to read more ...

FOX's "Grease! Live" = The Best Live TV Musical Yet

My name is Dancin' Dan and I LOVED Grease! Live.

When Fox announced they were getting into the live musical game, with "America's Favorite Musical", Grease, there was reason to be skeptical. True, the home of American Idol seemed like a more natural fit for a live musical than NBC, but Grease is perhaps an even more iconic show than The Sound of Music, and we all know how that one turned out for NBC.

But then casting announcements kept rolling in, and they felt shockingly on point: Broadway heartthrob Aaron Tveit as bad-boy-with-a-heart-of-gold Danny Zuko. Dancing With the Stars alum Julianne Hough as eternal good girl Sandy Young. High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens as bad girl Rizzo, pop star and Broadway Cinderella Carly Rae Jepsen as air-headed beauty school dropout Frenchie, former child star Keke Palmer as sex-obsessed Marty.... could this actually work?

Click to read more ...

RuPaul's Drag Race is Back, Squirrelfriends

The wait is over, chickadees! Rupaul's Drag Race returns for its eighth season on March 7. Also the show is celebrating in centennial fashion: not only has it hit 100 episodes, but now the show has now ushered 100 drag queens to our tv screens

After an underwhelming seventh season that nevertheless brought new fan favorites like Katya, Trixie Mattel, and winner Violet Chachki, our favorite not-so-guilty pleasure is back with a new batch of queens to adore. And the new crew looks promising, from big names like Derrick Barry (the Britney Spears impersonator) to new blood like Naomi Smalls. Expect the hilarious Bob the Drag Queen to give good quote, with Robbie Turner (part of the same Seattle gang as Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme) the frontrunner for the all-important Snatch Game.

The brief glimpse so far is already more enticing than the drab presentation Logo gave the contestants last year - hopefully we have a true return to form.

This season's queens, from left to right:

• Dax Exclamationpoint (Savannah, GA)
• Acid Betty (New York, NY)
• Kim Chi (Chicago, IL)
• Thorgy Thor (Brooklyn, NY)
• Naomi Smalls (Redlands, CA)
• Derrick Barry (Las Vegas, NV)
• Robbie Turner (Seattle, WA)
• Cynthia Lee Fontaine (Austin, TX)
• Naysha Lopez (Chicago, IL)
• Laila McQueen (seated) (Gloucester, NH)
• Chi Chi DeVayne (Shreveport, LA)
• Bob the Drag Queen (New York, NY)

Check out the first look below! Has anyone seen any of these gals live?