IFC Films Acquires Kelly Reichardt's Certain Women

Daniel Crooke here, with the news that Kelly Reichardt’s sixth feature film, Certain Women, has found a home at IFC Films after screening at this year’s Sundance Film Festival to great acclaim but no immediate buyer. While some of her (unnamed) louder, male peers from the American indie scene of the ‘90s have gone on to beat their chests across multiplexes with Great Big Cinema, Reichardt has kept fixing nitrogenous empathy to her storytelling roots over the years and elevated them into a premiere form of living, breathing naturalism. Certain Women stars Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, and Kristen Stewart as an intersecting triptych of Montana ladies, whose “performance style is as casually organic and democratic as in any of her more scrappily cast early projects,” according to Guy Lodge at Variety.

For longtime fans or recent converts evangelized by Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff, or Night Moves, this distribution partnership is a particularly exciting one as it promises Reichardt her largest release platform to date – with no offense to sage curatorial lookouts Oscilloscope Laboratories and Cinedigm, this is a big bump in maximizing eyes on the screen and seats in the theater. IFC Films has yet to announce a specific release date but assures that it will hit theaters at the tail end of 2016.

As if upping the ante for exposure weren’t enough, this puts Certain Women in the excellent company of other, ahem, certain exemplary women from female-forward stories in the IFC Catalogue. At their poker table of daring heroines with complex agendas, you find no less than: 45 Years’ shatter-glass Kate Mercer holding a royal flush (which she’ll soon discover is actually just an Ace high); Maria Enders and Valentine of Clouds of Sils Maria bluffing one another under the table; and the ultimate in unpredictable poker faces, Phoenix’s Nelly. So welcome to the IFC Films party, Certain Women, and know going in that Two Days, One Night’s Sandra has already paved the way in pressuring them to sacrifice a little extra dough when it comes to Oscar campaigning for a critic’s favorite. But above all else, per Amelia, watch out for The Babadook!

Q&A: Brie & Saoirse, Superhero & Oscar, Actors & Politics

As promised it's time to answer ten reader questions, pulled from your comments. We'll try to do this weekly for awhile because I don't want you to abandon us in the offseason. "DON'T LEAVE US," he cried out, voice trembling, mascara running. 

Pedro: Who are your top ten actors/actresses that also participated in politics (were appointed/elected to office or just participated in an election but were not elected, for example)?

You guys aren't supposed to ask top ten questions! I have not paid close enough attention to this weird occurrence, so I dont even know who has done this really. The most famous examples are surely Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, and Arnold Schwarzenegger with Glenda Jackson a distant fourth. But I have no personal favorites since basically I don't like it when actors shift careers. My 11th commandment proposal: Acting is a rare gift - thou shalt not waste it!

Of course Nancy Davis and Ronald Reagan were no great shakes in the acting department before they became POTUS & FLOTUS so the loss wasn't extreme. We're supposed to be saying nice things about them this week since Nancy just died (RIP) so I'd better just move on before I get myself into trouble since our national fantasy about how great the Reagans were is all kinds of f***ed up and problematic...

But, P.S., I did find it momentarily fascinating when there were rumors that Ashley Judd was going to do it.

DJDeeJay: what's your favorite example of male objectification in a movie?
[The answer and 8 more questions after the jump...] 

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In Ebbing

Jason from MNPP here with today's best news if you ask me, and you didn't, but here I am anyway -- perhaps you'd heard about In Bruges writer-director Martin McDonagh's new film when it first got announced back in September? You had to at least have heard the whooping sound I made since it was very loud, for Martin McDonagh's new film is going to star Frances McDormand.

Frances McDormand!!! You know her recently from scowling through last year's awards-shows even though she gave probably the best performance out of anybody at said awards-shows in HBO's Olive Kitteredge. Scowl away as much as you want, glorious Frances, you have earned it. (McDormand-related side-note: yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the release of Fargo, meaning yesterday was also the start of my 20-year torrid love-affair with Frances McDormand from afar, and over at my own site I made a list all about that movie's ladies -- check it out here.)

Anyway McDonagh's new film is called Three Bridges Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which is a title I want to give a great big bear hug to, and it's about a woman who takes on the local police after her daughter is killed. They are set to start filming in April, so today's news is casting news! The always-under-appreciated Woody Harrelson has just joined the cast -- Woody is very nearly always the best thing happening in his projects (he gave five times the performance McConaughey did in True Detective for example) and yet nobody takes decent notice. Take notice!

And then there's Sam Rockwell, who worked with McDonagh on Seven Psychopaths, who is also on board for Ebbing. He too is also a right and proper good egg, that Rockwell. All signs for this movie point to "Heck Yeah!"

One thing though: I do hope that we hear more actresses' names dropped into the cast, since McDonagh's films are always heavy on the sausage-fest (poor Abbie Cornish in Psychopaths) and having McDormand in the lead's giving me hope that he wants to broaden that POV out a bit with, you know, some broads. Wonderful broads!

Say What? Maggie & Vanessa

(How did I miss this photo last month?) Amuse us by adding a caption or dialogue to this photo of Dame Maggie Smith and Vanessa Redgrave taken a short time ago.

HBO’s LGBT History - Back on Board: Greg Louganis (2015)

Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.

Last week we looked at Remembering the Artist: Robert de Niro Sr. which looked at the father of the Oscar winning actor who, in case you didn’t know, was a well-regarded visual artist and a gay man. The doc was (sadly) more interested in the former assertion than the latter, despite sexuality having been central to his art—his most curious muse? Greta Garbo in Anna Christie. This week, we’re taking about another doc portrait though one clearly more centered on its subject’s sexuality.

“Who is Greg Louganis? What kind of question is that?!”

Louganis, still considered the greatest Olympic diver in the history of the sport balks at even having to answer such a question for Cheryl Furjanic in the opening minutes of Back on Board: Greg Louganis. But as he mulls over the question he has to admit he’s not quite sure who Greg is. After all, he retired from diving in 1989, spent much of the 90s coming to terms with himself—he publicly came out ahead of the release of his best-selling memoir, Breaking the Surface (which was later made into a TV movie starring Mario Lopez), disclosing at the same time his HIV-positive status—and finds himself at the start of shooting this HBO Sports documentary fighting with his bank over his mortgage. Yes, Louganis, once a household name synonymous with Olympic glory currently faces the prospect of losing his house and he hopes auctioning off his medals and memorabilia will be enough to keep him afloat. more...

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