No Sophomore Slump?

Here’s Murtada with casting news for three directors’ sophomore efforts after the critical success of their debuts.

Insane chemistry retread?

DAMIEN CHAZELLE
While everyone is talking about Miles Teller and how maybe he was fired from La La Land, the new movie from his Whiplash (2014) director Damien Chazelle, that movie has been adding cast members. It's got a rather charming cast all told. Joining Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in lead and J.K. Simmons and Ex Machina’s Sonoya Mizuno in support, are John Legend (Selma) and Rosemarie Dewitt (Rachel Getting Married).

The movie is about an aspiring actress (Stone) and a musician (Gosling) falling in love while trying to make it in LA. Legend’s role is unknown but we assume his talents as an Oscar winning songwriter will be used in some capacity in addition to his acting. DeWitt will reportedly play Gosling’s sister. Can you spot any family resemblance?

TOM FORD
Yesterday Michael Shannon and  Aaron Taylor Johnson were announced as the latest additions to Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals joining Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams. There were reports a few months ago that Joaquin Phoenix was being considered for a part, which we'll assume is the one Shannon has now taken. Plot details are sketchy on this one beyond the fact that it’s based on Austin Wright’s 1993 novel Tony And Susan, and it involves two interlocking stories. One story is maybe a fictional one within the other. Ford has written the script and could have veered a bit from the book. Any readers of the book that can shed some light on the plot?

Will he find someone as talented as Quvenzhane Wallis?

BENH ZEITLIN
And  Benh Zeitlin is finally following up Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012). Reports appeared online that he has put up a casting call for child actors to appear in his new movie Wendy. Filming will take place in Antigua and the story is about “a young girl who gets kidnapped onto a hidden ecosystem where a tribal war is raging over a form of pollen that breaks the relationship between aging and time.” Hmmm, sound similar to Beasts, no? Other reports say it's loosely based on the Peter Pan myth.

Expect to see these three intriguing projects in 2016. Have they jumped to the top of your most anticipated lists?

Too Tired To Link

Gothamist the first look teaser at Martin Scorsese's new HBO series Vinyl starring Bobby Cannavale (just how many tv shows are going to be about the music business post Empire? it seems like there's at least 3 new ones on the way from reports. This, Baz's, and Lee Daniel's second). Speaking of...
Coming Soon Empire Season 2 has a teaser
i09 Agent Carter's villain in seaon 2 will be Madame Masque -- and get this... they're modelling her on movie siren Hedy Lamar! 

Playbill Shoshana Bean singing "The Wind Beneath My Wings" - she's starring in the pre Broadway stage musical adaptation of Beaches
Yahoo "Kirsten Dunst is tired, you guys"
THR What if Werner Herzog directed Ant-Man? HAHA
FSR 44 Fantastic Foursomes because the Fantastic Four aren't 
Signs and Sirens has a mean girl astrological note to Jennifer Aniston
Variety Josh Trank blames studio for Fantastic Four's abysmal reviews 
E! Awww, matching foot injuries for Kelly Ripa and Marc Consuelos 
Coming Soon Black Mass just got a bunch of character posters
Playbill talks to Mamie Gummer about working with her mother and her recent stage appearances 
THR What if Werner Herzog directed Ant-Man?! HAHAHA

He can lift things 100 times his body weight but what does this achieve but to increase his burden, his capacity for suffering?" 

Edward Norton Once Turned Green When You Made Him Angry...
He is also angry about Oscar turning green. I know I know. I did not say anything about Edward Norton's rant against the monetization of awards season at IndieWire and surely you expected me too. So here we go.

While there is definitely too much politicking / campaigning and Oscar might do well to cut off a few of its competitors at the knees with tighter rules about campaigning, do we really want to lose a great deal of the Oscar coverage in the world? Again, as a reminder, it's the only time of the year when the media pays attention to films made for adults. I believe that the media frenzy would die down if there were less money to be made. And then were would movie culture be? Superheroes, dumb comedies, franchises and summer blockbusters already hog movie culture for the rest of the year. It's nice to have four months where people think about dramas and dramedies and ambitious auteur vehicles and traditional star vehicles and such. (Some of us -- the craziest ones -- would still obsess without money to be made as we have always... but most outlets would reduce coverage on these films if there were less money in it).

That said, I do understand why actors get frustrated; It's a huge chunk of their year when they would surely rather be acting or vacationing on their private island or whatnot. But there are easy solutions to that one like not showing up at every event but picking and choosing key ones. Everyone seems too afraid to miss anything which is silly because there are only a few essentials. Everything else is like cumulative effect and going to 7 things instead of 10 won't kill people's interest in you or your film or your chances at winning gold. That's my belief at least. 

Yes No Maybe So
Here's the red band trailer to Deadpool. I don't have the strength for a YNMS but perhaps you do for the comments section? I think I've been burned by Ryan Reynolds too many times and anything originally born from that awful X-Men Origins Wolverine risks being inexcusable from conception but bless him/them/someone for that joke at Green Lantern's expense

Miles Teller?

I don't know quite what to make of the controversy over Miles Teller's Esquire interview other than to say "congratulations, Esquire for getting people talking."

Love the snarky tagline on the cover...

Newman? Brando? Mitchum? Nah, It's Miles Teller

Mr Teller thinks the profile is misrepresenting and his famous friends are mad about it. And yet it feels accurate based on past public douchiness. Defensive fans think the author Anne Peele is the dickish one. And, well, it does feel accurate that she went into this an angle. On the other hand maybe she came up with that angle after being presented with the evidence? Celebrity profiles aren't easy to write. I've had to rescue two interview / profiles in the past where the celebrity was not making it easy to make them look good (no I'm not sharing the names) and I'm proud of the way both pieces turned out but it might have been easier to go with a " ____ is kind of a jerk" angle.

Still, I don't think this is as damning as others do and it's a good juicy read (especially the part about getting dumped from Damien Chazelle's Whiplash follow up La La Land). And I don't think it's helping Miles to be upset about it. Stars rarely come off well when bitching about how the press presents them (think Russell Crowe / Christian Bale). A lot of male stars are, in fact, rewarded for cocky arrogance and bro personas. He's hardly an original in this regard so this won't turn people off of his talent.

So... POP QUIZ POLL

Miles Teller is...

a dick...

dickish... but gimme

a "great guy". this is misrepresenting!

great in Rabbit Hole / Whiplash. Who cares what he's like off screen

... WHO?

Poll Maker

Tim's Toons: The wonderful world of Aardman Animations

Tim here. This week sees the release in the US of Shaun the Sheep Movie, a film whose nightmarishly anti-grammatical title hides the sweetest soul of any family movie of 2015. And this is no less than we'd expect, given that it is the newest film from the ever-reliable Aardman Animations of Bristol, England.

We're going to be taking a look at Aardman's first feature, 2000's Chicken Run, as next week's subject in Hit Me with Your Best Shot, but that's just a tiny slice of the studio's generally terrific output. If you'll permit me to go full fanboy - for y'see, people who love Aardman really love Aardman at an almost primal level - I'd like to sing the praises of the studio's other full-length films. Most of them, at least. Even fanboyism has its limits.

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Undoubtedly the most familiar title on this list, having won the 2005 Best Animated Feature Oscar, among other accolades. And because Wallace and Gromit themselves have become such iconic characters, arguably the most successful stars of a short cartoon series since the 1950s. [More...]

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Ingrid Bergman Centennial: The Film That Brought Her to Hollywood

August 29th marks the Centennial of Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982), one of the greatest of all movie stars with a career that stretched from the early 30s through the late 70s, encompassing multiple classics, multiple countries, and multiple Oscars. We'll be proceeding mostly in chronological order. Here's Abstew to kick things off with "Intermezzo" - Editor

Had it not been for a Swedish elevator operator working in the building that housed the New York offices of Selznick International Pictures, the world might never have discovered the young actress that would become the Hollywood legend Ingrid Bergman. It was 1936, and the soon-to-be star had just appeared in a Swedish film named Intermezzo about a famous concert violinist (played by Sweden's first stage star Gösta Ekman) that leaves his wife and family and has an affair with his much younger accompanist. There was clearly something special about the actress playing the love interest. The elevator operator wasn't the only one to see it, but he happened to have the ear of Hollywood producer David O. Selznick's talent scout Kay Brown (since she rode in his elevator everyday), telling her to seek out the film and to pay special attention to the girl in the picture. And in the early part of 1939, Brown flew to Stockholm and persuaded the young actress from Intermezzo to come to America and star in the Hollywood remake. Thus launched the international career of Ingrid Bergman and, as they say in the pictures, a star was born.

But her path to stardom in Hollywood wasn't without its hurdles...

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