Linkbury, Linkbender and Linkichatpong LLC

• The Sheila Variations and Playbill are all celebrating the 90th birthday of Angela Lansbury today. What a long all-mediums career that woman has had. Sing her happy birthday today and emphasize the "...and many more" at the end of your song, mmmkay?

• The Stake has a grumpy but well argued take on Steve Jobs that says Michael Fassbender: Great; Movie: Not.
• The Guardian on auteur Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul's fears about Thailand military dictatorship - he won't be showing his new film Cemetery of Splendour there for fear that harm will come to him.
• Indiewire Kate Erbland challenges you to read her interview with Olivia Wilde (Meadowland, Vinyl) without falling in love
• Murtada and Jason, two of our Teammates have very split reactions on Crimson Peak.

• And there's no point linking to "news" that isn't really news even if it's being posted everywhere: i.e. Star Wars: The Force Awakens will get a new poster on Sunday and a new trailer on Monday so why write about them now when you can wait two days for actual news? TFE is totally over news announcing news that will announce news, you know? Like teaser countdowns that announce trailers that then have 4 more versions before the actual movie. ENOUGH. LIVE IN THE NOW.

 

Finally
• Fistful of Films Andrew is taking a long hiatus from blogging but this is quite a finale: notes on his top 100+ favorite films. It's quite a range of countries, genres, styles and eras and I'm happy to see many Hit Me With Your Best Shot titles represented and if we even led them to a few of them then our series was a success. Though I must say that reading it, I'm sad he won't be there for our next two episodes - BUT DON'T LET THAT STOP YOU FROM JOINING.

TFE Housekeeping...
We will be hosting those last two Best Shot episodes this month but we've had to cancel that Smackdown '63 we planned. Both Best Shot and Smackdown will return in the Spring as per usual. I should've known better than to plan too much in September & October as it's impossible to do big projects during festival season, 100s of movies coming out, and the build up then countdown to Oscar.

Time to Head to the Theaters -- A Big Weekend for Oscar-Watching

Damn, Hollywood. Spread the wealth a little right? After two relatively quiet months for adult moviegoers all distributors have decided en masse that YOU are going to the movie theaters this weekend. As a result they've just released everything. All at once. If you've been all 'Netflix and chill' or dragging your feet with the movies for any reason, time to get up, stretch, text your friends and hit a movie. Or two. Or three. You don't want to get behind because it doesn't let up from here on out. (Next weekend is Suffragette and the following weekend Our Brand is Crisis) 

The images below will take you to our reviews (or the last major post on the film) if we've written one. If you're all like "this looks like the sidebar" it's our reminder to you that sidebars are there for a reason. Use them if you want to look up a particular film or topic.

Opening Wide This Weekend
		also: Goosebumps, Woodlawn
Opening or Expanding (Limited Release Only)
		Steve Jobs goes wide on Oct 23rd
Still in Theaters  See them soon if you've wanted to. They won't be around forever

What's your priority this weekend? 
 

"Me Tarzan. You.... wait."

You are forgiven if you've forgotten that they're making another Tarzan picture. Hell, your host forgot it and he's kind of more into Tarzan flicks (leftover childhood obsession) than anyone he knows. The film is currently slated to open wide July 1st, 2016.

This is not a still from the film. This is Nathaniel goofing around in Photoshop

We first heard about Alexander Skarsgård's involvement almost exactly three years ago. A year later there were still casting dramas but we eventually ended up with the new Jane (Margot Robbie) and the villain (eventually Christoph Waltz... because we've never seen him do European villain before. sigh) and eventually filming happened and then the producer Jerry Weintraub died and then the director David Yates departed during lengthy postproduction to start on the new Potterverse franchise and test screenings didn't go well making its $180 production budget look more dangerous than alligators and stampeding elephants. Basically there are lots of "Tarzan's in trouble" rumors.

Will they finish it in time? Do you care? Will the deliciously exhibitionistic Alexander Skarsgård do the iconic role proud? So many questions. Stay tuned. 

"Tilda Swinton" by Christopher Doyle

How have we not seen this short film from legendary cinematography Christopher Doyle before? It plays like a music video but the title and subject is Tilda Swinton. Well Tilda AND Shanghai AND Chanel.

"TILDA SWINTON" BY CHRISTOPHER DOYLE from Diane Pernet's ASVOFF on Vimeo.

Tilda Swinton, the goddess extrordinaire, descended in Shanghai on the day of the Solstice. In this film by Christopher Doyle, colors, textures and physiques merge into landscape. Swinton transforms her body into striking brushes and shapes against the backdrop of Pudong's skyscrapers and the dark alleys behind.

Hat tip to The Film Stage for pointing us to this unseen curio. 

More drama please, Crimson Peak

Here's Murtada to review of the new wide release Crimson Peak.

Visually Guillermo Del Toro’s Crimson Peak is a big sumptuous meal. So visually full at all times that it masquerades a thin plot and uninteresting lead character and almosts gets away with fooling us into thinking it a great film. The compelling visuals keep it enticing throughout: Huge frilly sleeves on the dresses; red smoke flaring up from creeks on the floor; a creepy black skeleton hand moving ominously. It never stops.

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