TIFF's Red Carpet, Much Improved

Jose here, with a new life mission: make someone as happy as Kate Winslet looked at the premiere of The Dressmaker.

 The Oscar winner was the epitome of radiance as she walked the red carpet in a stunning Badgley Mischka design. Official reports say she was blowing kisses to the crowd, signing autographs and putting on her best face for her fans, however I choose to believe she was smiling because she saw how improved the looks were at the festival by the time she arrived. See the looks after the jump. 

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Beauty Break - Tilda as AnOther

Here's Murtada with a couple of gorgeous pictures of a movie star to brighten your evening. We’ve already seen the striking first still from A Bigger Splash, now come more enticing images to get us more impatient for this film. As if we weren’t already...

Tilda Swinton looks a bit different in these photos, no? Well there’s a reason for that. Because she’s Tilda Swinton she doesn’t just give an interview to promote her movie. She gives it in character. In A Bigger Splash Swinton plays a rock star, called Marianne Lane,  involved in a quartet of sex and intrigue with Matthias Schoenaerts, Ralph Fiennes and Dakota Johnson. For the AnOther Magazine cover story she conducted the interview as her character Lane. Here’s how AnOther put it:

“This entire interview is a work of fiction co-authored by Tilda Swinton, Glenn O’Brien, Luca Guadagnino and Dave Kajganich, based around events in the film A Bigger Splash.”

Another interesting tidbit from the interview is that Lane is mostly silent throughout the movie. Speaking to reporters at the Venice Film Festival where the movie played earlier this month, Swinton explained why,  “It was a moment in my life when I really didn’t want to say anything”. To explain Tilda's silence, Lane is recovering from a throat surgery under doctor’s orders not to speak -very believable for a rock star.

In the US we'll have to wait till May 2016 to see this movie. Those of you in London shouldn't miss it when it plays the London Film Festival next month.

What do you think of Tilda as Marianne?

A Spoonful of Annie? Perhaps...

Kieran here. In the age of remakes, re-imaginings and two Spiderman reboots in less than five years, the announcement that Disney is developing a new musical featuring Mary Poppins actually feels kind of refreshing. Revisiting a character from a live-action musical? And a female character at that? I say "kind of refreshing" because it still feels like a very strange project this far out. It's supposedly set twenty years after the events of Mary Poppins, which immediately had me imagining something darker in tone, not unlike Return to Oz. How does the Banks family fare two decades after the wind changed and Mary bid them adieu? This is all speculative of course. No plot details have been released and only a few key crew members have been announced. Rob Marshall is slated to direct and the script is being penned by David Magee (Finding Neverland and Life of Pi).

How do I put this diplomatically...Can we stop giving every live-action musical (unfortunately few and far between at this point) to Rob Marshall? It seems knee-jerk and lazy every time a musical is announced with Marshall at the helm. I liked Chicago quite a bit, but it's been a pretty steep decline since then. He seems to direct screen musicals with the desire to make them palatable for modern audiences rather than leaning into the medium and truly working well within it. Remember that odd "Musical for People who Hate Musicals" campaign during Chicago's Oscar run? Or that first Into the Woods trailer where no one was singing? Or how over half of the musical numbers were cut out of Nine and the rest were sung on a stage for no reason? It's time to give another director a chance. Perhaps someone with a little less internalized musical self-hatred (Yes, I just made that term up). Musicals are a tough medium with a specific audience. They need a director who will embrace their heightened theatrics and overt sentimentality without pandering to 21st century audiences who aren't accustomed.

For the role of Mary herself, no one is officially attached as of yet, though Anne Hathaway's name is certainly being thrown around. A lot. I think she'd be a fine, more than worthy choice. I was relieved, as someone who likes Anne Hathaway and doesn't understand why I'm not supposed to, when it seemed that she wouldn't be doing that Judy Garland biopic that was in development a while back. Should she play Mary, I do worry about the inexplicably pilloried actress having an even larger target on her back by stepping into such an iconic part. Other names being tossed around are pretty much the ones you'd expect. Any young actress who's been in a musical or shown vocal talent. 

Who would you like to see in the role of the magical singing nanny? Discuss in the comments.

Who Should Play Mary Poppins?

Anne Hathaway

Emily Blunt

Anna Kendrick

Amanda Seyfried

Sutton Foster

Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Someone Else Entirely!

I Don't Care. I'm Not Watching This!

Quiz Maker

TIFF: Journalists at War. "Truth" vs "Spotlight"

On the first day of TIFF last Thursday I saw four consecutive movies from different countries and of different tones entirely that all had a surprise pregnancy reveal scene/shot during their stories. Festivals are funny like that providing you with unexpected throughlines. But sometimes you fully expect the comparisons, if not a schedule that has you watching two similar movies back-to-back. That happened to me with James Vanderbilt's Truth and Thomas McCarthy's Spotlight. Both are journalism pictures with A list casts and both will be gunning for awards honors at year's end. Spotlight is better positioned already with stronger reviews but Truth definitely has its pleasures. While watching them Truth felt more popcorn entertaining but Spotlight is stickier, staying with you afterwards.

Truth vs. Spotlight in 8 categories after the jump...

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HBO’s LGBT History: Middle Sexes (2005)

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

Last week we looked at the surprisingly touching, inclusive and politically relevant Rosie O’Donnell documentary All Aboard! (it seems not a lot of you were as enthused as I was). This week we change gears by looking at perhaps the most boring HBO LGBT entry yet, Middle Sexes - Redefining He and She, a documentary on gender variance that is as entertaining as those educational tapes you’d be forced to watch in high school when your teacher couldn’t be bothered lecturing.

It’s disappointing given its exhaustive approach to the material and the many opportunities it offers in engaging narratives and insightful conversations about those living outside of the gender binary.

Middle Sexes - Redefining He and She (2005) (YouTube)
Directed by: Antony Thomas

If sexual diversity is natural, why is it so threatening?”

Oh that the doc could have taken up this question with the inquisitiveness of most of its talking heads. [More...] 

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