Friday, August 14, 2015 at 12:39PM Margaret here with your live TV musical update. NBC has just announced the final principal cast members for its live production of The Wiz: R&B singer Ne-Yo as the Tin Man, Elijah Kelley (aka the showstopping dreamboat from Hairspray) as the Scarecrow, and Common as the Emerald City gatekeeper.
The full cast, then, is set:
Friday, August 14, 2015 at 11:59AM 
Jose here. Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan turns 25 in 2015, and you wouldn’t be able to guess it based on how fresh and original its dialogues and performances feel. Stillman, who once was touted as the heir to Woody Allen - but has proved to be a less nihilistic, brutally sardonic, slightly WASP-ier cousin - delivered a screen debut as powerful as it was unconventional. Perhaps the one thing that gives the film’s age away (other than the very late 80s hairstyles and costumes) is how interested the characters are in connecting to each other, in making a difference and affecting other people’s perceptions. Whether their agendas are strictly narcissistic or actually noble depends on the eye of the beholder.
The film marked Stillman’s debut, and it also introduced audiences to several actors including Chris Eigeman, who as the Mr. Darcy-esque Nick Smith proved to be the ultimate snob. The actor followed his work in the film with appearances in two more Stillman projects, not to mention films with Noah Baumbach and a recurring role in the beloved series Gilmore Girls. I had the chance to talk to Mr. Eigeman about the making of Metropolitan and also discussed his own directorial work, and the raison d'être behind his hilarious tweets.
JOSE: Can you believe it’s been twenty five years since Metropolitan premiered?
CHRIS EIGEMAN: Oddly I’m not surprised, because the film was shown at Sundance for its twentieth anniversary, so I had this anniversary in sight.
Read more after the jump...
Friday, August 14, 2015 at 9:20AM 
"Can Marlon Brando Be Tamed?" - the answer, as the next 50 years taught the world was an unequivocal "No."1954 is our "Year of the Month" and this post was fun to research. People who only care about 'the now' are really missing out. Movie tickets were only 70 cents. Can you imagine?
We'll announce the panelists for the Supporting Actress Smackdown (August 30th) on Tuesday. But until then let's marinate a little in the year that was.
BEST MOVIES ACCORDING TO...
Oscar:
On the Waterfront (12 noms / 8 wins)
The Country Girl (7 noms | 2 wins)
The Caine Mutiny (7 nominations)
Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (5 noms | 1 win)
Three Coins in the Fountain (3 noms | 2 wins).
Just outside the Best Picture shortlist looking in was surely Billy Wilder's wonderful and funny Sabrina and maybe the airplane drama The High and the Mighty (both with 6 noms | 1 win). Probably not just-misses as they were not totally loved but definitely prestigious / respected were two musicals, the awesome A Star is Born (6 nominations) which should have definitely been there and which in fact won both the acting Globes for comedy/musical and the historic Carmen Jones (2 nominations). It's always worth noting that only beginning in the 80s were musicals like rare unicorns. There were 22 musicals released in 1954! It was just another type of movie with hits and misses like any other film genre for the first 50 years of sound cinema.
Golden Globe: (drama) On the Waterfront (comedy/musical) Carmen Jones
Cannes: Gate of Hell (Japan) took the Palme D'Or and after opening in the US in December and Oscar nomination for Costume Design and an Honorary Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film (before that category was created)
List-Mania continues with music hits, debuts, and adorable "born in '54" people after the jump...
Thursday, August 13, 2015 at 3:30PM David here digging into the trailer of the moment...
Or as the logo has it, The H8ful Eight. Which seems incongruous given both the Western setting and the classicism of the 70mm promotion at the end of the trailer, but that's Tarantino for you. He lives by his own rules.
Anyway, let's dig in to one of the year's most anticipated trailers, which gives us our first glimpse at the eighth/ninth film from one of cinema's most controversial auteurs.
The trailer, Jennifer Jason Leigh and more after the jump...
