'you okay?'

Yeah, I just bit into a pepper."

Click to read more ...

Halfway: Best Supporting Performances of 2015 Thus Far

½way mark - part 6 of ?
While it was a great deal of fun choosing and articulating the Best Leading work of the year (thus far) at the halfway mark, the Supporting fields prove a more difficult task. This is not exactly the norm as movies tend to have more supporting role than leading ones. But -- grossly generalizing now -- a lot of movies underuse their supporting casts, especially the women. This is particular true of summer blockbusters: Jurassic World and Terminator Genisys, for example, don't even have any supporting females. You're either a male character, a leading female love interest, or you don't exist... except perhaps in cameo form (the eternal plight of one Judy Greer). Either that or the character actors are severely underchallenged. It's easy to feel exceptional warmth for Mary Kay Place in I'll See You In My Dreams or Sally Hawkins in Paddington, for example. Both women are welcome onscreen at any time, terrific actresses, but they're not expected to do much at all other than be a warm and welcoming presence. 

Anyway, let's proceed. 

Supporting Actress: Rose Byrne & Kristen Stewart 

But...that's not playing by the rules which is to choose five performances like you're doing an Oscar shortlist (though these lists should never be mistaken for Oscar Predictions which is a different topic altogether). So let's try again.

Here we go with 4 acting categories after the jump

Click to read more ...

'Red, red, red, red, red now...What am I gonna do'

Click to read more ...

Beauty vs Beast: Motel Hell

JA from MNPP here, wishing you all a happy Monday and wishing what would have been a happy 88th birthday to the great, sadly passed Janet Leigh. She's been gone for over a decade but Janet's legacy still looms tall with several classics -- Touch of Evil and The Manchurian Candidate both come to mind -- but as it has been said we all go a little mad sometimes and color me mad when I realized that Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho has somehow never found itself "Beauty vs Beast"-itized. It's a prime pick whose time has come! Slap on your favorite wig and let's play!

PREVIOUSLY This weekend Terminator: Genisys flopped box-office-wise and according to your votes maybe they should've thought about bringing Linda Hamilton along for the ride since her Sarah Connor trounced Full Metal Arnold in our face-off taking just under 80% of the vote. Said SusanP:

"As far as I'm concerned no contest -- Sarah Connor in a walk. Plus, when you list her pros you are neglecting her most important/awesome assets: The Arms "

Linkinator

Awards Daily set pictures on the new film from James Marsh (Theory of Everything) this one starring Colin Firth & Rachel Weitz
Bloomberg Steve Wozniack love the Steve Jobs trailer
Slate Dana Stevens on the particular appeal of Channing Tatum, film star
The Dissolve on Ava DuVernay's hard pass on The Black Panther. I'm so relieved she's not doing this. Now she can make more movies like Middle of Nowhere or Selma. Why lose great individualistic directors to Marvel when what Marvel wants is journeymen to realize their Cinematic Universe goals?
EW Mila Kunis & Ashton Kutcher got married

Theater Mania has an interest piece on why so many musicals disappear in the development stages 
The Film Stage looks at MoMA's Scorsese exhibit of film one sheets
CHUD an editorial on why we need gays as main characters in mainstream blockbusters - written by a straight man 
Guardian Hilary Swank scaling back career to care for her ailing father. Best wishes to the family 

TV
Salon comprehensive list of booze consumed on True Detective S2 
Vulture thinks True Detective Season 2 owes a lot to David Lynch 
Empire Fatal Attraction to become a TV miniseries - good luck finding a Glenn Close replacement 
Birth Movies Death Marvel/Netflix may be struggling with how to do Iron Fist for the small screen. Whatever direction they go in, please make the character Asian as he always should have been considering his origins

Terminate the Terminator Franchise
Forbes on why Terminator: Genisys opened weak in the States -- curiously no one ever mentions that Emilia Clarke is not a strong actor and she's up against memories of Linda Hamilton's Oscar nomination worthy work!
The Daily Beast interviews Alan Taylor (who has not had much luck as a feature director after proving a hot commodity on TV) and he has curious "just go with it" opinions on how messy his movie is
NYT profiles producer David Ellison (Megan's brother) on his struggles getting Terminator Genisys going and building a multiverse like Marvel. This was a good read but the title is truly bizarre. How is investing solely in mainstream tentpole franchise moviemaking an example of 'not playing it safe.' That's exactly what playing it safe is. Not playing it safe is what Megan Ellison does with her risky art films. 

Look, I am one of the biggest Terminator fans that exists. I saw the first two a ton of times, and think they're veritable masterpieces of their form. They still play today and their action sequences are more exciting (still) even knowing every beat than anything in any of the ill-begotten sequels. Enough already. This franchise was already complete when James Cameron was finished with it twenty-plus years ago. Making money is perfectly fine as one goal but if it's the only goal when making a movie, you've already failed. Movies made solely for money (and for no other reason) are never good. 

Are you watching True Detective Season 2? Do you also wish Skynet would stay down after being defeated for the fifth time?