Ewan joins the cast of "August: Osage County"

Julia Roberts. Meryl Streep.

Margo Martindale. Abigail Breslin. Juliette Lewis. Cumberbatch. Chris Cooper. Dermot Mulroney. And Sam Shepard as Beverly Weston.

And now, Ewan McGregor.

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insert squeal here to stifle the natural hyperbolic reaction.

O, Prez

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JA from MNPP here. I saw this picture on the little TV inside my office building's elevator of all places this afternoon, so I suppose it's making the rounds. Oprah posted it to Instagram (doesn't she know you're supposed to make something look like a weathered daguerreotype pulled from under piles of dirt and bones if you use Instragam?) - it is O herself alongside director Lee Daniels, with Jane Fonda and Alan Rickman giving us our first look-see at their Nancy and Ronald Reagan drag for Daniels' next flick called The Butler. The movie's about a man (played by Forest Whitaker) who was a butler at the White House over the course of eight different presidencies. We'll also be seeing James Mardsen as JFK and John Cusack as Nixon, amongst others. 

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What do we think of the Reagans? 

I think Rickman's expression is especially priceless.

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Christian's A Nympho

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JA from MNPP here. When you think of Christian Slater, what's the first thing you think of? This question assumes you're old enough to know who the hell Christian Slater is and maybe recall when he was known for things, of course. 

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I assume most people think of his "Jack Nicholson by way of James Dean" riffing in Heathers. Or maybe you're really cool and Gleaming the Cube or Pump Up the Volume hit you like a mack truck. Me, I've got brain issues - I immediately think of The Legend of Billie Jean (but then that's a film that's always near the surface of my brain, any time, anywhere).

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Anyway if Lars Von Trier has his way in a post-Nymphomaniac world you're going to think of Christian Slater in a different way - he's just cast the actor to play Charlotte Gainsbourg's father in that promises-to-be-controversial next flick of his, which will document, according to Lars, the entire sexual life of a woman, from her childhood to old age. Since I have seen a Lars Von Trier movie before, I know to be worried.

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Is 2012 The Year of Divisiveness?

Hello, loves. Beau here, considering something I've been knocking around in my head for the past week. There has yet to be a film that's been released this year that has garnered widespread acclaim from all viewers (critics, audiences, and bloggers alike). At this point last year, we had a few already that we could point to: Midnight in Paris, Bridesmaids, Harry Potter had all done beaucoups bucks at the box office, and garnered more than respectable responses from the general public and critics alike. But this year... what?

LAWL.

The Hunger Games, The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises have made the most, but each inspired a heated dialogue about some element of the filmmaking. Examples: The Hunger Games 'should not have been PG-13'; 'bland, dull, watered-down'; The Avengers 'fan-fiction cum brand/merchandising cash cow' and 'Didn't move the genre forward'; The Dark Knight Rises 'nowhere near as good as The Dark Knight'; and 'WTF with the Bane sound design? the politics?')

Prometheus was enormously divisive, and Brave was widely regarded with a shrug. The critical darling Beasts of the Southern Wild didn't quite crossover. It's made $10 million so far but it's a fairly straightforward narrative, however poetically delivered, that elicits warm feelings and it made less than something as abstract, obscure and strange as Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. (The latter had the advantage of starring Brad Pitt, but even so, people don't always follow the movie stars - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford made a paltry $4 million back in 2007 as well.)  More... 

Click to read more ...

With Six You Get Link Roll

Movies.com has all the distribution deals from TIFF so you can see which films are coming your way in 2013
Deadline Kate Winslet's Titanic screen test!
Culture Monster Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert to team for Jean Genet's The Maids. Alas, not for the screen.

Pajiba 20 Lessons Hollywood can learn from this summer
Flickr Truly amazing photoset of California billboards from 1974/1975 including billboards of Oscar interest

Today's Must Read
"Extraordinary Machines" by Steven Hyden which looks back at the celebrity coupledom of Paul Thomas Anderson and Fiona Apple, the way they were, and the way they are now divergent.

It had been his intention to write a conventional 90-minute comedy for Adam Sandler, whom he met while tagging along with Apple when she performed on Saturday Night Live in 2000. What he actually made was more like a Fiona Apple song — a disorienting mishmash of bright melody and percussive dissonance, with a main character who was odd and oddly compelling and prone to oddly explosive, out-of-nowhere outbursts. Unfortunately for Punch-Drunk Love, Fiona Apple songs were still a few years away from returning to fashion, and the film died at the box office.

It's a really insightful piece about two of showbusiness's most fascinating artists. So go read it.