The Romanoffs 1.1 "The Violet Hour"

By Spencer Coile 

I vividly remember watching Mad Men for the first time during my junior year of college, struck by the way Matthew Weiner crafted a series that was cinematic and rich in detail, dialogue, and characters. Since its finale in 2015, I’ve been searching for a series that struck the same chord with me. Enter: The Romanoffs, the new Amazon Prime series from Matthew Weiner. Its premiere was a long time coming, with news, expansive cast announcements, and speculation circulating for years. Would Weiner capture lightning in a bottle again?

As it turns out, The Romanoffs is an anthology series, where each episode presents a new story about people who believe themselves to be descendants of the slaughtered Romanov family. Based off the first two episodes, it’ll be a globe-trotting series, bouncing across countries, and continents...

In its pilot episode, “The Violet Hour,” we are introduced to Greg (Aaron Eckhart), an American living in Paris who also takes care of his snobby elderly aunt, Anushka (Marthe Keller). Anushka takes great pride in her lineage, announcing herself to be a direct heir to the Romanovs. Her lavish Parisian apartment reflects her wealth and status, to the chagrin of Greg’s girlfriend Sophie, (Louise Bourgoin), who is waiting for the fateful day that Greg will inherit it...

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Thoughts I Had... Rewatching "The Dark Knight"

by Nathaniel R

Why so serious? Yes, you're 10 years older on this anniversary of The Dark Knight's release and probably watching the world burn with significantly less glee than The Joker would but still. Lighten up! At least we have the movies! I was commissioned to write a piece about The Dark Knight's Oscar history elsewhere but I jotted down more film-centric notes during a recent rewatch and will now share them here.

This a chronological skip through the movie. It made such a cultural impact you surely remember its release and maybe even the circumstances in which you saw it. If so, do share in the comments. Ready? Let's press play...

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10th Anniversary: The Black Dahlia

David looks back at Brian de Palma's wildest film, ten years on from its release.

The Black Dahlia is a curious artefact. It is likely to be remembered simply by virtue of being in the catalogue of Brian de Palma, even if the film’s quality is negligible compared to his biggest hitters Carrie and The Untouchables. When compared to the other famous James Ellroy adaptation, the Oscar-winning L.A. Confidential (which celebrates its own birthday, its 19th, in just a few days), de Palma’s effort certainly pales. In the career of cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (the film’s sole Oscar nominee), it’s likely to be a footnote in the late man’s incredible career, coming after his work with Spielberg, Cimino and Altman. The film’s stars probably took a year at most to write it off as a failure on all their parts.

Yet the film continues to fascinate - to lure you back into its craven web...

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Which actors will Oscar celebrate this year?

We've discussed Best Actress and the overall April Foolish Predictions so let's talk Best Actor & Supporting Actor

First, we have to wonder what it will take to get Tom Hanks back in Oscar's shortlist. His last two acclaimed hits have wound up with Best Supporting Actor & Best Picture nominations but Hanks was passed over in both cases. If the same thing happens with Aaron Eckhart in the co-pilot seat of Sully, the famous story of the pilot who successfully crash landed a plane on the Hudson, we'll have a bonafide trend and not just a coincidence. That's what I'm currently predicting though of course it's all fun and games now before we see the films. And before we even know about several competitors as the year doesn't really get going until the fall according to Oscar voters.

The pressure is off Birth of a Nation... at least a little bit. Several films with actors of color look promising this year, so it needn't be the sole standard bearerIn other acting category predictions, I feel confident in saying that we'll see the end of the dread #OscarsSoWhite controversy. Or, rather, the issue will persist (Hollywood having white male imbalance problems) but it will take a different shape, less focused on the Oscar's acting branch which was an easy but unfortunate scapegoat of a much larger Hollywood problem. The Acting branch has always been the most inclusive and diverse of any Oscar branch but the uproar and embarrassing photo ops of the past two years -- as well as, yes, too-defensive quotes from some famous actors themselves -- have convinced the public otherwise. With more racially diverse dramas being released this year (Fences, Birth of a Nation, A United Kingdom, Loving, Lion and possibly more)  it should be an easy fix; AMPAS members can only vote for films and performances that are eligible. My sincere hope is that we see a few Latino or Asian nominees in the mix soon so we can move past this idea that racial identity and diversity are binaries. But first people will have to start actually casting Latin and Asian actors in movies. Wouldn't that be nice. It's especially rough for Asian actors since they nearly always change their characters to white characters between source material and production.

[Tangent for Hard Core Fans: Despite the difficulty of predicting a full slate of nominees this far in advance I don't actually do a poor job of it. Even in the below the line craft lineups I tend to score two of five before we've seen any films. This sounds easy but I assure you it's not. Try it one year in April and save your list with no changes ever each time you hear news or release date shifts thereafter and see how many remain at the end of the year. Best Actor remains my best category in terms of flying that blind. In 2013 and 2015 I correctly guessed 4 of the 5 nominees this early which is really something. And in 2001 and 2008 the scores would have also been that incredible but for the business of men being nominated the next year instead. - Nathaniel]

Boo-Boo Linky

W Magazine Taraji P. Henson, always fun, talks about getting the acting bug, auditioning for Precious and falling in love with "Cookie" on Empire even though she didn't want to do TV again
AV Club Taraji also has a new leading film role as civil rights activist Ann Atwater who in 1971 had meetings with the Klu Klux Klan leader on reducing violence. 
IndieWire a fun interview with the always amusing Jennifer Coolidge, who hopes to get a wider range of roles. "maybe I should write something"
BBC RIP "Avengers" star Patrick Macnee
Variety John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig, Rabbit Hole) will be honored at OutFest this year. He needs to stop being honored and start making another movie. 
Empire Aaron Eckhart to star in new thriller shot in real time. It's called Live! Eckhart's one of those actors I root for even though he keeps making movies I don't want to see. (sigh)
Vanity Fair is always trying to make Jennifer Lawrence happen. She already happened of course ;) but they just don't quit with the love fest -- they're already pushing for Oscar #2
New Yorker for any of you rebels who haven't been feeling Inside Out here's a negative review from the always interesting Richard Brody on "the curse of the Pixar universe"
/Film a new Star Trek started filming. Rumored title is Star Trek Beyond

Emmy Voting Ends Today
I know you diehard cinephiles are probably relieved that we won't be talking about TV so much next week but we hope you cinephiles who don't differentiate between screen sizes anymore (there seem to be more and more of you) have enjoyed this experiment. We have to keep experimenting to keep the site alive you know. In case you missed any of our FYCs here's an index of the acting writeups -- we tried to cover as many different series as possible during those --  our final ballots for drama and comedy, as well as guest blogs from Cara Seymour (The Knick) and Ann Dowd (The Leftovers) which we were super proud to host. It was fascinating to hear some of what went in to creating those memorable and surprising religious figures.

Happy Pride Month
THR on today's young male movie stars courting gay audiences. They're  trying to make "Stromo!" happen. But isn't it already called "Hetemo"?
MoMA acquires the original rainbow flag which is now 37 years old. Happy birthday flag. 

Showtune to Go!
And let's combine "Pride" with "Emmy Voting" for the finale. Since neither Jonathan Groff nor Sutton Foster are likely to receive Emmy nods for their terrific work in Looking and Younger respectively, we want them to know that they are loved. And obsessed over. In many places if not on Emmy voter ballots. So here's Jonathan's tribute to Sutton Foster in Anything Goes. It has 283,000+ views on YouTube so at least 190,000 other people besides me have watched it! And yes I've probably shared it before but it bears watching again.

and again. 
and again.
and again.