Call Me With Kindness

by Jason Adams

Call Me By Your Name is turning out to be the sort of success none of us saw coming sixteen months ago when it was first announced that the director of I Am Love was tackling a little gay love story. It just broke the 2017 record for per theater average over the weekend, and its reviews have been unanimously stellar. It won Best Feature at the Gothams Monday night, it topped the Independent Spirit nominations, and it’s expected to stick around racking up such prizes all awards season long.

And yet there’s been one complaint that’s nagged at the movie from a determined bunch of folks (including the film’s own writer, legend James Ivory) since it first screened at Sundance in January – a supposed shyness about nudity and gay sex. Ivory told Variety it’s a “pity” there's no full-frontal nudity in the film, while The Guardian called the movie “coy” and Slate called it out for a “lack of explicit sex.” One shot in particular has rankled these folks the most – a seemingly old-fashioned pan out the window just as the characters finally approach their erotic consummation.

The film’s director Luca Guadagnino, who probably had to look up the word “coy” in the dictionary the first time it was lobbed at him for this, is nonplussed by the reaction – he told Vulture:

“It’s really something I don’t understand. It’s as if you said there are not enough shots of Shanghai. I don’t understand why there has to be Shanghai in this movie.”

I’m inclined to agree with him. Not only because I found the film sexy as hell, erotic in languorous, voyeuristic ways that movies don’t really approach anymore. Its sense of tactility, for sweat and fabric and skin, and its often-prurient stares – up the legs of swimming trunks, for example - are a welcome shock to the system that makes the forbidden seem commonplace, easy...

Click to read more ...

Stage Door: The Hilarious Cast of "Desperate Measures"

by Nathaniel R

Before we plunge into the deep end of movie awards season, which tends to consume our every waking moment from right now through Oscar night each year, a wee theater break.

Though we love movies with all our hearts, the one thing live-action movies don't really have an equivalent of is the grand theatrical tradition of the musical comedy. I'm talking inspired silliness as goddamn raison d'etre. I recently fell hard for Desperate Measures, a hilarious wild west riff on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. The show has now been extended three times at the York Theatre in Manhattan and will close on New Year's Eve so get to it! (The York specializes in helping develop new musicals and I'm happy to call attention to this noble cause as a bonafide fanatic of the genre.)

I sat down recently to talk to with two of the musical's stars, strapping Peter Saide and rockstar feisty Lauren Molina, who both really "outta be in pictures" as they say though we're happy they're killing it on stage, don't misunderstand! The interviews are after the jump... 

Click to read more ...

What on earth will be nominated for Adapted Screenplay?

Past Oscar years have often had an imbalance in the screenplay categories, with original being the designated place for edgy (for Oscar at least) critical darlings and adapted screenplay being the place where all the prestige Best Pictures gather to receive their admirer. But old rules are going away, "prestige" has lost meaning, and this year nearly all the critical darlings AND consensus Best Picture likelies have been deemed "original" -it's seriously stacked, just look at the updated chart. 

So what gets nominated for Adapted in this vacuum? Here's an alphabetical list of 15 possibilities but beyond Call Me By Your Name none of them seem like safe bets, exactly. So which way does this go? After scratching my head I've made a guess on the chart but I'm eager to hear what you're thinking on that matter.

• Beguiled
• Blade Runner 2049
• Call Me By Your Name 
• The Disaster Artist
• Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool
• Last Flag Flying
• Logan
• The Lost City of Z
• Molly's Game
• Mudbound
• Stronger
• Victoria and Abdul
• Wonder
• Wonder Woman
• Wonderstruck

Screen Supporting Actress Extraordinaire Sarah Paulson

by Murtada

We’ve just seen her in the trailer for Steven Spielberg's The Post, delivering one of the clip's memorable moments. "Well, I think that's brave". She’s going to be one of the Ocean’s Eight. And she'll appear in the M Night Shyamalan Unbreakable/Split sequel Glass. She is also signed to co-star in Bird Box. She’ll be acting with Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Samuel L Jackson, Tom Hanks, Rihanna, Bruce Willis and Meryl Streep.  Yes, Sarah Paulson will be dominating film screens, from the vantage point of the supporting player.

Paulson is booking movies left and right. Obviously casting directors noticed the range she shown in her many Ryan Murphy TV projects. The latest project announced is John Crowley’s adaptation of Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer-winning The Goldfinch...

Click to read more ...

Review: Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

by Eric Blume

The good news is the bad news:  director Kenneth Branagh’s new adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is exactly what you think it will be.  It’s a stylish, corny, enjoyable two hours filled with movie stars and that absurd moustache.  It delivers on romantic glamor and old-school moviemaking, but there’s not a surprise to be had.

Out of the gate, Branagh plunges us into a prologue that’s both boring and obvious.  He means to establish Hercule Poirot’s philosophy and fastidious nature, which sadly serves only as clunky groundwork which you know will circle back by the finale (which it does).  He also tries to bring some levity to the piece with a few lame jokes.  At first Branagh seems to be overplaying his hand...  

Click to read more ...