Sunday, October 9, 2016 at 9:00AM Here’s Manuel with two more dispatches from the New York Film Festival
My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea
And the winner of most literal title at this year’s fest goes to: My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea. For that is precisely what happens in Dash Shaw’s diverting and visually stunning film...
Sunday, September 11, 2016 at 11:00AM Nathaniel R reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival
In the American landscape of animated features, barring extremely rare indies like Anomalisa, it's always safe to refer to animated films as "a genre" even though it technically isn't one. But you always know the type of film you're going to get. Some of them are magnificent, but even those play safely in-line with expectations: family friendly, cute and colorful, noisy/busy for short attention spans, funny. So long as you meet those four expectations you're allowed to color outside the lines of the actual governing genre (adventure/comedy) used by animation studios and draw from other genres like musicals, fantasy pictures, and horror so long as the horror is cute-grotesque (think Tim Burton's forays into the genre or all of Laika pictures).
For the forseeable future, though, we'll have to keep looking abroad for an understanding of animation as a film medium (what it actually is), capable of telling any type of story that might spring from any kind of genre. Festivals that program animated films are wise. They're often beautiful counterprogramming to more typical art fare. On the first day of the festival I caught two of them, both of which are aiming for Oscar love...
Monday, September 5, 2016 at 1:33PM Radar Daniel Craig offered $150 million to continue to play 007 twice more. That's rich but the James Bond franchise is worth billions
Billboard Barbra Streisand gets her eleventh #1 album with "Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway" further cementing her lead as the women with the most #1 albums (Madonna is a distant second). Her first #1 album was in 1964. Talk about staying power.
The Guardian Carrie Fisher on getting older and the new doc about her and her mother
Shadowplay isn't as taken with It Follows as most critics were
In Contention will Moonlight be another Oscar player for A24? I'm seeing this tomorrow. Can't wait.
Film Mixtape a lovely review of Little Men
Awards Daily five Oscar takeaways from Telluride Film Festival from Rooney Mara in Best Actress to Arrival's iffy prospects
AV Club Stanley Tucci not up for reprising his Devil Wears Prada role. Curious. That's exactly what he did in Burlesque.
Vulture knitwear as MVP of The Light Between Oceans
Rachel Wagner surveys the rest of the animated films opening this year
Finally
Congratulations to Taiwanese superstar Shu Qi who just married longtime rumored boyfriend actor/director Stephen Fung. You've seen Shu Qi in several movies no doubt (including recent critical darling The Assassin) but if Stephen Fung doesn't sound quite as familiar think back. The Hong Kong star was one half of the central romance in LGBT classic Bishonen (1998) as the jaded gigolo who falls for a beautiful young cop (played by Daniel Wu, currently starring on AMC's Into the Badlands). Shu Qi was also in that movie (if I recall correctly as Wu's unaware girlfriend?) so the pair go way back... though it should be noted that they have stated that their romance is only four years old. Fung recently directed and co-starred in the Tai Chi Hero movies.
Next up for the pair? Shu Qi's remake of My Best Friend's Wedding (in the Julia Roberts role of course) is making the rounds now and Stephen Fung's next directorial feature The Adventurers is in preproduction starring Andy Lau, Jean Reno, and you guessed it... Shu Qi
Saturday, September 3, 2016 at 3:00PM • THR got the first look at Fences. Photos of Denzel, Viola and Stephen McKinley Henderson
• Awards Daily surveys the rave reviews for Nocturnal Animals
• Playbill there's another musical about the life of Tennessee Williams on the way. The developmental concert is when I'm away at TIFF argh.
• /Film Riz Ahmed sees his Rogue One action figure for the first time (he's so skinny & British -- it's freaking me out a little post The Night Of...!)
• Coming Soon Tom Holland visits a children's hospital dressed as Spider-Man
• AV Club interviews Rob Reiner about his well loved filmography
• MNPP if you live in NYC please note that there's a Paul Verhoeven retrospective coming in November to celebrate the release of Elle. Naturally Showgirls and the other Hollywood films will be accounted for but so will his Dutch offerings. Can't wait to see Turkish Delight finally with Rutger Hauer!
• EW Tyler Hoechlin talks about becoming Superman for the CW's Supergirl
• Fusion crunched the numbers on the ballots for the BBC 100 greatest of the 21st century list to come up with an all female directors ranking. I'm a little stunned, given that ultra specific scenario that A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is so low on the list (only #59) and Bright Star can't even manage the top 20 (tied for #21)
•... the original list icymi
Controversy
• Los Angeles Times powerful op ed from Gabrielle Union about sexual consent, rape culture, Nate Parker, and Birth of a Nation. She plays a rape victim in his film
• Variety Mark Ruffalo responds to the criticism of the casting of Matt Bomer as a trans woman in his new project. "Please have a little compassion. We are all learning" oh Jesus. Is Hollywood in so much of a bubble that they're still years behind everyone else? I find this hard to believe especially for the politically actives types like Ruffalo so it's hard to have compassion for people purposefully benefitting from the status quo.
Just For Fun
• Vice analyzes the exact amount of banter in the photo of those Eton schoolboys about to meet Putin. I LOL'ed and LOL'ed. Bloody well done
Video o' the Day
Check out this neat montage celebrating Stop-Motion in film - it's very short and due to that it gets to our lifetimes way too quickly but it still brought back so many fun movie memories.
Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 5:00PM Rather than talk about this weekend's boring box office results (nothing new to see here beyond a big weekend for that new kill-the-trespassing-teenagers flick Don't Breathe) let's travel back to 1984 which was a hugely influential year for franchises of many kinds. What can the biggest hits tell us about the then and the now?
TOP TWENTY OF 1984
numbers adjusted for today's dollars via box office mojo
01 Ghostbusters $589.6
Two Oscar nods. Spawned 1 terrible sequel, two animated TV shows, and this year's reboot
02 Beverly Hills Cop $581.5
Led to two sequels, a TV remake, and a TV pilot that wasn't picked up. Beverly Hills Cop 4 has been in some stage of development for 20+ years and is still supposedly being made. We'll believe it when we see it.
