Another day in May, more cheers and jeers for the competition films. Only five competition films are yet to screen: Fatih Akin's In the Fade (starring Diane Kruger), Good Time from the Safdie brothers, Sergei Loznita's A Gentle Creature, François Ozon's L'Amant Double (with two of his favorites Marine Vacth and Jérémie Renier), and Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here (starring Joaquin Phoenix).
So it looks like the frontrunners for the Palme d'Or, barring any of those five landing in a major way, are France's 120 Battements Par Minute, Sweden's The Square, or Russia's Loveless. But with Cannes and the mysteries of the group dynamics of juries, you never really know until the awards are announced. Pundits always forget that. People who assume that the Palme is a given for ___ are wrong nearly every year. That's half the fun.
Day 8 brings us one of the longshot possibilities for the Palme from the great Sofia Coppola...
Keep talking, Bobby. The more nonsense you spout, the worse it's going to be when you lose.
One of this fall's potential crossover films, in that it has both crowd pleasing and awards appeal (should it be any good that is) is the retelling of the super-famous Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs tennis match from 1973. Though I was alive at the time, I was way too young to know anything about that. I grew up in the age of Martina Navratilova vs Chris Evert and John McEnroe vs Everyone, though, and that match was a common cultural reference point. And tennis was the only sport I really fell in love with. Why? Couldn't say for sure but I suspect it was because it has more easily understood interpersonal dynamics (just two people... or four) at war... only non-violently. My best childhood friend and I even played tennis regularly together. I never got very good but later in high school he made the team! Which is all a terribly long way of saying, tennis movies hold instant interest in theory. They don't make them very often and they're largely unsuccessful when they do. Don't believe me, try to name more than one or two! (I'll wait).
So let's breakdown the first trailer to Fox Searchlight's Battle of the Sexes after the jump. Are we optimistic, worried, or somewhere inbetween?
Two women talking: a recipe for witchcraft, an unnatural feedback loop, a cursed redundancy. Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 masterpiece Persona is a landmark for many reasons, but its legacy, which has show no signs of age in the 50 years since it was released in the U.S. and the U.K., is how it stared that anxiety in the face and opened up a loopy, meandering conversation that’s still going on to this day...
More Linkage Keyframe 'The Year of Nicole Kidman' don't force her to prove herself all over again Variety Cannes lineup is "high on "awards intrigue, low on safe awards bets" /Film Aquaman is overflowing with villains, 3 already for a first solo film? (not a good sign) and a fourth may have been added Coming Soon Antonio Banderas will headline Lamborghini -The Legend (working title) a biopic about the Italian entrepeneur of automobile fame. Alec Baldwin will play his rival Enzo Ferrari
Boy Culture "STREEPSHOW" a drag comedy about "characters one played by Meryl Streep" living together in the East Village will be playing NYC in June. Sounds hilarious but I have to admit that it took me quite some time to figure out the characters in the photo (and there seem to be two Miranda Priestleys?) which is maybe not a good sign. Shouldn't they be instantly recognizable? Guardian Mixed messages from Cannes as TV premieres from auteurs are happening but they've also banned Netflix from future competition unless they stop skipping theatrical releases Variety Gay gasp! The BBC is producing a series of 15 minute monologues called Queers which is set to star Ben Whishaw, Alan Cumming, and Russell Tovey and others Awards DailyGypsy teaser, a new series starring Naomi Watts Variety Hugh Bonneville will play Roald Dahl in a biopic set in the early to mid 1960s. This means they're going to have to cast someone to play both Dahl's wife Patricia Neal and her most famous co-star Paul Newman (see Hud) and both of those roles will be a Herculean casting task! The Guardian there's a documentary playing Cannes about Cary Grant's experimentation with LSD from 1958 through 196 Tracking Board Kenneth Branagh to direct himself in a movie about the father of Anne Frank The Keeper of the Diary
Not Remakes Though You Might Mistake Them For Such /Film Martin Scorsese starts filming mob drama The Irishman this summer with Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci Gothamist Leonardo DiCaprio will star in The Black Hand about an undercover mob cop... (Ummm, haven't all these people already made these movies? Why not mix it up with a romantic comedy or a sci-fi picture?)
Exit Video Look it's the first clip from Todd Haynes's Wonderstruck. It may be impossible to follow Carol but we're glad that he got back on the horse so quickly after that long time away from us. How does this clip strike you?
Today's 5 mood boosting assignments from showbiz history...
2017 oh wait that's today! New in movie theaters today: Goldie Hawn returns to the cinema in the Amy Schumer comedy Snatched; Uneven but sometimes really exciting director Doug Liman unveils the sniper drama The Wall (starring Brit Aaron Taylor-Johnson with a twangy accent); Guy Ritchie anachronistically Ritchifies the King Arthur legend with Charlie Hunnam and Jude Law; Demian Bichir stars in Lowriders; and Diane Lane takes a road trip with Arnaud Viard inParis Can Wait when her husband Alec Baldwin bails on her for business.
In their honor: Go see a movie this weekend. Pick a title any title. If you don't want to see one of those catch up with The Loversor Lost City of Z. Both are good flicks.
1988 The infamous stage musical version of horror classic Carrie opens. It will close five days later. The off Broadway revival in 2012 did significantly better but still closed at a loss
Five Life-hacking / mood-boosting / homework assignments -- whatever you want to call them -- pulled from showbiz history each day. Here are your assignments for May 11th!
2007 It's the tenth anniversary of Georgia Rule, which featured Lindsay Lohan as the wayward granddaughter of strict religious Jane Fonda, the last time Lindsay would lead a reputable mainstream film (whatever one may think of its actual quality). She was just 20 years old...
Wednesday, May 24, 2017 at 12:20PM 
