Monday, November 21, 2016 at 8:40AM Amy Adams double feature (Arrival & Nocturnal Animals), 2016's grimness, Actressy fierceness, and more after the jump...
Not that this is directly relevant to anything happening right now, but I really miss BUNHEADS. pic.twitter.com/yq8Q9WIXGE
— Anne Marie (@WeRecycleMovies) November 16, 2016
Monday, February 15, 2016 at 12:22PM • AV Club loves on the dearly departed Bunheads
• Guardian Cynthia Nixon, who plays Emily Dickinson in a new film, thinks she'd have loved social media
• E! Online Dakota Johnson wants Jamie Dornan to bare all in Fifty Shades sequel. (I mean, why not? It's not like he's NSFW shy about it.)
• EW looks at a handful of AMPAS ballots Supporting Actress and Picture votes are all over the place
• Awards Daily on two previous shakeups in Hollywood (the late 1920s) & Academy (the late 1960s) business
• Towleroad Gay Iconography: All About Bette Davis
• Film School Rejects Ben Stiller's most iconic characters from best to worst
• Coming Soon Ghostbusters gets a teaser poster. Don't get excited. It's basically just the old logo. Trailer coming on March 3rd
• Coming Soon Salt, Angelina Jolie's would be franchise that never became one headed to TV in series form - without Angie of course
• /Film Alexander Payne lines up his next next film. It's called My Saga, a road trip movie. He still hasn't shot Downsizing with Reese Witherspoon though.
Today's Watch
Daredevil Season 2 Trailer - Pt 1
Elektra and The Punisher get their own trailers, looks like. I'll be disappointed if we don't get a follow up on Madame Gao though, since she was fierce/mysterious.
• And finally, Star Wars Episode VIII: As Yet Untitled began filming this morning at Pinewood Studios in the UK aiming for the Christmas friendly release date of December 15th, 2017. All the major players, sans Harrison Ford of course, will return. The film is written and directed by Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper) and all the major cast members return (sans Harrison Ford *sniffle*). New cast members will include Benicio Del Toro, newcomer Kelly Marie Tran and 'The Face,' herself Laura Dern! No, wait, that deserves more exclamation points. Laura Dern !!!!!!!!
Tuesday, July 23, 2013 at 7:18PM Andrew here with a eulogy. Nathaniel just can't.
You have heard by now that ABC Family has officially pulled the plug on the comedy musical series Bunheads. It’s been five months since the show aired the final episode of its first, and only season, ironically titled “Next”. Since then the network has failed to definitively address the issue of whether or not the show was done for good. The statement the network released Monday afternoon reads, thus:
“Bunheads is a wonderful series that we are very proud to have aired," ABC Family says in a statement. "The series had amazing storytelling, the most talented cast and a passionate and loyal fan base. Recognizing all of this, we took extra time to try and find ways to bring the series back for another season, but in the end it simply wasn’t possible. We wish the cast and crew the best in their future endeavors”
It’s difficult to speculate on the veracity of a claim like “we took extra time to try and find ways to bring the series back” but to the outside eye the line reeks of the disingenuous. [more...]
Tuesday, July 23, 2013 at 12:22AM Deadline Happy news! Billy Magnussen, who is fabulously funny on Broadway in Vanya & Sonya & Masha & Spike (I reviewed it) will play Rapunzel's Prince in the film version of Into the Woods
Variety I started with happy news because ABC Family cancelled Bunheads which is just killing me right now. Another singular piece of entertainment shuttered too soon because networks don't have the guts to support shows that aren't entirely formulaic and interchangeable with other shows concurrently airing. They say "we took extra time to try and find ways to bring the series back for another season" but I see no evidence that they did that.
Signs and Sirens a provocative think piece on Melissa McCarthy's aggressive rise to the top of film comedy
Los Angeles Times RIP Actor Dennis Farina (Get Shorty, Midnight Run, Law & Order)
AV Club bless them for publishing this list of 22 Best Picture winners that were released in the first six months of their years. This topic is dear to my heart and I'm always trying to sell it to Hollywood and nobody seems to believe me. Maybe people will believe the AV Club?
New York Times on Woody Allen's gift with vivid female characters
Cinema Blend The Freddie Mercury biopic is falling apart because surviving Queen members want it to be PG clean? Oy. Best that this project falls apart!
Movie City News David Poland does some thinking aloud about Netflix. I love reading about this even though he loses me once he starts getting into a fast food analogy. But I wish someone would address the issue of accessibility. I really am having nightmares about this post-Netflix world when suddenly it's so complicated to find movies again. For a short while, the first few years of Netflix it seemed like ANY movie was available for watching and for only one monthly price. It was heaven. Now it's constricting again and you have to really search for movies and pay per view instead of subscription fees. I hate it! I do not want to have to look at Hulu, Amazon, iTunes, and Netflix and godknows what else every time I want to seek out a piece of Oscar history. Each new technology change we lose pieces of the history of the movies. It happened with VHS to DVD and it's happening now with DVD to the splintering market of Streaming. It saddens me.
Finally...
Another day, sorta disingenuous Kickstarter plea to get a rich celebrity funding for a movie that they claim they couldn't make within the system even though they got a lot of shit made through the system in years past! Spike Lee is the latest millionaire asking his fans for cash. Now, I respect Spike Lee as a filmmaker far more than the guy who popularized this trend - Lee has made several provocative ballsy movies outside of and within the system that only he could have made. Some of his joints are even incredible movies (Do the Right Thing, 25th Hour) and even his failures tend to be interesting!
This is a mothafuckin body of work right here
I like Spike Lee and I am not against asking for money as my sidebar reminds but asking for money is for people who don't have it ;) People who earn a substantial living doing what they do -- should they really be the same ones shaking tin cans on the street? It's a distortion of the point of crowdfunding. The people who can't get movies made within the system are the ones that Hollywood doesn't know exist, not the ones Hollywood already supports with paychecks. I wouldn't find this trend so distasteful if even one of these celebrities would just speak the truth which is this:
'I COULD get the movie I wanted to make made within the system and get paid for it but it might take a longer time than I'd like and I heard this is an easy way to do it and I don't want to part with my own money -- remember when Francis Ford Coppola went bankrupt with 'One From the Heart'? So just give me some, okay?
You know?
Sunday, July 14, 2013 at 9:00PM Every Emmy award discussion really ought to start with that familiar television montage trope "Previously On..." If you think about it the Emmy Awards really are like a longform television series with continuing plotlines... "Will Mad Men lose every acting nomination AGAIN? Will [insert underwatched critical favorite] finally win a Best Series nomination?", new character introductions, resurgent supporting characters, goodbyes to series regulars, and the like.
Homeland defends its title. But a lot of people didn't like Season 2.
So what did happen at least year's Emmys? A refresher: "Mad Men" was defending its Best Drama title in its fifth season and did not break the record (no show has ever won five consecutive drama series titles) losing to terrorist drama "Homeland" but the story was bleak for the SCDP everywhere since "Mad Men" struck out everywhere even MISSING a Best Costume Design nomination (it's never won) despite being the best costumed show in the history of ever; Jon Cryer "Two and a Half Men" won sympathy votes for putting up with Charlie Sheen all these years as Best Actor in a Comedy Series; Julia Louis-Dreyfus "Veep" won her third Emmy but what's more impressive is that she's won the prize for three different series now; Oscar Winners and frequent nominees were all the rage too with Julianne Moore, Kevin Costner, Jessica Lange, and Maggie Smith all picking up prizes; and the Emmys kept right on basically ignoring the beloved "Parks and Recreation" in major categories it's already deserved to win a few times. Seriously how has that show never managed a nomination for ANY of its supporting actors and actresses?
So where are we this year? I don't have my own predictions to share -- I don't claim to be an Emmy Awards expert but here are a few select ballots and a few things I'm curious about after the jump
