Today's 5: Carrie, Snatched, Blowup, and more...

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 in Paris 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 Lovers or 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

Click to read more ...

Today's 5: Hulk out with Joan Crawford, ol' sport!

Good morning film fans. Make today a good one. We'll help with suggestions as to mental memes and mood boosters for the day.

Five showbiz anniversaries of note today (May 10th) and how to honor each of them 

2013 The Great Gatsby opens in movie theaters. It's yet another hit for Baz Luhrmann and yet another Oscar-winning moment for his wife/collaborator Catherine Martin. It's also, to date, your only chance to see Leonardo DiCaprio in a pink suit.

In its honor today: Listen to that great soundtrack and annoy your friends by calling them "ol' sport" all day!

1977 Joan Crawford dies (as just dramatized on Feud's finale). But like all of the great film stars, she's immortal...

with Clark Gable in CHAINED (1934)

People have been trying to reduce her or count her out since she first became famous but she held on for decades with an iron grip...

Click to read more ...

Feeling Positively "Wonderstruck"

By Spencer Coile 

After the sting of Carol's snub for Best Picture just two years ago, Todd Haynes is coming back, hopefully better than ever. His new film, Wonderstruck, will be premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in a few short weeks, but will also be released through the partnering of Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions. Slotted for a limited release of October 20 with an eventual expasion in November, the studios are giving Haynes' latest effort the awards season push many fans believes he deserves.

As I am sure many of you know by this point, Wonderstruck (based off the book by Brian Selznick) reunites Haynes with Julianne Moore (at long last!) after their collaborations on Safe (1995) and Far From Heaven (2002). It tells two parallel stories-- one taking place in 1927 and the other in 1977. Moore will be joined by Michelle Williams, Amy Hargreaves, Oakes Fegley (the lead of last year's Pete's Dragon), and newcomer Millicent Simmonds. 

The last time Amazon and Roadside partnered up, they produced Manchester by the Sea, which led to the biggest box office either company had seen and two Oscars for the film. Clearly, signs are positive for Wonderstruck. While we wait for the film's premiere at Cannes, let's cross our fingers and hope that sins of Carol's merciless snub will not be committed again. 

Michael Haneke's "Happy End" Gives An Unhappy First Glance

With just about two weeks to go before its seaside premiere at the 70^th annual Cannes Film Festival, the first image for Michael Haneke’s Happy End – his latest cold dose of cruel reality – has landed as hard as the realization that one day we will all die, and most likely alone. Of course, Haneke returns to Cannes this year a reigning champ, double-fisting Palmes d’Or after his last films to grace the Competition – The White Ribbon and Amour – emerged victorious. The question on many minds going into this year’s festival is whether he’ll win the top prize for a third time and break the all-time record he holds alongside fellow international auteurs Alf Sjöberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Bille August, Emir Kusturica, Shohei Imamura, the Dardennes brothers, and last year’s surprise winner Ken Loach.

Happy End reunites Haneke with two performers who have arguably given career-best performances under his clinician’s gaze: Isabelle Huppert, The Piano Teacher herself, and Amour’s Jean-Louis Trintignant; familiar faces Toby Jones and Mathieu Kassovitz round out the cast alongside fellow first-timers Franz Rogowski and Fantine Harduin. While little is known of the plot’s particulars, we do know that Happy End focuses on a French bourgeois family living comfortably in the port town of Calais as the European refugee crisis washes ashore in their midst, considerably less comfortably. The image above shows our main cast dining al fresco around a white-on-white-on-white table in the fashionably casual spring wear you’d expect from the seaside privileged, a breeze surely blowing somewhere in the air. Meanwhile, you can tell by their gazes of curious dispassion that you’re unmistakably inside a Michael Haneke film. Of all of his frown-triggering films to debut at Cannes in the main Competition – Funny Games (’97), Code Unknown, The Piano Teacher, Caché, The White Ribbon, and Amour – which sends your soul spiraling the deepest and darkest, and why?

Tilda Swinton talks of the nightmares of pigs

by Murtada

Why release a boring old trailer to sell Okja when you can get Tilda Swinton in character as a chilling corporate honcho talking abouts pigs? She’s falsely cheery Lucy Mirando of the Mirando corporation… and she’s trying to sell us something. Organic baking goods, happy pup treats or great tasting tenderloins? Let's find out.

We are definitely sold on Swinton and the movie, even if we want to run away as far as possible from Lucy Mirando. Okja is about a young girl and her best friend, the title character who is a kind big monster pursued by the Mirando Corporation for research, or likely something more sinister. Directed by Bong Joon-ho, its sprawling cast includes, in addition to Swinton,  Ahn Seo-hyun, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Steven Yeun, Giancarlo Esposito, Shirley Henderson and Lily Collins. Okja is playing in the main competition at Cannes and will be streaming on Netflix, and perhaps play a few out of the way theaters, on June 28. Are you ready to meet Okja?