Everyone Joins "The Papers"

by Ben Miller

Steven Spielberg made news a few months back with word that his next film about the Pentagon Papers would bring together two American treasures in Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep.  The film, originally referred to as The Post and now titled The Papers, chronicles the Washington Post’s Vietnam War expose’ with Hanks and Streep as the Post’s editor and publisher, respectively. 

The big news is who else has been cast in the supporting roles.  Rather, who hasn’t been cast...

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Cate Blanchett will be Margo Channing

by Murtada

Fasten your seat belts, 2018 is gonna be a glorious year. At least for London theatergoers. Cate Blanchett will star as Margo Channing in a stage adaption of All About Eve (1950). Eve, which originally starred Bette Davis as Margo, is the ultimate backstage rivalry story. Margo is the big star fighting her huge ego as well as ageism as she tries to survive being upstaged by the young ingenue Eve, who starts as her biggest fan and assistant. Blanchett playing Margo is very meta. Forget that she already played Katharine Hepburn and now gets a chance to play her similarly lauded contemporary's most famous part...

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Familiar Faces: The Jonathan Demme Players

by Nathaniel R

Dearest reader, as you've probably heard by now the director Jonathan Demme has passed away at 73. He died due to esophageal cancer. I had run into him at a screening of La La Land  this past September and I took the opportunity to tell him how much Rachel Getting Married  meant to me (he joked about being first with interracial weddings for Rosemarie deWitt onscreen). Then we talked Swing Shift for a little bit as we had just discussed it on this very site. I was so saddened by this yesterday that I couldn't do much but tweet my farewells. The words wouldn't come out for a lengthy piece but then, surprise, I remembered I'd written the following piece that was never published (oops) to coincide with the release of Ricki and the Flash (2015). I filled in a few of the blank spots and adjusted some verbs to reflect the past tense but this surprisingly doubles as what I probably wanted to say about Jonathan Demme yesterday and couldn't. It's about his favorite actors but looking back, it's a fitting tribute because what American director was more curious about literally any kind of person he might find with his camera?

Jonathan Demme was one of America's most interesting and surprising directors. Though he's now best remembered for the modern classic The Silence of the Lambs (1991) it was actually something of an oddity in his filmography being the only horror film and, in some ways, the most classically controlled. In other ways though it's a traditional Demme picture. It features actors doing unexpected or suddenly signature electric work, weird musician cameos (what the hell is one of the members of 80s synth pop band Book of Love doing in there?), and diverse casting where most films would go with the default heavily male white cast. In fact, Silence might be his most white/male movie but that's part of its plot...

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Q&A: JLaw at the Top, Chris Pine's Future, Trans Characters in Cinema

Bob Fosse on the set of LennyApologies dearest readers about the slow rollout of various columns this month. April is such a weird month, isn't it? What can you do. So you recently asked a bunch of questions and here's 11 answers!  I hope you'll speak out on these same topics in the comments to make this more conversational. I do actually love to hear your opinions, too! xoxo

EDWARD: Have you ever wanted to make a movie?

NATHANIEL: The short answer is "no". The medium answer is I think it might be fun to work on one once, to have the experience (the areas that most interest me in terms of my own potential skills are casting and editing). But my basic feeling is that I love movies too much to commit to one only for years on end as so many filmmakers seem to have to do. The long answer is that I have fantasized about it but usually only in the context of becoming a great director of modern movie musicals since Hollywood so desperately needs someone who is inspired by / committed to that genre specifically. We need a new Fosse/Minnelli/Berkeley/Donen  roughly a billion times more than we need a new Scorsese/Spielberg/Tarantino/Malick/Kubrick/Whomever. There are always people trying to be that latter group of guys!

MARK: If you could bring back any movie star deceased back in a Peter Cushing Rogue One style cameo who would you choose.

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Isle of Links

So much news to catch up with. Deep breaths...

Vanity Fair Brie Larson is this month's cover girl. Talks awards season madness, Hollywood friendships, and Captain Marvel
Slate a breathless take on early footage from Marvel's Black Panther including kudos for what sounds like Angela Bassett's best movie part in a long time
Coming Soon Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs, his second animated feature, got a teaser poster and a release date
EW Faye Dunaway breaks her silence on February's Oscar Best Picture mixup
AV Club release dates for upcoming Disney pictures including Star Wars, The Lion King, and the bound to be terrible Frozen 2 (because didn't that story feel complete as is. sigh) 
Movie City News David Poland is done apologizing for not liking James Gray movies very much. Here's why.
Deadline Monumental Pictures has announced they're making a big screen version of the Roe v Wade Supreme Court drama that determined abortion rights in the US. Curiously the article doesn't mention that this has already been dramatized. Holly Hunter starred in the TV movie Roe vs Wade (1989) and won the first of her two Emmys (both were in the category Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Special)
Cinematic Corner Sati looks back at Dolores Claiborne (1995) 

The Stake an interesting piece about Scarlett Johansson's "embodiment quartet" (Ghost in the Shell, Under the Skin, Her and Lucy) doing work that's explicity about bodies and voices
IMDb has a bajillion casting updates for TV including new roles for Donald Sutherland, Ashley Judd, Teen Wolf star Tyler Posey, Kristin Chenoweth, Susan Sarandon's Feud followup, and a series lead for Miles Teller (who normally leads movies)
Kenneth in the (212) Erin Moran of TV sitcoms Happy Days and  Joanie Love Chachi dead at 56
Boy Culture Madonna is NOT pleased about the news about the upcoming biopic on her early years. Calls the filmmakers "charlatans and fools"  
...TFE in case you missed that earlier Madonna news
Awards Daily Ranking Hedda Hopper's Hats in Feud. I wanna kill Joey. I was totally working on an article just like this one when I saw this. argh. Must type faster
MNPP do you like Henry Cavill's new moustache? 
Boy Culture Whoa! the original Bananarama have reunited for a brief 2017 tour. Even I, who lived through the 1980s have never seen all three of them together. I did catch one Bananarama concert in my day but by that point Siobhan had already left the band. 
/Film Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen will be Timon and Pumba  in the remake of The Lion King
Variety the Outer Critics Circle nominations are announced. The musical Anastasia and the revival of Hello Dolly! lead. Curiously, though the awards cover Off Broadway as well as Broadway, Sutton Foster wasn't nominated in leading actress for her Sweet Charity. Actors who hop around between Film, TV, and Stage that were nominated this year include Bette Midler, Sally Field, Daniel Craig, Andrew Rannells,  Allison Janney, Patti Lupone, Cynthia Nixon, David Hyde Pierce, David Oyelowo, Kevin Kline, and The Lovely Laura Linney