Cast This: "Clue" The Remake

I grew up playing "Clue" at home with my family so when the movie came out I was thrilled and saw it three times to catch the separate endings. My story is not unique (except for falling for the studio's marketing gamble and seeing it three times in theaters) because the board game has been hugely popular since its initial release in 1949 so multiple generations have played it and loved it. It has a built in audience so naturally movie studios are interested because franchises is what they do. Remember a handful of years ago when Universal was going to remake the movie Clue (1985) but nothing came of it? Too make a long story short... "too late!" ... the project is back on again at a different studio. 

Clue art by Kevin Wada

Now, Fox will remake the movie despite the fact that board game based movies haven't done well at the box office (including the original Clue, despite its huge fanbase after the fact). Nevertheless it's a perfect opportunity for us to play CAST THIS! after the jump...

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Oceans 8. Links 16

• Variety we now have seven of the names for the Oceans Eight gender flipped movie: Blanchett, Bullock, Hathaway, Bonham Carter, Kaling, and two musicians who moonlight as actors Rihanna and Awkwafina 
• NYFF the 54th annual festival has released the main slate titles - Opening Night: The 13th (Ava Duvernay); Centerpiece: 20th Century Women (Mike Mills); Closing Night: The Lost City of Z (James Gray); plus their usual array of buzzy titles from other festivals only this time there are a lot of female leads (which is a huge change) including Aquarius, Toni Erdmann, Personal Shopper, and an Isabelle Huppert double in L'Avenir and Elle.
• Pajiba debates Suicide Squad's interpretation of Harley Quinn
• Variety a new lawsuit about Out of Africa's profits. That's timely! (People forget that it was a giant hit at the time)
• Deadline David O. Russell pitching a TV series with Robert De Niro & Julianne Moore. What the what now?

 

• Variety FX executive on Peak TV, Netflix and when the "Peak TV" bubble will burst
• Vulture Matt Zoller Seitz on the problems with serial-dramas on TV right now -- the model is shifting yet again
• Pride Source Meryl Streep talks her discomfort being imitated (!), Florence Foster Jenkins, sequels, and her connections to the LGBT community 
• IndieWire Greta Gerwig writing another screen version of Little Women - we get one every generation it seems
• /Film a Ghostbusters sequel with the ladies seems unlikely as the film will record a theatrical loss due to that ginormous budget
• Comics Alliance breaks down the Luke Cage trailer
• i09 Black Manta will be the villain in Aquaman 

Off Screen
• Playbill Tony Danza names his favorite stage performances. Somewhat surprising but cool list featuring Mare Winningham, Mark Rylance, Faith Prince and more...
• GQ "Stop trying to get perfect abs." Love this -  Define your personality instead.  
• The Adequate Man "Steve Martin is My Body Icon" on looking like the same exact person for ages 

Today's Must Read
Todd VanDerWerff has a gorgeous personal essay up on Vox called "Hamilton isn't perfect. But it's *perfect." I couldn't write for a month after I saw it". That's a mouthful but cozy up and be moved. It's on seeing Hamilton, the power of who is telling your story, and Todd's birth parents. 

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (S1.E5-6)

We haven't forgotten about Crazy Ex Girlfriend. We'll just mix in it as we get through its hilarious episodes in preparation for Season 2. 

S1:E5 "Josh and I Are Good People!"

Rebecca, still guilty from her terrible behavior with Greg, attempts to prove to herself that she's a good person by getting mixed up in people's lives including Daryl's custody battle for his daughter. Josh also goes a little mental worrying that he's too much of a sinner. Let's rank the crazy...

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Will Justin Bring Sexy Back to Woody Allen Movies?

Eric on strange casting news. Justin Timberlake will be joining the cast of Woody Allen’s upcoming 2017 film (as yet untitled). He'll join Kate Winslet, Jim Belushi, and Juno Temple. If that isn’t one of the weirdest casts for any movie, let alone a Woody movie, I don’t know what is.  It’s funny imagining those four people in the same room together, let alone the same film. 

Woody has had the most unpredictable decade, delivering some of his best (Blue Jasmine, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Midnight in Paris, Match Point) and some of his worst (Irrational Man and Magic in the Moonlight), and you just never know what you’re going to get...

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Interview: That Neon-Loving Demon, Nicolas Winding Refn

Nicolas Winding Refn. Photographed by Tom Hoops for Lab MagazineNicolas Winding Refn, the Danish auteur whose made a career of candy colored violent films after grimier movies at home, is both exactly what you'd expect and unexpected. The expected: he's a little bit eccentric pacing the room rather than sitting, a little intimidating, and a little impish -- it's difficult to know if he truly means what he says in some instances, or if he has just mastered the art of provocation. The unexpected: he's relatively friendly, surprisingly generous about his collaborators despite the auteur's ego, very tall, thin and surprisingly attractive, something you wouldn't necessarily think since he's so often been photographed with inhuman gods like Ryan Gosling who make everyone but other movie stars look crumpled and basic.

As we talk we find mutual ground in Christina Hendricks adoration ("the perfect woman," he says) but elsewhere it's like he's speaking a foreign language and I don't mean Danish. His films, though quite serious on the surface, betray a dark sense of humor, and yet it still surprises me to hear him drop "I think it would be fun to make a spy movie" as we're saying our goodbyes. Why is this surprising? I couldn't quite tell you but such is the fascination of meeting this singular director, whatever you make of his increasingly divisive movies.

Our interview follows....

NATHANIEL: Let's talk about your opening scene. It's such a bold tableau. Did you ever worry you were coming on too strong. Like 'how will I top that first image?'

NICOLAS WINDING REFN: I'm setting the stage knowing that, if you look through the film, you'll see the same dynamic in all the other scenes of death and beauty.

NATHANIEL: So you're laying the theme.

NWR: I'm laying the theme right on. Most films -- storytelling in mass media -- start slowly, introducing. Eventually it gets to some kind of dramatic point in the first act. That means the second act is how do we solve it and the third act is resolution. But i don't necessarily believe that's the right order...

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