Menagerie '15: Best Animals in the Movies

Personality Assessment. Go...

• Do you feel guilty (like me) about missing White God, Hungary's acclaimed drama about a pack of wild dogs?

• Were you puzzled when Susan Cooper was embarrassed by her crazy cat lady disguise in Spy?

• Would you put on a bee suit to hang with Mr Holmes? 

• Would you adopt Paddington after he defiled your toothbrushes? 

If you answered yes to any of those questions you might be an animal person or a crazy cat lady like your host Nathaniel. This list (updated from a halfwaymark celebration) is for you!

TOP 15 ANIMALS FROM 2015 MOVIES
after the jump...

Click to read more ...

DVD/Bluray: Little Voices & Lion Roars

It's time to talk about this week's big DVD/BluRay releases and a few from last week since we neglected to mention them. The big one is of course Pixar's hit Inside Out which you were surely reminded of this Halloween weekend -- popular group costume! It's likely to end 2015, once Star Wars 7 & Hunger Games 4 arrive, as the fifth most ginormous hit. It's also looking like a good bet for a Best Picture nomination with the box office being so rough for more traditional Oscar types.

Tim and I both highlighted Inside Out in our halfway year in reviews (Tim's / Mine) because it's delightful, and moving, and a true return to form. Are you eager to revisit it?

It's all about the little voices in your head. But only five of them? I've got at least nine. Which begs the question... 

INSIDE OUT says we have five little voices in our heads: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. How many you got?

Sounds about right.

I've got way more than that. But the other ones aren't appropriate for a family movie

I don't understand the breakdown. My voices reject labels!

I don't hear voices. Am sane!

Poll Maker

Other New Releases

• Best of Enemies - documentary (Amir's Review)
• Digging For Fire -from the prolific Joe Swanberg
• End of the Tour - Won very strong reviews but little public interest
• Max - did you know heroic military dogs can get PTSD?
• Pixels - Adam Sandler vs video games (Tim's Review)
• Seymour an Introduction - documentary (Glenn's Review)
• She's Funny That Way - a comedy via Peter Bogdanovich
• Southpaw - Jake Gyllenhaal vs his demons + abs/guns
• Vacation - the sequel meant to reignite the franchise

Curio Pick: The most compelling of the non Pixar new releases is surely the big cat epic Roar (1981), the infamous cult movie starring mom & daughter Tippi Hedren & Melanie Griffith, both of whom were injured (along with many other cast & crew) on set. What is it with Tippi Hedren and violent animals? See also: The Birds. 

Tweetweek + All Hallow's Eve

image sourceHappy Halloween 

Be safe today and tonight! This year our only long read horror offering was Anne Marie's fine female directed horror miniseries though we threw in a bit more Horror here and there. But if you're looking for Halloween movie suggestions see something you've never seen from Team Experience's Top Ten Pre-Exorcist Horror Films or the Top Ten Post-Exorcist Horror films. 

But enough about Halloween! After this amazing sketch of Catwoman from Batman Returns (I ♥ I ♥ ) -- which is kind of a good Halloween movie even though it's set at Christmas time -- check out amusing tweets of the week starring Steve Martin, The Shining, Monica Bellucci and more! 

Cats + Selina Kyle. #CatDay @Sketch_Dailies pic.twitter.com/ayDKrvIGHx

— Luis Burguete (@luisbrgt85) October 29, 2015

Click to read more ...

This one is for movie buffs who love animals and also know how to read subtitles

Pt 3 Everything you wanted to know about the foreign language film Oscar race.... * but were afraid to ask

Do you love animals? Who doesn't love animals? If you don't love them, we can't be friends!

A True Story From Nathaniel's Sick Bed/Office... 
I've been sick all week. Yesterday, feeling vaguely human again, I risked a movie at NYFF which happened to be Taiwan's Oscar submission The Assassin. It is sure pretty but after falling for a red herring involving a blue bird I gave up trying to follow the plot. When I returned home I collapsed. I dreamt of being forced to pack up all my earthly possessions and load them on a barge that was heading to outerspace. In order to survive the interstellar journey by water we needed to wear very tight scuba space suits. I realized I couldn't bring my beloved Monty unless I could squeeze him into his own catsuit (literal catsuit, not sexy-diva figurative). He wouldn't comply and I was holding him tight and we were just sweating in those damn suits. I woke up abruptly buried in blankets and sweat with my cat sound asleep on top of me. He LOVES when I am sick. The feeling is not mutual in reverse and he has been.I can't even talk about it. I can't.

I got back to work when Oscar news dropped. I spent the day/evening frantically updating the foreign Oscar Charts and compiling that director trivia and collating all those subtitled trailers for you. I took one wee break to take an online quiz for The Lobster -- which is about people who become animals if they can't find mates -  and somehow I came out as a bear? I am relatively hairless but I do love honey and fish. Type-type-type. Blog-blog-blog. Through my sniffles and remaining sickly delirium I thought 'No one appreciates all this work I do. Gah. I should just sail to outerspace!' and then I remembered the dream and that I was crazy and should go to bed again and I love my cat. The End.

My point is this: Animals and Oscars and Movies are all on my brain simultaneously. And though that's not uncommon, here is an incomplete list of this year's Foreign Film Oscar Contenders which definitely feature our furry / feathered / scaly friends.

Xenia (Greece)
Bunny Rabbits, apparently. This one is on the poster albeit in normal bunny rabbit size.

Arabian Nights: Volume 2 - The Desolate Ones (Portugal) 
Mangy Poodles. Silent Parrots. Talking Litigous Cows! This is a must see for fans of animal-related cinema. [my confused review]

Sivas (Turkey)
The plot centers on a young boy who saves a sheep dog 

The Wanted 18 (Palestine)
This documentary is actually about cows! 

Baba Joon (Israel)
It takes place on a turkey farm 

Stranger (Kazakshtan)
A young man with a tight relationship to nearby wolves

Rams (Iceland) and Lamb (Ethiopia)
What the titles say

Embrace of the Serpent (Colombia)
The animals only really get cool chapter marking cameos but see this movie! [my besotted review]

Brand New Testament (Belgium)
I know this satire is about God living in Brussells but somehow Catherine Deneuve and a Gorilla are involved??? I'm in. When can I see it?

Which of the foreign submissions are you most curious about?

ICYMI
All the trailers | submissions from women and newbies | prediction & charts

Links

BuzzFeed Netflix not legally responsible for your 'viewing history' - it's so funny that people thought they were
The Hairpin Mission: Impossibly Silly "I Still Don't Understand How Tall Everyone Is"  
Interview Director Marielle Heller talks about the ratings and sexuality of her daring debut The Diary of a Teenage Girl 

Towleroad George Takei once asked Gene Roddenberry about including gay characters on Star Trek. Interesting historical response but what's their excuse now since that franchise is still alive?
IndieWire How to apply for a Women of Color directors and screenwriters 10 day retreat
This is Not Porn Cute. Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg take a break during Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 

Tim is the Best
Antagony & Ecstasy revisits Dog Day Afternoon... (great films often generate great writing about film)
Antagony & Ecstasy also revisits the very first unreleased Fantastic Four (1994) and claims its still the best adaptation of Marvel's first family (bad films often generate great writing about film) 
.... moral of combining them: Timothy Brayton often generates great writing about film.  

Off Cinema 
Laughing Squid a feline feeding machine to let your cat be more self-actualized indoors
Gothamist sad news: Annie Lennox's daughter's boyfriend has gone missing after a tandem kayak accident 

"Clobberin' Time"
There's a lot of handwringing going round about what exactly happened between Josh Trank and the studio and the source material to make Fantastic Four so bad. Film School Rejects even felt it needed a six-year timeline. But there's also post-mortems about the opening weekend which are lower than usual for superheroes.Variety argues that audiences are getting wise to money grabs (with tanking reboots like FF and diminished returns for Spider-Man) and studios need to think harder about repackaging known brands. But I personally don't know if that's the case -- I mean audiences are still putting up with needlessly padded "part 1 and part 2" finales which everyone knows are not artistically motivated decisions aimed at providing them with the best possible movie. So until audiences start bailing on those, I'm not eager to give them too much credit for protecting their wallets against Hollywood's 'screw-quality / make another billion quick' tactics.