Soundtracking: "Atomic Blonde"

Chris looks back at one of the best soundtracks of the year, Atomic Blonde...

There’s no other film I wanted to musically take up residence inside this year more than Atomic Blonde. The film is loaded with techno pseudo-political new age and best played at full volume, featuring the likes of The Clash to A Flock of Seagulls. It’s a film that gifts us with the glory of Til Tuesday’s glorious “Voices Carry” not once, but twice!

While some might reduce its endless stream of songs to added set dressing (cue Daniel Walber’s Atomic Blonde installment of The Funiture here) or just another fabulous costume, it actually does some heavy lifting to both immerse us into a specific world of its the Cold War setting and distinguish the era apart from the cinematic cliches of the subgenre. The electric glamor and brutality has been some of the film’s major discussion points for how the film looks unlike your average Cold War film, but it’s equally crucial that it doesn’t sound like one either... 

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The Furniture: Atomic Blonde's Neon Nihilism

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail. 

The design of Atomic Blonde is, well, cool. The colors are cool and the vibe is cool, in a very straightforward way. It’s nothing like the characters, who constantly double-cross each other. The twists and turns of this last-minute Cold War spy movie keep coming until its final moments. Everyone is suspicious, even if it’s not obvious.

Yet the landscape upon which Lorraine (Charlize Theron) and Percival (James McAvoy), the Brits, Americans, French, Russians, West Germans and East Germans play is remarkably uniform. Perhaps this is because the film, directed by David Leitch (John Wick) and written by Kurt Johnstad (300) sees them all as working the same game. It’s a bit like the moral landscape of Sicario, the nihilism of film noir without any of its grand mysteries. The question is no longer “What is evil?” but rather “Why are all these people who signed up for a violent and amoral profession behaving so violently and without morals?”

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would you rather...?

Time for another silly 'let's fantasize about hanging out with celebrities' game. Would you rather...

• visit South Africa with two of its most famous exports Charlize Theron and Trevor Noah?
• cheer Ashley Judd's cat on as it fully recovers from a near fatal attack?
• do goat yoga (there are so many kinds of yoga!) with Marisa Tomei?
• watch the eclipse with Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen, Jane Fonda, and Mary Steenburgen?
• bask in the afterglow with Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally?
• mother kittens with Kristin Bauer?
• hang in Brooklyn in your pjs with Anna Kendrick?
• wish John Stamos a happy birthday suit?

pictures after the jump to help you decide.

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The Incredible Linking Man

• The Cut "I'm rooting for the Lannisters" fun piece on Game of Thrones (which I still read about on occasion even though I haven't watched since season 2)
• /Film Guillermo del Toro's official tequila looks like it's from one of his movies
• Vulture every Charlize Theron performance ranked. Interesting list though I quibble with the order (as they seem to equate the quality of the movies with the quality of her performance and Theron is precisely the star she is because she is often able to be good even in terrible pictures). Also Young Adult should be #1

• Playbill all star cast lined up for Steve Martin's next Broadway show (after his musical Bright Star), this one's a comedy called Meteor Shower
• Browbeat the internet goes wild for old Russ Tamblyn dancing clip from 1956
• Tracking Board Nicole Kidman is in talks to headline a crime thriller called Destroyer directed by Karyn Kusama. Kusama is promising that though it's a genre film it's also "a beautiful character study of an incredible female"
• Variety we were wondering when Ruth Negga would start lining up big roles after Loving. She'll star opposite Brad Pitt in the sci-fi movie Ad Astra
• Awards Daily This is Us has lost one of its Emmy nominations, costume design.
• The Wrap this piece about Marvel's plans for Spider-Man got a lot of internet pass-around but it really doesn't tell you much other than they're going to make Spidey a thing in all the crossover movies

Two pieces about criticism/discussion of racial politics in movies/theaters right now

• American Theater a thoughtful piece on the counterproductive assault on Broadway's Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. (We haven't yet heard if the show is actually closing following it's poorly handled casting changes but it might... but the producers were apparently considering it)
• Birth Movies Death a very navel gazing piece about being an ally and trying to navigate pop culture criticism in the current political climate and intersectional age

Exit Video
Handsome talented Aaron Tveit is taking on the classic role of Bobby in another production of Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece (one of them, at least) Company. This one starts in a couple of days in Massachusetts so go if you live near there and report back. Here he is rehearsing...

Charlize's Birthday Share

Look at all these people who share Charlize Theron's birthday! Our favorite Atomic Blonde isn't even the only South African Oscar winner born on this day. It's quite a day in showbiz history all told. Which of these luminaries will you celebrate today inside your hearts?

Jeanne Moreau as Mata Hari in 1964

1876 Mata Hari, exotic dancer / spy / juicy role for both Greta Garbo & Jeanne Moreau
1884 Billie Burke, Glinda the Good Witch herself (also an Oscar nominated actress for Merrily We Live, 1938)
1901 Yuliya Solntseva, actress/director (the only female to win Best Director at Cannes until Sofia Coppola this summer)
1902 Ann Harding, Oscar nominated actress (Holiday, 1930)
1914 Ted Moore, Oscar winning cinematographer from South Africa
1927 Carl "Alfafa" Switzer of Our Gang fame
1942 Garrison Keillor of A Prairie Home Companion
1942 BJ Thomas, singer of the Oscar-winning "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head"
1942 Caetano Veloso, singer of the sublime "Cucurrucucú Paloma" which is heard in several movies including two Oscar winners: Talk to Her and Moonlight
1943 Alain Corneau, French writer/director 
1944 John Glover, enduring character actor

1944 David Rasche, undervalued funny character actor (Veep, In the Loop, Burn After Reading)
1960 David Duchovny, aka Fox Mulder
1963 Harold Perrineau, TV regular (currently on Claws)
1965 Jon Jon Briones, stage and screen actor (last seen in revival of Miss Saigon)
1971 Rachel York, Broadway regular and TV actor
1974 Michael Shannon, scene-stealer / Oscar nominated actor

Elizabeth Debicki with Luca Calvani in "The Man From UNCLE"

1974 Luca Calvani, italian actor (The Man From UNCLE)
1975 Charlize Theron, fierce icon / Oscar-winning actress
1978 Alexandre Aja, horror movie director
1979 Eric Johnson, actor (The Knick/ 50 Shades franchise)
1982 Abbie Cornish, Bright Star who seems to have disappeared!