Link Blog Repeat and Repeat

The Muse another movie that believes shark lives are worth less than dumb humans endangering themselves
Coming Soon The Glass Castle sets a release date for August. YAY. We love a counterprogrammed adult drama in the summer
Film School Rejects on the proliferation of streaming services. A bursting bubble?
Gothamist Rooftop Films in NYC announces their summer lineup which includes buzzy titles like Beach Rats, Menashe, and The Big Sick
MNPP Who wore it best? Darren Criss or Max Greenfield
EW First images of Naomi Watts in the Netflix series Gypsy

Film School Rejects on highlights from the Godfather 45th anniversary reunion -the original cast showed up!
/Film Edge of Tomorrow is getting a sequel (with both Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise returning) and its riffing on the original film's tagline for its title: Live Die Repeat and Repeat
Collider why Rian Johnson asked JJ Abrams to make a small switch to the ending of The Force Awakens to help out The Last Jedi
The New Yorker Anthony Lane reviews Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. This tossed off line about Kurt Russell's character honestly made me LOL but I think it's only funny if you're old enough to know Yes albums.

Ego has built his own planet, apparently after consulting the covers of Yes albums.

Off Screen
AV Club Pepe the Frog dies, killed by his cartoonist creator who was upset that his initially harmless creation had been turned into a symbol of hate by Neo Nazis
EW Nicki Minaj went on a spending spree for fans for an hour on twitter, paying their student loans and tuition
Boy Culture congrats to Dustin Lance Black and Tom Daley who reportedly married
Towleroad a rave review of the London production of Angels in America
Jezebel leaked tracklist for a deluxe reissue of Prince's masterpiece Purple Rain 

Exit Video
I almost never post SNL videos because frankly I never understand why people think that show is funny. It's always such a long slog with just a couple of laughs. Chris Pine hosted and did an opening number about how he's not Chris Evans or Chris Hemsworth or Chris Pratt but Chris Pine. It included one little similarity I hadnt even though of: Evans and Pine both play guys named Steve in superhero pictures that also double as World War period pieces. But this Chris Pine's guested skit about RuPaul's Drag Race is sneaky funny and super up-to-the-minute.  

The Furniture: Porches and Nostalgia in Hell or High Water

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber...

The Old West has been dead since well before the dawn of cinema, and so the best Westerns are parables of a way of life in decline. Yet despite the history, there are plenty for whom the mythology of the cowboy and the outlaw isn’t extinct. That’s why the Western has lived on, well after the death of even the oldest Americans who could remember those days. It’s also what drives films like Hell or High Water, which use symbols to chronicle the last days of the Old West’s cultural descendants.

It takes place in a nearly empty West Texas, now being picked over by banks. Taylor Sheridan’s script is insistent in its reminders of this context. “No wonder my kids won’t do this shit for a living,” says an anonymous cattle rancher fleeing an encroaching fire. “The days of robbing banks and trying to live to spend the money - long gone,” says an anonymous old man in a burger joint.

This is why the surface tension between the criminal brothers (Ben Foster and Chris Pine) and the aging Texas Ranger (Jeff Bridges) is a red herring...

Click to read more ...

The Furniture: Terrestrial Fun in "Star Trek Beyond"

"The Furniture" our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber

Early in Star Trek Beyond, screenwriters Simon Pegg and Doug Jung wedge a dumb joke into the voice over narration of Captain Kirk (Chris Pine). He has led the Enterprise and its crew across the galaxy to fulfill an endless series of missions, many of them quite similar. His life, he explains, has begun to feel a bit “episodic.” Very funny.

Yet Star Trek Beyond is, in its own way, a self-contained episode of an ongoing series. The bulk of the film takes place on a single planet. No time is spent on earth, nor is the home world at any significant risk. There is no massive cross-galaxy conflict. The story is given a satisfying conclusion, without participating in a grand trilogy or teasing a far-off sequel. This isn’t Star Wars or, for that matter, the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

This means that the production design team, not tasked with a universe of diverse locations, focused on on just a couple of planets...

Click to read more ...

Review: Hell or High Water

by Eric Blume

With their new film, director David Mackenzie (Young Adam, Starred Up) and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan (Sicario) make one thing abundantly clear: they really, really hate banks.  Hell or High Water is a sort of southwest answer to The Big Short, a tale of rural Texas poor on a Robin Hood mission. 

Sheridan’s script was the winner of the 2012 Black List prize for best unproduced screenplay, a fact which feels surprising during the cliché friendly first half hour.  Brothers Toby and Tanner Howard are characters we’ve seen many times before, with a sibling dynamic that’s not new either.  Tanner (Ben Foster) is the wild bro released from prison, complete with a violent streak and true-blue redneck energy.  Toby (Chris Pine) is the tender brother, a taciturn and emotionally bruised man trying to make things right.  Together, they start robbing small Texas banks to secure money to save the family farm.  As Counterpoint we have two Texas rangers on their case:  Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges), for whom this is the last big one before retirement(!), and partner Alberto (Gil Birmingham), the sage Native American sidekick. 

For about the first thirty minutes, you sit in fear that this is all the film will be, a simple chase to the inevitable populated with stock characters. The only hope it has is to somehow deepen.  Fortunately, it does...

Click to read more ...

Linkdale

The Ringer Who is winning the Chris wars: Evans, Pine, or Hemsworth?
/Film Stranger Things will get a sequel season, Netflix confirms. I'm a bit disappointed honestly because I thought an anthology approach would be more satisifying, with a whole new story. Season 1 was resolved satisfyingly. Who needs every story thread neatly tied up? Boo.
The Metrograph has a Madonna week in August which will include a Q&A with Truth or Dare director Alek Keshishian - alas, the latter is already sold out. They also have a fun series in a week called "This is PG?!" featuring movies from the late 70s to the mid 80s when the MPAA was pressured into adding "PG-13" (I really have to get better at this Metrograph thing. They're big nights with Q&As seem to sell out instantly so I keep missing them.)

IGN interviews Joss Whedon at Comic Con. They talk Buffy comic book, secret projects, and whether a Black Widow movie would lure him back to Marvel
EW on the pilot for Riverdale, the new CW series that will rethink the Archie comic books. Unfortunately it sounds like all TV high school dramas mixed with Twin Peaks (???) and not much like Archie apart from the character names.
The New Yorker has a really interesting review of Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie
The Hairpin on the 20th anniversary of Fiona Apple's awesome "Tidal". Fun read.
Current Affairs isn't happy that our political leaders love Hamilton the musical 

"New" Musicals and Plays
Playbill This sounds interesting -there's a new stage musical in readings called Flying Over Sunset about Hollywood's LSD craze in the late 50s the main characters are Claire Booth Luce, Aldous Huxley, and Cary Grant. Good luck casting Cary Grant!
Playbill another movie to stage adaptation - the animated feature The Prince of Egypt has been adapted into a full musical and gets a free concert next month in Sag Harbor, NY
Variety wonders if the new Harry Potter play is the next Hamilton. It's sold out in London and expected on Broadway eventually 

Trekkies Rejoice
Coming Soon Bryan Fuller, who makes such good television (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies, Wonderfalls) has two new series coming up in 2017. The first Star Trek Discovery, due in January, now has a visual teaser. American Gods has no air date yet but is also expected in 2017.
Forbes argues that Star Trek's movie franchise division would be smart to go smaller for bigger payoffs at the box office: Agreed.
Space a Star Trek art exhibition called "Star Trek: 50 Artists. 50 Years" debuted at Comic Con and will now be touring conventions and museums, including NYC's Paley Center for Visual Media in September
THR Gene Rodenberry's son is playing release rare unseen footage from the original Star Trek series 

Today's Watch
This reworking of the Cheers theme song by K Anderson & Rosered to celebrate LGBT history is really cool and poignant. [Hat Tip: Towleroad]