It is with great sadness that we share the unexpected news that the always wonderful British actress Helen McRory has passed away. She died of cancer (a diagnosis she had kept hidden as she continued on with charity work during the pandemic) at the age of 52 on Friday.
She made her big screen debut inauspiciously, as so many stars do, playing a doomed young woman in Interview with the Vampire (1994)...
Toni Collette is an incredibly versatile actress. In just the last two years, she has enthralled indie horror fans in Hereditary, hilariously parodied GOOP excess in Knives Out, and impressed Netflix viewers with her tremendous turn as a no-nonsense cop in Unbelievable. In comparison, her latest turn as a Welsh bartender with big dreams, may seem tame or even unchallenging. Yet Collette is always up to the task and prepared to deliver...
• The next James Bond will be... Damian Lewis? Our first ginger 007 you guys! Rumor only but I could see that happening. [Mirror] • It's weird that there's not a definitive feature about the airplane-building Wright Brothers. Steven Spielberg wants to make one as it turns out. Seems like a good fit, no? [/Film] • Life on the red planet? There's water at least. Did Fox pay NASA to announce this the week before the opening of The Martian ;) ? [The Guardian]
• Rising star Jonny Beauchamp says he owes everything to Roland Emmerich. Oh noooo. Tough debt. Also there's a photoshoot [Interview magazine] • "I was being talked to like I was a silly pop singer." Grace Jones is still quotable/fabulous/singular. Just released a memoir [Time Out] • "I've got tea. I've got cookies. No cake!" I cannot tell you how often my best friends and I quote The Log Lady from Twin Peaks. RIP Catherine Coulson [Wired] • "Marlene Dietrich believed her pussy was magic" is the first sentence of this article so you know you want to read it. Why can't we get a biopic about THESE anecdotes? [Pajiba] • Is this really Frank Grillo (from Captain America: Winter Soldier) younger & NSFW? [OMG BLOG] • Everyone in the world has forgotten that Disney was going to make an Enchanted sequel. Except Disney apparently. It's going to be called Disenchanted. I shudder to think of the web exploding with "who should replace Amy Adams?" articles [Coming Soon] • "we were certainly looking for shots that told the story without a lot of cutting." - Roger Deakins on point of view and action sequences in Sicario [The Film Stage] • First image of Woody Harrelson as LBJ in Rob Reiner's forthcoming biopic [Empire]
Image of the Day Thor and The Vision making out from theAvengers: Age of Ultron gag/blooper reel. Love the elegant placement of Thor's hammer. The best part of the image is surely that man about to shoot in the corner.
Video of the Day #1 The Revenant gets a new nearly 3 minute trailer. I won't be watching it because I love the teaser so much (previously discussed, the one with all the heavy breathing) and I don't want any more information in my eyeballs before seeing it than we've already gotten. The reaction online seems breathless/"MASTERPIECEY"! but one should never bank on trailers to tell you what the finished quality of a movie will be, only to tell you whether it looks like you must see the movie. The last trailer that fooled me with "oh, this will be a masterpiece, hands down!" was Little Children (2006) and that's where I learned my lesson once and for all that the art of cutting trailers into 2-ish minute expressive gems was an entirely different art form (a beautiful art form if you don't give too much away) then making a 2 hour movie.
Video of the Day #2 "Bitch Better Have My Money" Barbershop Quartet Quintet style with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
In the Stage Door series we look at current theatrical productions with our cinematic eye. Here's Jose on Romeo & Juliet
Some time within the last 14 days, I subjected myself to three versions of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet playing in NYC. "Subjected?" you ask, well dear reader, each of them was perhaps more horrifying than the previous, leading me to ask if I wasn't an unwitting participant in some Shakespeare-meets-Halloween project. However in the name of scientific research I've come back with some results.
The versions in question are...
1) a Broadway update (the first in over four decades) starring Condola Rashad and Orlando Bloom as the infamous lovers from Verona. 2) a new film (written by Julian Fellowes) starring Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld as Juliet and Damian Lewis as her dad 3) an off-Broadway version with Elizabeth Olsen and newcomer Julian Cihi as the title characters.
Both theater versions feature anachronisms and are set in unspecified times, the film version inversely has a time-appropriate setting yet somehow it doesn't feel like the most old fashioned of them.
Deal Central Anne Hathaway will star in a modernized version of Taming of the Shrew. Good luck besting braying fab Elizabeth Taylor, Anne. Movie|Line Michael Haneke is actually aware of that lolz twitter account in his name. Too cool or perhaps too Haneke to care. AV Club Mike D'Angelo on the art of compression in Moonrise Kingdom (the letter sequence is my personal favorite in the film)
Vulture attends a slew of parties and eavesdrop on Jennifer Lawrence (who loves Kara Hayward from Moonrise Kingdom) and Damian Lewis who does it gangnam style... no really. Pajiba on new television series in the works including a Heathers adaptation and a new drama from... Cher (!) A Blogwork Orange on the director blame game regarding Oscar snubs Movies on Demand has a ton of nominees for your instant renting perusal. I almost didn't link to this because their press release was so condescending. Why yes, Movies on Demand, I do actually know just how Quvenzhane Wallis made history this week. Duh!
GLOBES MANIA Jane Fonda recounts her red carpet weekend Stale Popcorn Glenn appreciates a gorgeous raven-haired threeshot of Lucy Liu, Marion Cotillard, and Salma Hayek. And the Globes surrounding it. Nicks Flick Picks valiantly live-blogged the whole Globes experience (unlike myself who tried to go mobile and failed) in his usual entertaining way. Abilify!
Saturday, April 17, 2021 at 7:00PM 
