TIFF: Notes on Oscar hopefuls "Darkest Hour" and "Downsizing"

Detroit may have bombed but the letter "D" could still reign come Oscar time with Dunkirk, Darkest Hour, and Downsizing all potential Best Picture players. Though it can sometimes feel gross to discuss rich movies from an Oscar perspective before they've even been considered as films, it happens to us all this time of year and the films invite it with their slow rollouts from festival reviews that result in months of discussion and speculation before the public can buy tickets. In other words: Look what they made me us do!

DOWNSIZING
After 'miniature masterpiece' style reviews at Venice the critics got considerably chillier with Alexander Payne's latest once it hit Telluride. Now the film is playing in Toronto and the reviews continue to be mixed. This could spell trouble for the film, but be patient. Initial reviews are only part of the Oscar equation...

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Final Pre-Festival Oscar Charts

All Oscar charts have been updated. It's mostly huge gains for Alexander Payne's Downsizing and Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water (both premiering hot with "masterpiece!" reviews at the Venice Film Festival) but there are also a few other nips and tucks on each chart given buzz shifting, release date movies (goodbye Mary Magdalene), probably category hijinx (Last Flag Flying, Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, etcetera), and lack of distribution news for certain pictures. 

Check out the charts and report back, won'cha?

• INDEX • PICTURE • DIRECTOR • ACTRESS • ACTOR • SUPPORTING ACTRESS • SUPPORTING ACTOR • VISUAL CATEGORIES • SOUND CATEGORIES • SCREENPLAYS • ANIMATED FEATURES • FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS • FOREIGN SUBMISSIONS PT 1 • FOREIGN SUBMISSIONS PT 2 • FOREIGN SUBMISSIONS PT 3

The Bening hits Venice. Telluride and TIFF queue up.

by Nathaniel R

Consider prestige season officially on. The Venice Film Festival is currently in its first full day of screenings after last night's glitzy opening and Telluride just announced its lineup (which they always keep secret until after everyone has booked their passes). You can safely expect that many of the Oscar players will emerge in the next two weeks though with Spielberg's film not ready for the festivals and with Dunkirk already in theaters this could be the first year in ages where the eventual Best Picture winner does NOT emerge at the fall festivals...

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Links: The Beguiled, Real O'Neals, Celebrity Politics, and More

Let's try to cover everything we haven't mentioned lately (whew). The biggest and most obvious is that Sofia Coppola, whose plans to follow up Bling Ring with a live action Little Mermaid are no more, is now supposedly working on a remake of the Clint Eastwood romantic drama The Beguiled (1971). The film will star two darlings of TFE Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst. Plus Elle Fanning so Coppola already sold all the tickets to our crowd. The Clint role is as yet uncast.  They're said to be looking for a 'Chris Pratt' type but what this surely calls for is a watch of the original film to familiarize ourselves.

Let's do it together shall we? It's available on Amazon and iTunes so let's all watch it by April 8th or so and we'll discuss. Deal? 

Other News
• Playbill Julie Andrews will direct a 60th anniversary production of My Fair Lady this fall at the Sydney Opera House. Tell us how it is Aussie readers!
• Tracking Board Julia Roberts lines up another thriller Fool Me Once. Can she step off the thriller train please. She's always screaming. How about a romantic comedy revival?
• Coming Soon Naomi Watts joining Brie Larson in Destin Cretton's (Short Term 12) Glass Castle.  

• Coming Soon Kristen Wiig replaces Reese Witherspoon in Alexander Payne's next satire Downsizing
• Guardian Woody Allen's Cafe Society will open Cannes this year but what other premieres might we see there? 
• Comics Alliance First i'm hearing this but apparently April 26th is "Aliens day" and a bunch companies are going to be selling Aliens stuff, including Reebook who will be releasing replicas of Sigourney's hideous red white and black velcroed shoes from that 1986 classic
• Broadway Blog Aaron Sorkin's A Few Good Men getting the live TV treatment in early 2017 -- it's not just for musicals anymore
• /Film Channing Tatum's Gambit delayed yet again. Hopefully he'll realize soon he doesn't need to do it at all. I mean it'd be nice if ANYONE other than Leonardo DiCaprio stayed away from the superhero genre. Just for you know some variety in our top male stars
• BBC Hans Zimmer officially retiring from scoring superhero pictures after Batman v Superman 
• Cinematic Corner Speaking of. If you're not done hating on that movie read Sati's righteous fury about it. She points out something I didn't notice: Zach Snyder can't even do cameos right. He uses THREE of his Watchmen actors (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino) and I didn't realize that any of them were involved! 

i couldn't find a good video of this gay date scene but its adorbs

Recommended Reads 
• Towleroad an interview with Noah Galvin, the talented funny star of The Real O'Neals. Try this show if you haven't. It's a delight.
• MNPP Which is Hotter: Ed Skrein or Ed Skrein
• Mike's Movie Projector shares an excerpt from an old Joan Fontaine autobiography
• Film School Rejects on Superheroes needing a dash of silliness even in their "dark" outings 
• Interview talks to Sophie Okonedo about Broadway's revival of The Crucible. She plays Goody Proctor
• MNPP loved seeing Benjamin Walker in tighty whities for over an hour as Patrick Bateman in the Broadway musical version of  American Psycho and since Jason hates musicals that is more than enough recommendation for me who loves them. I hadn't yet realized that 

Can This Election Be Over Instead of 8 Months Away?
• Boy Culture agree with Matthew in this piece on Susan Sarandon's recent irresponsible political comments. I'm so ready for this election to be over and it's still 8 months away!
• Towleroad and icymi the genius Tony Kushner was a guest on MSNBC and discussed how baffling Sarandon has been about this (They're both heroes of my youth. I don't like it when mommy & daddy fight!)
• The New Yorker suggests that maybe Superman is Republicans and Batman is Democrats and now I just want to die rather than think about Batman v Superman for a second longer. DEATH TO INTERNET THINK PIECES ABOUT SUPERHERO MOVIES! (I'm suddenly dreading Captain America: Civil War and dreading a Captain America movie is not something I feel comfortable doing... at all. In other words: stop it internet!)

Jessica Chastain is Everything. And Other Links

Let's start with this super cute pic of Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac which she labelled

Feeling the power of the NBR

Remember the other day when we linked to that article using old Streep quotes to attack Russell Crowe's ageist comments about actresses? Well, Streep went and ruined it by defending him in public. So Jessica Chastain, inbetween taking super cute photos on the Oscar campaign trail, is on it, she told People:

I think there are some incredible actresses in their 50s and 60s that are not getting opportunities in films. And for someone to say there are plenty of roles for women that age – they're not going to the movies enough."

Preach, Jessica. Preach! 

Pajiba fascinating think piece on how ineffective Nielsen ratings are and why it's unacceptable that the media still uses them like a Bible
NYT Rod Taylor (The Birds, The Time Machine, The Twilight Zone), dies at 84
MCN David Poland's top ten (oops, eleven) list includes unlikely titles: Big Eyes, Fury, The Gambler and more
The Film Stage Matt Damon will headline Alexander Payne's next feature Downsizing
EW talks to Andrew Fleming about Honeymoon on Vegas (now a Broadway musical) and the rest of his filmography 

VF I missed this bit of Captain Chris Evans escorting Betty White to the stage at the People's Choice. I never watch that. What did I miss?
Variety Michael C Hall joins Robert Redford, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Wes Bentley in the new Pete's Dragon. Apparently the remake is not a musical? Boo. Especially considering that Michael C Hall is totally a musical guy!
Breathe Heavy photoshopping underwear ads with Justin Bieber 

Awardsy
THR on the Weinstein Co playbook for making unknowns like Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game) viable Best Director contenders
Guardian Controversy continues to erupt around American Sniper. right-wingers have called for the death of those criticizing Chris Kyle (who is played by Bradley Cooper in the film). Good christ, I hope AMPAS dodges this bullet. 
Q & Andy from Interview Ava DuVernay has the answers 
The Hairpin more on DuVernay's "quiet revolution"

Exit Tease
In case you didn't turn the internet on in the past 48 hours or so, that's the poster for Netflix's Daredevil with its surprisingly early debut date. I know I should be done with superheroes -- they're as overexposed as its possible to be but Daredevil holds a stubborn place in my heart (despite Ben Affleck and team trying to remove it without anesthetia) and Charlie Cox is über-adorable. So I'm kinda excited. I know. I know. I'm part of the problem.