The Bening to the Rescue!

Murtada here. 2015 is a banner year for actresexuals. From Clouds of Sils Maria in the spring, to the summer of prickly older ladies (Lily, Blythe and Meryl) and through to this month’s Brooklyn and Carol, we were spoiled. Looking forward to 2016 though, it is looking barren. It might just be early days as the release calendar hasn’t taken full shape yet.

But fear not actressexuals, Annette Bening’s coming to rescue us all from more stories about men and the obsession with their legacy and position in the world (ahem Steve Jobs!). Here she is, in glorious ratty overalls on the set of 20th Century Women. Mike Mills' long awaited follow-up to Beginners is a casting dream with lead roles for The Bening, Greta Gerwig and Elle Fanning. Bening is Dorothea Fields, a mother raising her teenage son, Jamie, in Southern California in the summer of 1979. Also in Jamie’s life are a sophisticated photographer (Gerwig) and his teenage friend (Fanning). Mills based the characters on women he knew growing up.

And what’s with those blue overalls? And she’s not looking too happy. Hopefully that means there’s lots of drama to deal with. Mills after all made a poignant and beautiful story in Beginners, another movie he based on his personal experiences. That led to Christopher Plummer winning an Oscar. Could he work his magic for The Bening as well?

Are you excited for 20th Century Women? What other 2016 releases do you think can continue the actressexuals bliss we are having now?

TIFF's Red Carpet, Much Improved

Jose here, with a new life mission: make someone as happy as Kate Winslet looked at the premiere of The Dressmaker.

 The Oscar winner was the epitome of radiance as she walked the red carpet in a stunning Badgley Mischka design. Official reports say she was blowing kisses to the crowd, signing autographs and putting on her best face for her fans, however I choose to believe she was smiling because she saw how improved the looks were at the festival by the time she arrived. See the looks after the jump. 

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Let's Go Down The Rabbit Hole Again

Jason from MNPP here with the latest dispatch from Kidmanville (Nicoleopolis?) - the Aussie goddess is set for a Rabbit Hole reunion! No she's not playing Galactus in the next Fantastic Four movie (although do stop and imagine that for a hot second, by all means) -- she's re-teaming with director John Cameron Mitchell on his next project, an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's short story How To Talk To Girls At Parties (out of his 2006 collection Fragile Things). Which is maybe even better than the Galactus thing.

I won't wade into plot details because I hate having too much of that ruined for me beforehand; you can read that at the link if you like. But I will say it's a science-fiction love-story set in London in the 70s, and that also attached to the film (as if we need anybody else) are Elle Fanning & Alex Sharp.

"Alex who?," you ask? He was the lead actor in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, for which he snatched a Tony this year. He is quite good, they say!

Delighted to be teaming w/ John Cameron Mitchell on his glam-punk alien love story HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIES 👽 pic.twitter.com/1ACyL6J9JA

— A24 (@A24) September 15, 2015

(Also of note: indie musicians Nico Muhly, Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu and Matmos are doing the music!)

The film will begin shooting in November and hopefully they'll shoot & edit & release it in time for this year's Oscars, so Nicole can pick up another statue of her own. She's totally overdue her second (and her third!) at this point, don't you think?

Women's Pictures - Sofia Coppola's Somewhere

Anne Marie's Sofia Coppola chapter of 'Women's Pictures' has reached its finale. Next month: Agnes Varda!

Sofia Coppola month has been enlightening. I don't know that we've tackled a director as polarizing as Ms. Coppola on Women's Pictures to date, and I've enjoyed reading the varied reactions readers have had to her films. For that reason, and because of the more prominent autobiographical inspirations, the final movie of Sofia Coppola month is Somewhere, the often-overlooked 2010 dramedy.

Somewhere distills the themes Coppola has employed throughout her career, putting them in service of a story that rings clearly from the writer/director's personal experience. After all, before she was Sofia Coppola, Academy Award winning screenwriter and respected director, she was Sofia Coppola, daughter of famed auteur Francis Ford Coppola. She had a firsthand account of how major celebrity can free a person and also trap him, and those contradictions resonate through her entire ouvre. In Somewhere, Coppola gives us a glimpse into the monotony of celebrity that is mostly devoid of easy sentiment. Whether you want that glimpse or not determines how likely you are to enjoy slow-paced movies about wealthy stars having existential crises. To bastardize a line from an old classic: with (films about) the rich and mighty, always a little patience.

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Top Ten: Best of The Boxtrolls

Because it was so much fun last week, another all top ten tuesday to celebrate our new season as the awards will soon come rushing at us...

People aren't talking about The Boxtrolls enough. It's a true mark against the world's parents that numerous animated mediocrities, The Peabodys, Nutjobs and Rios regularly and considerably outgross inventive Laika's awesome stop-motion films. While it's true that Laika's features have elements of the grotesque or macabre that are tougher sells to nonadventurous families, one only has to look at the perennial universal love for Nightmare Before Christmas to know that people are okay with that once they acclimate.

Which is very much my personal experience with The Boxtrolls. It's less immediately sympathetic than ParaNorman, less hook-laden than The Corpse Bride, less immediately fantastical than Coraline but once you get past the initial shock of the character designs (which has undoubtedly been an obstacle): blotched, deformed, dirty, jagged teeth and so on, the movie grows on you. It's another technical triumph in the service of a story that works on both juvenile and adult levels. Sure, it's not their best film but it's still a singular one in the current animated marketplace.

Since I never reviewed The Boxtrolls, consider this one of those in top ten form and a plea for those of you who haven't seen to correct that. To any awards voters reading who are just beginning to consider the Animated Feature Film category just know that it could be very rich with variety if you choose well this year.

THE BOXTROLL'S GREATEST HITS
after the jump...

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