No Sophomore Slump?

Here’s Murtada with casting news for three directors’ sophomore efforts after the critical success of their debuts.

Insane chemistry retread?

DAMIEN CHAZELLE
While everyone is talking about Miles Teller and how maybe he was fired from La La Land, the new movie from his Whiplash (2014) director Damien Chazelle, that movie has been adding cast members. It's got a rather charming cast all told. Joining Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in lead and J.K. Simmons and Ex Machina’s Sonoya Mizuno in support, are John Legend (Selma) and Rosemarie Dewitt (Rachel Getting Married).

The movie is about an aspiring actress (Stone) and a musician (Gosling) falling in love while trying to make it in LA. Legend’s role is unknown but we assume his talents as an Oscar winning songwriter will be used in some capacity in addition to his acting. DeWitt will reportedly play Gosling’s sister. Can you spot any family resemblance?

TOM FORD
Yesterday Michael Shannon and  Aaron Taylor Johnson were announced as the latest additions to Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals joining Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams. There were reports a few months ago that Joaquin Phoenix was being considered for a part, which we'll assume is the one Shannon has now taken. Plot details are sketchy on this one beyond the fact that it’s based on Austin Wright’s 1993 novel Tony And Susan, and it involves two interlocking stories. One story is maybe a fictional one within the other. Ford has written the script and could have veered a bit from the book. Any readers of the book that can shed some light on the plot?

Will he find someone as talented as Quvenzhane Wallis?

BENH ZEITLIN
And  Benh Zeitlin is finally following up Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012). Reports appeared online that he has put up a casting call for child actors to appear in his new movie Wendy. Filming will take place in Antigua and the story is about “a young girl who gets kidnapped onto a hidden ecosystem where a tribal war is raging over a form of pollen that breaks the relationship between aging and time.” Hmmm, sound similar to Beasts, no? Other reports say it's loosely based on the Peter Pan myth.

Expect to see these three intriguing projects in 2016. Have they jumped to the top of your most anticipated lists?

Review: Aloha's Good Intentions Can't Rescue It

Michael C here to try to make sense of what I just watched. Cameron Crowe’s Aloha is one of the most bewildering cinematic experiences in recent memory.

Gone is the filmmaker behind Almost Famous and Jerry Maguire that could gracefully execute romantic gestures grand enough to capsize lesser movies. Gone even is the maker of follies like Elizabethtown who missed the mark by a mile but at least left a coherent mess in his wake. In his place is a guy that can barely scrape together a moment of believable human interaction in Aloha’s 105 minute running time. Crowe is so besotted with his notions of spiritual uplift against a mystical Hawaiian backdrop, so dizzy with big statements about life and love and redemption, that he appears to have lost his bearings completely. Aloha’s outpouring of emotion is fed into the malfunctioning machinery of the screenplay and spat out the other end as gobbledygook.

Bradley Cooper plays Brian Gilcrest, a cynic with a heart of gold in the Jerry Maguire mold. Gilcrest is a soldier coming off a series of vague professional disasters given the cushy task of obtaining a blessing from some native Hawaiians so the army can relocate an ancient burial ground (I think). Returning to Hawaii means seeing the girlfriend he ran out on eighteen years ago (Rachel McAdams) and her new family. Gilcrest is escorted on this mission by spunky young fighter pilot played by Emma Stone. The pairing generates all the romantic sparks of a guy babysitting his rambunctious younger cousin on a weekend road trip.

Click to read more ...

Cannes Review: Irrational Man

Diana Drumm sends us another review from Cannes... 

A promising premise and captivating performances fall flat as a philosophy professor leaps after a misguided notion of the philosophical imperative, tumbling after one of his own theoreticals to disastrous results. Like much of Allen’s lesser filmography, Irrational Man dabbles in some of the auteur’s favorite subjects (philosophy, middle-aged male crisis, May-December or in this case June-November romances) and takes on more than it can chew, choking up in the third act.

The film’s tone shifts with the stumbled abandon of a dizzied drunk trying to make up his mind whether to stand or stay seated, from murky to light to dark, sprawling discussions to tensed farce...

Click to read more ...

Podcast Finale: The Team Reflects on the 87th Academy Awards

Nick, Katey, Joe and Nathaniel reunite for the podcast season finale. The topic is the Oscars and these are our last words on this year's. The conversation includes but is not limited to:

• Neil Patrick Harris strong opening but then...
• Our choices for MVP from the audience
• Musical numbers - good but too many?
• Who should host next time?
• Power Trio: Canonero, Lubezki & Desplat
• Obsessing over Julianne Moore's speech
• Eddie Redmayne's glee
• Nick's John Travolta prediction
• Which of the nominees will be nominated again quickest?

And of course we play our favorite game of suggesting pairings of actors and directors. 

Juli is a little embarrassed at our obsessing on her 

Please to enjoy and continue the conversation in the comments. You can listen at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes.  

87th Oscars Reviewed

Red Carpet: Supporting Actresses & Stray Beauties

Red Carpet Lineup Time as we struggle to wrap up Oscar night! It's time to say goodbye to the Supporting Actress Class of 2014 and it occurs to me that though I know you favored Arquette to a very wide margin in the race, I have no idea who y'all think was best dressed of this annual rotating quintet? So please do vote!  

poll by twiigs.com

NATHANIEL: In the meantime please welcome back our LA beauties Margaret and Anne Marie to the fashion panel. In the spirit of the times, when red carpet press have been encouraged to #AskHerMore, let's do that. We've never cared "who" people are wearing anyway... just that they're giving us glamour for our favorite International Holiday, Oscar Night. What questions immediately come to mind when you see this lineup?

MARGARET: What I'm desperate to know is, who are these ladies going to work with next? With perhaps the exception of California-law-mandated nominee Meryl Streep, they all have fresh momentum that should give them their pick of projects..

ANNE MARIE: Maybe they can all work in a movie together. They certainly make a great lineup standing next to each other.

NATHANIEL: Actresses are not allowed to work together! They must choose which man they'd like to mother, inspire or longsuffer for.

MARGARET: In my very vivid head-world where I am a massively wealthy movie producer, I would definitely finance the heck out of some Empire-style movie about which ambitious and capable protege of Meryl's should take up the torch of some high-powered business.

NATHANIEL:  I think it wisest we keep Laura Dern away from big corporations.

more...

Click to read more ...