Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 3:15PM Would you rather...
...reminisce about the first time you saw Star Wars (1977) with Baz Lurhmann (can you believe how young he was here!)
...celebrate the 15th anniversary of Lord of the Rings with Orlando Bloom?
...go roller skating with Elle Fanning?
...visit Warsaw in the winter with Ewan McGregor?
...or take your lunch from a RuPaul bag with Cheyenne Jackson?
Monday, December 19, 2016 at 9:00AM Gurus of Gold the latest Best Picture chart along with Globe predictions. I went out on a limb or two for fun because the Globes usually do at least one weird thing with winners.
Variety Guy Lodge on the foreign film finalist list
Variety on the Peter Cushing visual fx in Rogue One and performers rights to their image after death (I suppose we should talk about this eventually but I am still really weirded out and uncomfortable about it)
Jezebel in case you missed the brouhaha about Tilda Swinton's conversation with Margaret Cho about whitewash casting in Doctor Strange
Tracking Board Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig to headline a new musical comedy Everything's Coming Up Profits: The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals
The Gothamist loves Netflix's mystery series The OA [SPOILERS] from the pair that brought us that eco-terrorist thriller The East (Brit Marling & Zal Batmanglij), remember that one? I have only watched two episodes. Not sure that I get it. Feels padded and expository to me. I'll give it one more episode
Guardian talks to Sigourney Weaver, still going strong 37+ years into her big screen stardom
Coming Soon Ewan McGregor behind the scenes on T2 Trainspotting
Variety profiles great new director Garth Davis (Lion, Top of the Lake)
In Contention tries to figure out what the Makeup Oscar people might like in next week's bakeoff
Playbill First look at Philippa Soo in Broadway's adaptation of Amélie
Awards Daily Hidden Figures plays the White House. Headed for a Best Picture nod?
/Film Josh Boone's initial plans for the movie franchise version of The New Mutants
List-Mania
THR 25 best performances of the year - usual Oscar buzzing people plus a few interesting off-consensus choices like Kathryn Hahn in Bad Moms
Guardian 50 best comedies of all time - as chosen by comedians.
Pajiba best lines of the year on TV
Film School Rejects 50 most beautiful shots in Star Wars universe
Thursday, November 3, 2016 at 11:00AM by Murtada
Where were you in 1996 when the first Trainspotting was released? Your answer to that question might determine how excited you are for the sequel, T2 Trainspotting. It was an exciting shot in the arm for 90s cinema three whole years before the banner year of 1999. It also soldified the careers of Danny Boyle and Ewan McGregor. They allegedly had a tiff, over The Beach (2000). A movie few remember fondly if at all. Glad they patched things up. So let's dive into the trailer with our patented Yes No Maybe So.
Saturday, October 22, 2016 at 11:29AM Would you rather
...hang out with Connor Jessup & Apichatpong "Joe" Weerathaskeul in San Fran?
... attend a costume party with Daniel Franzese and his fiancé?
... spot Ewan McGregor just hanging out in NYC where his movie is playing?
Monday, June 27, 2016 at 12:33PM Manuel here. American Pastoral, adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Philip Roth has a trio of leading performers that I find myself often rooting for—despite early buzzy career moves, each have become underrated and/or undervalued players: Jennifer Connelly, Dakota Fanning, and Ewan McGregor who's doing double duty here. American Pastoral marks his directorial debut.
I initially wanted to share the beautiful new poster for it which is haunting and simple; a perfect example of a one sheet that establishes quickly the mood of the piece. Roth's title and the film's tagline "A radically ordinary story" surely help. This is the American Dream engulfed in flames which means the nuclear family at the core of McGregor's film (Connelly playing his wife, Fanning his daughter) will be anything but ordinary.
And then I found the trailer had dropped and 30 seconds in I was already sold (which would've made a YNMS an exercise in nitpicking because even as it uses the emo song montage trailer template I immediately wanted to catch the film). I also didn't want to spoil it since, for those us of unfamiliar with the Roth novel, that initial sequence in the trailer packs a heavier punch. The trailer looks gorgeous—Norman Rockwell filtered through 1960s hazy and backlit paranoia—no doubt because DP Martin Ruhe (of Control and The American fame) is behind the camera. Also, don't be dissuaded by the creepy "VFX de-aged McGregor" greeting you below.
Though perhaps I'm burying the lede: the main reason to watch this trailer other than to hear yet another haunting version of "Mad World," is to see Fanning in full 60s radical rebel girl mode:
But what does everyone else think? Will Dakota remind us what made her such a powerful screen presence?
