Some Rami to Love

Look, it's the first image of Rami Malek as the iconic Freddie Mercury in the movie Bohemian Rhapsody. The film will be directed by Bryan Singer, who is stepping away from the mutants for once, unless you count Freddie Mercury's mutant lungs / range (four octaves -heeeyyy) which maybe you should. What'cha think?

It's quite a fine image, really. Rami's unique facial structure really plays up the Freddieness once you add that moustache. For what it's worth we are promised that this will not be a traditional biopic (it covers only the formation of the band in 1970 through their Live-Aid performance in 1985). There have been murmurs that the project might not do justice to Freddie's story, or his sexuality, because the surviving members of Queen are totally involved. That's always tricky with true stories when the actual people are involved in telling it.

With deep apologies to Queen, I'm now singing one of my favorite of their hits with new lyrics

All we hear is Rami oh ga ga
Rami oh goo goo
Rami oh ga ga
All we hear is Rami oh ga ga
Rami oh blah blah
Rami oh, what's new?
Rami oh, someone still loves you!

Linky Snicket

LA Times talks to Tarell Alvin McCraney who wrote the original play that became Moonlight
Variety JA Bayona's A Monster Calls has become his third consecutive #1 of the entire year at the Spanish box office. He also won the film year there for The Impossible and The Orphanage. He hasn't had as much luck stateside but since he's helming the next Jurassic World movie that'll presumably change
THR three Asian action stars (Tony Jaa, Tiger Chen, and Iko Uwais) will star in the next film from the director of John Wick
Playbill Audra McDonald getting a "special moment" pre-transformation in Beauty & the Beast

 

MTV "Rachel McAdams, blink twice if you need to be saved from your own career"
Jezebel More LGBTQ character on TV than ever before finds new study
i09 First teaser for Netflix's Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events with Neil Patrick Harris as Count Olaf - looks fairly generic at the moment. We'll see.
Towleroad Rami Malek to play Freddie Mercury in a biopic with Bryan Singer. We'll believe this one when we see it because there's been a rumored Mercury biopic as often as...
TFE ...Janis Joplin biopics (ICYMI)
Variety now that Oscar has its producers Michael de Luca & Jennifer Todd, they're talking about the search for a host - Jimmy Kimmel's name keeps coming up
Antagony & Ectasy a terrific analysis of The Handmaiden 
Awards Daily the first look at Jessica Chastain as an artist among Indians in Woman Walks Ahead (She's determined to win that Oscar, guys. So many chewy roles lined up)
MNPP Kathy Bates will be playing Bette Davis BFF Joan Blondell in Feud
World of Reel has the perfect gif reaction to Jaden Smith's Doctor Strange review
Comics Alliance Benedict Cumberbatch's secret secondary role in Doctor Strange (spoilers)
Deadline They're moving forward with a JRR Tolkien biopic called Middle Earth 

Off Cinema 4 Fun
Boy Culture remember's Divine's awesome "Shoot Your Shot" 
Huffington Post amusing 10 suggestions for dealing wtih Election Anxiety including volunteering, masturbation, and preaching to your choir

OH AND REMEMBER TO VOTE TOMORROW! Take it away Rachel Bloom

HOLY SH*T (You've Got To Vote) from Funny Or Die

"Colossal Spectacle!"

Happy Labor Day, all! To mark this occassion I will be working very hard today because I have much to accomplish before I leave for TIFF, the best film festival on the planet, according to me, for its ease, it's breadth, and the quality of its movies. Any big plans today, whether or not its Labor Day where you live?

On this day in history as it relates to the movies...

1916 One hundred years ago today the other über famous and influential D.W. Griffith epic, the one its OK to care about, opened. Intolerance, sometimes subtitled "love's struggle throughout the ages," was three and a half hours long and prominently advertised its then insane budget of $2,000,000. Wouldn't it be funny if today's movies were all "we cost $300,000,000 to make" (and all you get is a glossy commercial for merchandise / sequels)" on the posters? The epic stretched from Ancient Babylon through the Christ story and on to 1914 in its quartered parallel storylines to paint a morality story for audiences. The sick cosmic joke in retrospect was not that Griffith was apologizing for his own racist intolerance in The Birth of a Nation but offering a rebuke to people who he felt were intolerant to him because of that picture.

SIGH (Dir. Nathaniel R, running time ∞)

Other debuts on September 5th
Outlaw Jesse James who has been played by a gazillion actors, Old Hollywood titan Darryl F Zanuck, the inimitable prolific auteur Werner Herzog, charmed and outspoken Rose McGowan, Reigning Oscar good luck charm Michael Keaton (Birdman, Spotlight), Dan Gilroy's sick gripping Nightcrawler with Jake Gyllenhaal, 60s sex goddess and Myra Breckenridge herself Raquel Welch, Jack Kerouac's On the Road is published, Disney's pre-Mickey Mouse character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit premieres in his first short, one time Bond George Lazenby, and Black Book/Game of Thrones sensation Carice Van Houten.

And we'll close out our birthdays in history list with the iconic Freddie Mercury (remind me again why the Queen frontman STILL doesn't have a biopic?). This music video was chosen because it felt like something D.W. Griffith would approve of in all its "subtlety" and largesse...

Happy birthday / anniversary to all!