Yes, No, Maybe So: Rudderless & Revenge of the Green Dragons

Deborah here, with a double-entry of Yes, No, Maybe So. First up, Rudderless from actor turned director William H Macy. (He's up for an Emmy Monday night for Shameless)

Yes

• Directorial debut of William H. Macy. I'm a fan.
• He's using his wife, the awesome Felicity Huffman. Also Billy Crudup.
• There's a sweet naturalism to the trailer.
• It looks like Begin Again, except with more death and less money. I loved Begin Again.

No

• It looks like Begin Again, except with more death and less money. How about a new movie?

More after the jump including the trailers themselves...

Click to read more ...

This & That: Ant Man, Early Emmys, List Mania

Elisabeth Bergner, who started in German silents went on to a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Escape Me Never (1935)Schweigen a fine collection of 1920s and 1930s postcards of film actors. I loved looking at it despite my Richard Dix aversion. And this postcard left makes me desperate to see Escape Me Never, one of the 30s Best Actress nominations I still haven't seen
Cinema Blend profiles the 5 pilots from Amazon Studios including Hand of God with Dana Delany and Ron Perlman
E! Online Neil Patrick Harris responds to rumors that he and David Burtka are breaking up. It ain't so.
Pret-a-Reporter Inside Madonna's 56th birthday bash
THR Cinematography Gordon Willis who died earlier this summer, was memorialized in Hollywood this weekend

List Mania
Rope of Silicon every death in a Quentin Tarantino movie thus far
Cinema Enthusiast has been investigating 1992 cinema. Loves Howards End, The Player, Batman Returns and more
Do You Remember Movies names the 20 top female film stars of the 70s. I'm not sure what the criteria is but whatever it is, shunning Shelley Duvall ain't right! It ain't ever right.

Creative Arts Emmys 
By now you've probably heard that the kiddie table awards for the Emmys have been handed out. (Theory #1: If you have too many awards to fit them all into one big awards show, you have too many awards. Theory #2: Awards shows should be longer but if you still can't fit them into a 4 hour event, you have too many awards). Todd VanDerWeff, TV expert, reminds us that the Creative Arts Emmys don't really predict the major Emmys with quite the precision by which the craft categories on Oscar night can signal an impending Best Picture win. But it was a very good night for Orange is the New Black, Sherlock and True Detective among others. Here's a complete list of winners and the guest acting prizes went like so:

Guest Actress, Comedy: Uzo Aduba, Orange is the New Black
Guest Actor, Comedy: Jimmy Fallon, Saturday Night Live
Guest Actress, Drama: Allison Janney, Masters of Sex (her 5th Emmy but the first for something non-West Wing)
Guest Actor, Drama: Joe Morton, Scandal 

Congratulations to the winners. But I'm definitely shedding tears that the Mad Men curse continues (no acting winners ever in its entire run). Even Robert Morse's transcendent song & dance farewell couldn't break it.

Bliss
You may have already seen this Hello Kitty gallery of superheroes

I've never been more attracted to the Winter Soldier

In which Earth's Mightiest are modified for maximum cuteness and sparkle. But I hadn't seen it and now my life is complete. Well nearly complete. My life will only be complete IF they make Thor 3 this way. At least then it'd be infinitely more watchable than Thor: The Dark World.

Ant-Man
While we're on the topic of superheroes I do want to note that the long troubled Ant Man is finally out of the gate as filming has commenced. I've gone in and out of interest in the project over the years but unlike most of the internet, the last minute hiring of Peyton Reed in the director's chair was the best possible news I could have heard after the unfortunate exit of Edgar Wright. Peyton Reed is so undervalued (see Bring It On and Down With Love and be embarrassed for every ignorant person who has ever called him a hack.)

David Dastmalchian photographed by Caleb Condit

And now one last cherry on top. The rest of the cast has been announced and among the awesome ensemble cast which includes people we know and love like John Slattery, Bobby Cannavale, and Judy Greer, I have to personally congratulate David Dastmalchian for getting another big deal film. I've had an eye on the actor since nominating him for a cameo prize for The Dark Knight and he did super work again just last year in Prisoners in a small but key role.  His upcoming film Animals, which gives him a rare leading role, was this year's SXSW sensation. So happy for this fine actor. You should expect to hear more from him. And very soon. 

Exit Video

"Female Superhero Pitches a Movie" - this one has some pretty great lines in it as she keeps meeting roadblocks and narrowminded executives. I wish the pace was faster and the video shorter for more viral pleasure but, still, it's funny.

Coming Soon? More from the Author of "Gone Girl"

On a trip to Los Angeles last year I met longtime reader Margaret de Larios who, as it turns out, turned our own Anne Marie of "A Year With Kate" fame on to the blog originally. Margaret wanted to sound off on a topic I was very intrigued by so here she is to talk about the mysteriously silent upcoming movie "Dark Places". Say hello! - Editor

In just under two months, Gone Girl will likely be taking cineplexes by storm. The movie's marketing team is not of a mind to let us forget it, slowly rolling out new posters and trailers as well as sending David Fincher out to stoke internet buzz by playing coy about a possible new ending.

But what about the other Gillian Flynn movie, Dark Places?

Because there is another Gillian Flynn movie. And a TV series in development. And a project with HBO. And an original screenplay. And two new impending novels. Gillian Flynn is about to be everywhere and I, for one, plan to welcome our new thriller overlord.  Her work is creepy and uncomfortable and gripping in the best way. It also, significantly, happens to feature a wealth of meaty, nasty female roles. This could portend some long-needed mitigation of the True Detective Problem (or the Hannibal problem or the Breaking Bad problem or the-- well, you get the gist) and be a boon to lovers of actressing everywhere... as long as we finally get to see them produced.

Gone Girl is in the bag and Flynn's every development deal makes news, so whither Dark Places with Charlize Theron? [More...]

Click to read more ...

Linkages

Flavorwire Christina Hendricks tries to function in a modern office
Hollywood.com Why Anna Kendrick would make an awesome girlfriend 
Skullflake Studios "maybe superheroes aren't for girls, mom"
/Film puts together a comprehensive look of superhero films coming in next few years. So many
VF Helen Mirren twerking 
Towleroad first look at James Franco as an ex-gay activist in new Gus Van Sant picture 

 

Vulture Groot should remake a bunch of movies 
Empire Universal bought up the rights to Anne Rice's entire Vampire Chronicles. I swear to god if they dont just deal with the sexuality this time, what will be the point? We've already had True Blood. You can't keep homogenizing everything to make it risk-averse
Coming Soon Michael Fassbender seems to like this Justin Kurzel person a lot. His MacBeth director is also guiding him in the film adaptation of the video game Assassin's Creed
Awards Daily Kristen Stewart in Camp X-Ray trailer. This actress is really trying to change perceptions of herself this year. 
Pajiba the cast of HBO's Westworld remake all announced. I'm sad that Yul Brynner cannot be resurrected. I love me some Yul Brynner
Variety Amazon fighting with Disney over DVD/Blu-Ray sales
Variety Lucy is a huge hit in France. No surprise really since Luc Besson directs and France is basically adopting Scarlett Johansson now that she's soon to birth a French baby. 
LA Times Jennifer Lee, one of the directors of Frozen (I met her this season and she was very sweet) will write the screenplay for the adaptation of the YA novel A Wrinkle in Time. I swear that movie has been in development for my entire lifetime 
Variety Lizzy Caplan will play Joseph Gordon Levitt's love interest in an untitled Christmas movie from his 50/50 director

Oh and I forgot to post this great UK poster for Maps to the Stars.

I love quad posters but we only get the vertical ones here in the US. I'm getting so desperate to see this movie. 

Tweet of the Week!
Satiric truth. Tell it

If I hear one more person say a movie can be terrible because it’s for kids, I’m going to punch a child. (It’s fine, it’s aimed at kids).

— Ethan Anderton (@Ethan_Anderton) August 9, 2014

Her Royal Majesty, The Queen of Link

This collection was meant to publish some 24 hours ago. Enjoy these links you might well have seen already!

Decider tracks Channing Tatum's expanding neck 
MNPP Jason calls a Happy Hobbit Ending for Lee Pace within six months. I think this is optimistic. 
Pajiba thoughtfully creates an anti-superhero-movie-diversity Bingo board. Love it!
AV Club Jeff Goldblum participated in a Jurassic Park themed wedding photo. It's great
The Dissolve Epix is airing a color version of Alexander Payne's Nebraska. What the hell?

Arts Beat Helen Mirren to play the Queen again on Broadway. Will the third time be the charm for a first Tony? If she wins she will have won the Oscar, Emmy and Tony all for playing Queen Elizabeths I & II. Quite a specific niche, eh?
The Wire a very bad day for the creator of True Detective Nic Pizzolatto who doesn't handle criticism very well and is now accused of plagiarism as the Emmys approach
The Film Stage shares Akira Kurosawa's 100 favorite films list (originally published in a book from 1999 apparently). Like me his favorite Scorsese is King of Comedy!
The Wrap DC has adjusted its Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice schedule to avoid Captain America 3. That sentence would have unthinkable years ago but Marvel has really made it work.
MNPP "Gratuitous Teddy Sears" I 100% approve and I would like to point out that I raved about him all the way back during his very tiny role on Dollhouse and so glad he got such a plum gig on Masters of Sex 

Ooh look, Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges (Emmy nominated for Masters of Sex) talking about their acting process at an event in LA. (There's also a clip of them talking about The Fabulous Baker Boys but it's not about Michelle Pfeiffer at all - sacrilege - so I lost interest)

There's no point in even linking to a story about this but how terrible is it that they've opted to call the next Terminator film, a needless reboot when time-travel narratives can reboot themselves while also not stupidly pretending that other films didn't exist, Terminator Genisys. That's the actual title, people, purposeful mispelling and all. 

Finally, i09 shares ten lessons we can learn from the surprising success of Guardians of the Galaxy. Even though I think the movie has really pulled off a conjob on critics (it's winning rapturous ignore-the-obvious-flaws praise I think because it gets a couple of important things very right), most of these are bullet points are true. But I have to shake my head and roll my eyes hard at this bit about its cross-gender appeal at the box office:

How can a movie appeal to both of these groups? Because they both want the same thing, more or less — fun adventures in which both the male and female characters are fully realized.

Oy. If Gamora is our new standard for "fully realized female characters" in blockbuster cinema our standards have hit rock bottom and the future is going to be BLEAK. The ongoing gender problems in mainstream cinema have really taken a toll on people's expectations.