Outstanding Achievement in Belated Linkage

It's so tough to keep up with other movie stuffs during precursor week. So here are several news items, essays, montages to help up catch us all up. Ready. Set. Go...

NEWS
i09 One sorcerer supreme is not enough for Doctor Strange star Benedict Cumberbatch. He's also signed on to play Jasper Maskelyne, a Nazi-fighter War Magician
The Wrap Universal's Mummy reboot will swap the gender of the monster. Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: Secret Service) will star
Film Stage George Clooney's next directing job is the noir Suburbicon. He's lining up an all star cast and Julianne Moore just joined

Playbill Lee Daniels creating a girl band tv series for Queen Latifah (Empire was such a succcess that there are  lot of music industry series about to hit or in development)
/Film Ang Lee's Thrilla in Manila, a boxing drama is said to be eyeing Ray Fisher as Muhammad Ali and David Oyelowo as Joe Frazier
Guardian looks like it's Idris Elba vs Matthew McConaughey for the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's  Dark Tower

OF INTEREST
Film School Rejects has a curious but interesting take on why people need to stop naming Mad Max Fury Road "Best" of the year
Film School Rejects on the Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation commentary track
Viv & Larry interview with illustrator Alejandro Mogollo Diez who specialize in movie icons
MNPP Rob Kazinsky's new tv show has been renamed... but will it help? People really aren't into the Frankenstein myth that much as evidenced at box office 
Pajiba's review of Joy is getting a lot of traction for its skewering of David O. Russell as a mansplainer of feminism. I suppose I should write about this movie. It's not great but I don't think it's getting a fair shake 
Comics Alliance Frank Miller is not into Netflix's Daredevil choices 

LIST MANIA / AWARDAGE
Washington DC Film Critics award Spotlight best pic but give multiple prizes to Room, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Revenant
African American Film Critics Assn give Straight Outta Compton Pic, Ensemble, and Supporting Actor (Jason Mitchell - weirdly ignored by NAACP). Creed wins three prizes including Breakthrough for Michael B Jordan... um, he broke through years ago people!
Vulture & Slate both do best TV shows of 2015: Jessica Jones, Mad Men, Jane the Virgin etc
The New York Times best theater of 2015: Hamilton, The King and I, Lupita Nyong'o etc

TODAY'S VIEWS
If you haven't yet seen these give them a spin. It's David Ehrlich's Top 25 Films of the Year (his editing skills are absurd but so is having Tangerine way down at #24), Channing Tatum saying 8 Hateful things to a kitten "you know what sucks about you, dude. You don't have thumbs" You know what sucks about you, Chan. You're not in nearly enough of The Hateful Eight to make that 182 minu--- oops, embargo.

THE 25 BEST FILMS OF 2015: A VIDEO COUNTDOWN from david Ehrlich on Vimeo.

John Waters Top 10 List: Fairy Tales, 3D Sex, Tasteful Trangression

John Waters with Patty Hearst at the "Carol" premiereAh one of our favorite bad taste good --no... singular taste traditions of year-end end look backs has arrived: the annual John Waters Top Ten List at ArtForum. Though the Baltimore film icon hasn't made a feature film in over ten years he still says active as a celebrity for which we thank him. Try and imagine the world without him; we never want to!

His top ten lists generally contain at least one or two titles we haven't even heard of (rare for us don'cha know) and that's true again with #1 and #9 right here. They're also always a mix of smart, beautiful, queer, and head scratching choices -- I'm sorry but Love is NOT a good movie even if it does contain, as John Waters raves, "heterosexual rimming -- in 3D!"

John Waters 2015 Top Ten List
01 HELMUT BERGER, ACTOR (Andreas Horvath)
02 CINDERELLA (Kenneth Branagh)

Yes, you heard me, Cinderella. I fucking love this Disney film.

03 THE FORBIDDEN ROOM (Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson)
04 TOM AT THE FARM (Xavier Dolan)
05 MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (George Miller)
06 CAROL (Todd Haynes)

Maybe the only way to be transgressive these days is to be shockingly tasteful. This Lana Turner–meets–Audrey Hepburn lipstick-lesbian melodrama is so old-fashioned I felt like I was one year old after watching it. That’s almost reborn.

07 THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL (Marielle Heller)
08 TANGERINE (Sean Baker)
09 FLY COLT FLY: LEGEND OF THE BAREFOOT BANDIT (Adam Gray and Andrew Gray)
10 LOVE (Gaspar Noé)

when will Xavier Dolan movies ever get on a respectable US release schedule? Tom at the Farm an excellent 2013 movie was only just released in the states in 2015

His commentary is always great fun -- his take on Xavier Dolan's tense grief thriller Tom at the Farm is especially John Waters but hugely spoiler-filled -- so go read if it you're so inclined.

Magic Carpet Link

NY Times talks to David O. Russell about Joy... which still is not screening. The mystery of it all
Playbill Aladdin flew through the streets of NYC on his magic carpet recently. How's that for marketing?
Gold Standard Character actors get their own award "The Carneys"... we wouldn't need this if the Academy remembered why they invited the Supporting Acting categories. The first recipients:  Bob Balaban, Michael Ealy, Bruce McGill, David Paymer and CCH Pounder
THR wishes Toni Collette a happy birthday with fun facts

/Film Jennifer Aniston hasn't made a good film in 10 years. Can What Alice Forgot change her course?
Guardian suggests that appointment franchise cinema will end with Hunger Games: Mockinjay Part 2. "IF ONLY!" says all of us who year for movies to be movies rather than expensive television series
Variety talks to Karl Glusman about his first day on the set of Gaspar Noé's Love -- they started with the ejaculation scene. Yikes
Variety interesting. The very talented Pablo Larraín (No) is making a movie about Jackie Kennedy and Natalie Portman stars with Peter Sarsgaard, and Greta Gerwig in support
Graham Norton talks to Maggie Smith who isn't sad to say goodbye to Downton Abbey 
Variety selects under the rader performances that "deserve" Oscar buzz. While it's nice to see more props for Kristen Stewart's great work in Clouds of Sils Maria, it's tough to take this seriously: Helen Mirren in Woman in Gold? Good god did she ever phone that one in! Ruffalo "reinventing" himself for Spotlight? Try repeating himself! 

Halloween Hangover
Crave Bryan Fuller (Hannibal) chooses the most stylish horror films from Repulsion to The Haunting
HitFix they polled several writers/directors/critics to list their fav horror films. Not enough actresses on the list but I LOL'ed that Elvira gave herself the #1 position
Gothamist photos from the Village Halloween parade
TFE Facebook / TFE Twitter  in case you missed it I was goofing with counting down my 15 favorite horror films last night from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? to Silence of the Lambs -- "it puts the fuckin' movie on the list. It does this whenever it's told."

Also if you aren't liking / following / sharing The Film Experience on social media... why you wanna hurt us like dat?

Finally... 
Did you hear there's a fully poseable Michaelangelo's David action-figure? Want! Also why is there not a movie about the creation of this work of art?  

Would you watch a movie about the making of Michelangelo's David?

Yes. I'm all about the Italian Renaissance

Entirely depend on the casting of David.

No. I'll just look at the nude gifs on the internet.

Poll Maker

Best Documentary - The Long List Is Here

AMPAS has narrowed the Best Documentary Feature competition. If not by much. The long list from which they'll choose 15 or so finalists which will then become 5 nominees in January has arrived. It's double the size of what the Foreign committees have to get through each year but there's more members voting. The seventeen titles in bold we've already reviewed so click away to your docu-loving delight, won't you?

Which films are you rooting for or eager to see? 

A-C
Above and Beyond. All Things Must Pass, Amy, The Armor of Light, Ballet 422, Batkid Begins, Becoming Bulletproof, Being Evel, Beltracchi – The Art of Forgery, Best of Enemies, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Bolshoi Babylon, Brand: A Second Coming, A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story, Call Me Lucky, Cartel Land, Censored Voices, Champs, CodeGirl, Coming Home

D-F
Dark Horse, Deli Man, Dior and I, The Diplomat, (Dis)Honesty – The Truth about Lies, Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll, Dreamcatcher, dream/killer, Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon, Eating Happiness, Every Last Child, Evidence of Harm, Farewell to Hollywood, Finders Keepers, The Forecaster, Frame by Frame

G-J
Gardeners of Eden, A Gay Girl in Damascus: The Amina Profile, Godspeed: The Story of Page Jones, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, He Named Me Malala, Heart of a Dog, Hitchcock/Truffaut, How to Change the World, Human, The Hunting Ground, I Am Chris Farley, In Jackson Heights, In My Father’s House, India’s Daughter, Ingrid Bergman – In Her Own Words, Iraqi Odyssey, Iris, Janis: Little Girl Blue

K-N
Karski & the Lords of Humanity, Killing Them Safely, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, Lambert & Stamp, A Lego Brickumentary, Listen to Me Marlon, Live from New York!, The Look of Silence, Meet the Patels, Meru, The Mind of Mark DeFriest, Misery Loves Comedy, Monkey Kingdom, A Murder in the Park, My Italian Secret, My Voice, My Life, 1971

O-R
Of Men and War, One Cut, One Life, Only the Dead See the End of War, The Outrageous Sophie Tucker, Peace Officer, The Pearl Button, Pink & Blue: Colors of Hereditary Cancer, Poached, Polyfaces, The Prime Ministers: Soldiers and Peacemakers, Prophet’s Prey, Racing Extinction, The Resurrection of Jake the Snake, Ride the Thunder – A Vietnam War Story of Victory & Betrayal, Rosenwald, The Russian Woodpecker

S
Searching for Home: Coming Back from War, Seeds of Time, Sembene!, The Seven Five, Seymour: An Introduction, Sherpa, A Sinner in Mecca, Something Better to Come, Song from the Forest, Song of Lahore, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans, Stray Dog, Sunshine Superman, Sweet Micky for President

T-Z
Tab Hunter Confidential, The Tainted Veil, Tap World, (T)error, Thao’s Library, Those Who Feel the Fire Burning, 3 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets, The Touch of an Angel, TransFatty Lives, The True Cost, Twinsters, Very Semi-Serious: A Partially Thorough Portrait of New Yorker Cartoonists, The Wanted 18 (also on the Foreign Submissions List), We Are Many, We Come as Friends, We Were Not Just…Bicycle Thieves. Neorealism, Welcome to Leith, What Happened, Miss Simone?, What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy, Where to Invade Next, Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom, and The Wolfpack

Noticeable Absences 
Where is Silvered Water: Syrian Self-Portrait? When it wasn't on the long list last year we assumed it had arrived too late and would be there this year. Perhaps we'll see them next year -- it's difficult to understand the eligibility with Oscar's doc branch - but missing are: the Nora Ephron doc Everything is Copy, the Orry-Kelly costume design doc Women He's Undressed, 

Linkbury, Linkbender and Linkichatpong LLC

• The Sheila Variations and Playbill are all celebrating the 90th birthday of Angela Lansbury today. What a long all-mediums career that woman has had. Sing her happy birthday today and emphasize the "...and many more" at the end of your song, mmmkay?

• The Stake has a grumpy but well argued take on Steve Jobs that says Michael Fassbender: Great; Movie: Not.
• The Guardian on auteur Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul's fears about Thailand military dictatorship - he won't be showing his new film Cemetery of Splendour there for fear that harm will come to him.
• Indiewire Kate Erbland challenges you to read her interview with Olivia Wilde (Meadowland, Vinyl) without falling in love
• Murtada and Jason, two of our Teammates have very split reactions on Crimson Peak.

• And there's no point linking to "news" that isn't really news even if it's being posted everywhere: i.e. Star Wars: The Force Awakens will get a new poster on Sunday and a new trailer on Monday so why write about them now when you can wait two days for actual news? TFE is totally over news announcing news that will announce news, you know? Like teaser countdowns that announce trailers that then have 4 more versions before the actual movie. ENOUGH. LIVE IN THE NOW.

 

Finally
• Fistful of Films Andrew is taking a long hiatus from blogging but this is quite a finale: notes on his top 100+ favorite films. It's quite a range of countries, genres, styles and eras and I'm happy to see many Hit Me With Your Best Shot titles represented and if we even led them to a few of them then our series was a success. Though I must say that reading it, I'm sad he won't be there for our next two episodes - BUT DON'T LET THAT STOP YOU FROM JOINING.

TFE Housekeeping...
We will be hosting those last two Best Shot episodes this month but we've had to cancel that Smackdown '63 we planned. Both Best Shot and Smackdown will return in the Spring as per usual. I should've known better than to plan too much in September & October as it's impossible to do big projects during festival season, 100s of movies coming out, and the build up then countdown to Oscar.