Podcast: Moonlight, Sully, and Birth of a Nation

Impossible though it may be to believe, the podcast is back after an unintended hiatus. Joe, Nick, Nathaniel, Katey (and special guest Charlie) are all in house to discuss the arthouse hit Moonlight with a little on previous releases Sully and Birth of a Nation, too. Please continue the conversation in the comments if you've seen any of the films!

Index (42 minutes)
00:01 Welcome back everyone
01:48 Sully
09:08 Tom Hanks Best Actor nomination?
10:00 Moonlight
22:55 Moonlight's ensemble and Oscar prospects
30:25 Birth of a Nation's implosion and the Braveheart comparisons
38:20 Moonlight again for the wrap-up

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you?  

Articles referenced in this conversation
Thankless Marvel Roles | Nick's Moonlight Tweets |  TFE's Moonlight Review | VF's conversation with Barry Jenkins | Joe's Series "The Gay We Were" 

Moonlight and More

Moonlight's Trevante Rhodes on acting

With Moonlight adding more cities today after its impressive NY/LA first weekend, the cast and crew continue their press tour. In a conversation with Interview Magazine the film's breakout Trevante Rhodes revealed that until recently he didn’t think of himself as an actor. Rhodes, who plays the adult Chiron, had parts before Moonlight in Terence Malick’s yet to be released Weightless, and on HBO’s current hit series Westworld. However he didn’t fall in love with acting until he filmed a pivotal scene in Moonlight with Naomie Harris as his mother.

We cried every take. It was real to me. It was being in it with Naomie, who's incredible. In Chiron's mind, that was the first time she told him that she loved him in 15, 20 years, genuinely. Before that it was to get money. She looked at me in my eyes and told me that she loved me. What kid doesn't want to hear that from a family member who's been shitty to them their entire life? I was just being Chiron then, which was a blessing, because it was such a beautiful moment.

Now that he’s an actor, whose career would he like to emulate?

I told my team, "If at all possible, I know it's tough, but I want Jake Gyllenhaal, Eddie Redmayne, Michael Fassbender"—I want to encapsulate all that. And I want to be the black version.

You can read the whole interview here.

Box Office: Moonlight Fever

What did you see this weekend?

For the box office charts this week, let's focus in on the platform releases out there since the mainstream offerings were uninspiring. Moonlight had a miraculous opening selling out its shows all weekend long at 4 locations on the coasts. That resulted in one of the strongest per screen averages of the entire year.

The top 20 films in limited release are after the jump... 

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"Moonlight" in Three Acts

Since Barry Jenkins' new film Moonlight is told in triptych style, we've opted to bring you our NYFF review in the same way with three of us writing it! - Editor

"Little" by Murtada Elfadl
Moonlight is a patient movie that takes its time to give us a full portrait of what goes on in a young man’s mind. Long beautifully rendered scenes provide us pivotal snippets of days in a life. The economy of the scenes mixed with the patience in storytelling means that every gesture and word counts. Barry Jenkins takes Tarell McCraney’s unproduced play "In Moonlight Black Boys Boys Look Blue" and paints it on screen, using his actors’ faces and bodies to deliver singular poetic images.

The languid melancholic tone fits the inner monologue of the main character Chiron (who is called "Little" in this first of three segments),  who is struggling to understand himself...

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The Scene at NYFF with Naomie Harris and Kenneth Lonergan

Murtada reporting from a weekend at the NYFF.

The New York Film Festival enables local cinephiles to catch a finely curated collection of films that have screened at other festivals earlier in the year. It is also a veritable hotbed of casual sightings of the New York film crowd: there’s Todd Haynes entering the Alice Tully Hall animatedly chatting with his Carol editor Alfonso Gonçalves (who has two films in the festival: Gimme Danger and Paterson). Here's Mikhail Baryshnikov posing with his daughter Anna who’s in Manchester by the Sea; I see Bob Balaban making his way through the security line. And, look, Edie Falco introducing herself to Casey Affleck after the Q and A for his movie.

Lonergan in conversation with Jones

Most interesting though are the stories filmmakers tell as they screen their films...

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