Yes No Maybe So: "Battle of the Sexes" (plus some Holly Hunter trivia)

By Nathaniel R

Keep talking, Bobby. The more nonsense you spout, the worse it's going to be when you lose.

One of this fall's potential crossover films, in that it has both crowd pleasing and awards appeal (should it be any good that is) is the retelling of the super-famous Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs tennis match from 1973. Though I was alive at the time, I was way too young to know anything about that. I grew up in the age of Martina Navratilova vs Chris Evert and John McEnroe vs Everyone, though, and that match was a common cultural reference point. And tennis was the only sport I really fell in love with. Why? Couldn't say for sure but I suspect it was because it has more easily understood interpersonal dynamics (just two people... or four) at war... only non-violently. My best childhood friend and I even played tennis regularly together. I never got very good but later in high school he made the team! Which is all a terribly long way of saying, tennis movies hold instant interest in theory. They don't make them very often and they're largely unsuccessful when they do. Don't believe me, try to name more than one or two! (I'll wait).  

So let's breakdown the first trailer to Fox Searchlight's Battle of the Sexes after the jump. Are we optimistic, worried, or somewhere inbetween?

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Thoughts I Had... whilst staring at "mother!" teaser poster

Oh my my my. The first poster for Darren Aronofsky's secretive October release mother! has arrived and it's after the jump in all its disturbing detail along with the thoughts I had as they came to me without self-censorship...

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Posterized: Guy Ritchie

The British director Guy Ritchie never finished school and didn't attend film school either but by the time he was 28 he was on his way to making cinematic waves. His short film The Hard Case (1995) attracted the attention of financiers and his debut feature Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) was a scrappy success. Sudden fame for new directors is usually somewhat invisible since it's their names rather than faces that get the publicity. Not so for Guy Ritchie. His rise went meteoric via a marriage to global household name Madonna before people had even really learned his name. They famously wore each other's new products on t-shirts; he pushed her album "Music" across his chest in 2000 as she paraded Snatch, his second film, around on hers.

The marriage soured but his movies got bigger and bigger if not always more successful. Like any regularly working director he's had both hits and misses. His 9th feature King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is now open in theaters everywhere.

Let's look at all his movies via posterized after the jump. How many have you seen? 

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Today's 5: Tilda's miraculous Julia, Drew's dangerous Lolita, and more

It's a brand new week. Ready to get this one started with some pizazz? 

Five showbiz anniversaries for May 8th as mood boosters

2009 Julia opens in limited release in the US. It's arguably Tilda Swinton's greatest performance and also as against-type as it comes for the actress who was surprised Erick Zonca thought of her for the motor-mouthed titular sociopath. If you haven't seen it, what in the universe are you waiting for?

In its honor today: Do something totally atypical today, surprise yourself!

1992 Poison Ivy opens in theaters, serving as Drew Barrymore's buzzy "comeback"... yet she was only 17 years old. Child stars grow up fast, y'all...

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Posterized: Brie Larson

By Nathaniel R

Last week the directors of Captain Marvel were announced, moving that imaginary Marvel Studios picture, starring Brie Larson, closer to reality. 2019 is still a long way off though we have plenty of Brie to tide us over until then. She's in movie theaters currently as part of Ben Wheatley's crime comedy ensemble picture Free Fire  (reviewed). It's one of two features this spring whichhas featured Brie Larson as the token female amongst a group of adult men fighting for their lives (the other being Kong Skull Island). Which is, if you consider her particular skills as an actress, kind of a waste; to date she's consistently done her most transcendent work opposite other women or child actors.

Though it feels as if Brie Larson only recently exploded into fame having won the Best Actress Oscar for Room (2015), in reality she has been paying her dues for ages, winning her first TV gig at just 9 years of age (a comedy skit on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno) and her first movie gig by 10 (something called Special Delivery in which she played "Little Angel"). She's done a little of everything including an attempted pop career - which goes down really well in a meta sort of way via the satiric prism of her role in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and her role-playing  within "United States of Tara" -- 'Princess Valhalla Hawkwind,' anyone?.

So let's look back on her movie history via POSTERIZED (returning for another season!). We've thrown in all her movies that we could find posters to (a couple others don't seem to have been released) and her three largest TV roles. How many of these 27 Brie Larson projects have you seen?

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