Links: Nutcracker and the Two Directors, Schrader on Selfishness

Gr8ter Days Terence Stamp makes rare US appearance to talk about this career and push his new memoir. The great actor is about to turn 80...
TFE ...so he's still too young for this 100 Oldest Living Oscar Nominees list.
THR Movie attendance has been steadily rising in Russia but the UK and France remain the top European movie markets
/Film Hmmm, The upcoming Disney spectacle Nutcracker and the Four Realms will now have two directors credited after reshoots. Joe Johnston (Captain America: The First Avenger) will be credited after the original director Lasse Hallström
Vulture Director Susan Seidelman on her 80s NYC classics Smithereens and Desperately Seeking Susan 

MNPP Luca Guadagnino has shown Suspiria to Quentin Tarantino who loved it
Moviemaker Paul Schrader on our selfish legacy and environmental disaster (DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T YET SEEN FIRST REFORMED)
Playbill if you're in NYC in the second half of July there's a lot of 15th anniversary happenings for Avenue Q including an original cast concert
Pajiba Sofia Vergara's ex is making an anti-abortion movie about Roe v Wade and the news about it gets worse and worse
i09 The legal system in The Incredibles 2 is confounding
Pandemonium this video is 90 minutes long but if you're studying to be a screenwriter it's worth a look since Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3) maps out what makes for a great third act of a story
Coming Soon Keri Russell joins Star Wars: Episode IX. Her role is unknown but will involve fight scenes so I'll guess she'll have more to do than Laura Dern did.
Awards Daily the Limited Series race at the Emmys is wide open this year (with 44 programs eligible)  since no single series has been especially dominant with critics or the public this time around 
Film School Rejects the best movies of 2018 thus far
Nick Davis Nick does his beloved "fifties" to detail the best of the movie year thus far 

Smackdown '94 Finale: "Pulp Fiction" and "Bullets Over Broadway"

THE SMACKDOWN IN THREE PARTS
• Written Blurbs & Reader Votes
• Podcast Pt 1: Tom & Viv and The Madness of King George
...and now the finale!

FINALE (40 MINUTES)
The group discusses Jennifer Tilly's outrageous comic triumph in Bullets Over Broadway and why the Broadway musical adaptation didn't work. We also revisit the cultural impact of Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and Uma's place in its success. Other films briefly discussed: Three Colors: Red and Natural Born Killers. Nathaniel thanks this month's terrific panel: Erik Anderson, Nick Davis, Itamar Moses, and Alfred Soto!

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? 

Bullets Over Broadway, Pulp Fiction

Link like the world isn't on fire

Variety - helpfully lists 10 standout moments from the MTV Movie Awards so we dont have to worry abotu missing it. Black Panther took the bulk of the prizes with Tiffany Haddish hosting
Towleroad - Interview with the director of McKellen: Playing the Part
IndieWire - 64 established and emerging film critics reflect on their favorite piece they've written -- our very own Chris Feil is in the mix! 
MNPP -Tyler Hoechlin seven times

Variety - Jennifer Lee (Frozen) and Pete Docter (Inside Out) are replacing John Lassetter at Disney and Pixar respectively
Guardian - Fun interview with Christopher Plummer on acting, replacing persona non gratas, and making peace with The Sound of Music.  
Coming Soon - this week in news absolutely no one needs: Robert Zemeckis to remake Roald Dahl's The Witches. There is literally no way to top Anjelica Huston's Grand High Witch so why?
/Film -AMC's A-List is going to compete directly with Movie Pass for those frequent moviegoer subscription dollars 
Variety - LGBTQ actors haven't had much luck securing Emmy nominations outside of the comedy fields. Will this change soon? 
New Yorker - funny piece on confessing that you met your partner in real life and not online! 

You guys. It's getting harder and harder to concentrate on movies and you know that's a nightmare for us when movies are our great love. But every day that goes by as America slides towards concentration camps, complete inhumanity, and fascism, Amy Poehler's questionnaire from last week at THR becomes ever more needed and brilliant. Here's the Q&A since the article is long and not about this:

In New York, A Repertory Film Renaissance

by Murtada Elfadl

The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant

A film I desperately wanted to see that had eluded me for a long time was Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (1972). I promised myself that I wouldn’t succumb to watching it at home;  I’d wait and hope that it would eventually appear soon in a repertory theater. And sure enough it did, three months later. I got the full theatrical experience of the classic film, screened in celluloid glory. I’m glad I waited. My first screening of A Place in the Sun (1951) happened only last year, and was so exhilarating it was my favorite film I’ve seen in a cinema in 2017. Ditto Claire Denis’ Beau Travail (1999). I enjoyed all these films and more without distraction, in the dark, projected big and among fellow cinephiles...

Click to read more ...

25th Anniversary Memoir: "Jurassic Park"

by Lynn Lee

June 1993.  It was my birthday, and I’d invited a group of my girl friends over for a small celebration that would include a movie outing.  I don’t remember exactly why I picked Jurassic Park.  I hadn’t read the book, I wasn’t yet a full-on movie buff, I didn’t like scary movies, and I wasn’t really into dinosaurs.  Yet something about the tremendous buzz surrounding this “adventure 65 million years in the making” must have penetrated my social bubble because I remember us all being excited to see it.

Whatever our expectations were, Jurassic Park blew them away.  From the moment that opening eerie chorus and single bamboo flute dissolved into the rustle of an unknown, unseen thing in a crate that within three minutes lay savage waste to one unfortunate worker, we were all transfixed in our seats and couldn’t have moved if our lives had depended on it...

Click to read more ...