YNMS: "Annihilation"

Chris here. It's not too early to start getting excited for what's coming next year, right? Call it optimism to get 2017 over and done with (even if it's providing us with great films). And one of our most anticipated of next year is one that comes early: February's Annihilation.

The film is writer/director Alex Garland's follow-up to the beloved Ex Machina and is another stoic sci-fi endeavor. Based on the first book in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, Natalie Portman stars as a biologist exploring the mysterious Area X after her husband's expedition of the land ended in disaster. Area X is a geographical anomaly of sorts, and the government may or may not know the full extent of its power. VanderMeer's series is a tricky bit of first-person genre work, so I have long been curious how it could translate to film, particularly with his creepy but evasive details of Area X. Let's take a look at the first trailer and run down the Yes No Maybe So of the results:

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Top Ten: Black Swan's Best Shots

by Ilich Mejía

TFE is highly anticipating Darren Aronofsky's upcoming mother!. The film welcomes a reunion between Aronofsky and American cinematographer Matthew Libatique, shortly after they last collaborated on 2014's Noah and 2010's Black Swan. A lot of parrallels have already been drawn across the latter and mother!, including similarities between their cracked-doll posters and doesn't this bloody rug remind anyone of a certain mirror-sharded dress? 

To show how desparetely we can't wait to see what new images Aronofsky and Libatique will sear into our psyches when mother! premieres, we're going to look back and pick our ten favorite shots from Black Swan. Libatique's gorgeous, dark cinematography earned him his first Academy Award nomination. Presumably, the Academy was as impressed as we were by his interpretation of the film's theme's of duality and control. 

Let's dissect our favorite frames from the psychological drama after the jump...

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The Links with the Feuding Stars, Too

Baby Jane Mania
EW Ryan Murphy talks about the first season of Feud. He's already casting the second and hints that a lot of people want to be Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Hmmm. Didn't anyone see Diana with Naomi Watts. That's dangerous ground!
Boy Culture searches for any living actors from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Get Out
AV Club Jordan Peele (Get Out) has made history with the first $100 million grossing debut from a black filmmaker...
Vanity Fair Did you hear that Samuel L Jackson criticized the movie for casting a British actor in the lead? More on this and a great quote from the British star Daniel Kaluuya after the jump...

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Thoughts I Had... the "Song to Song" Poster

Chris here, with a look at the next Terrence Malick flick. Last his other films of the past decade, this year's Song to Song has been long promised and long in the can, and is suposedly related to last year's Knight of Cups (both of which shot back-to-back). This Austin rock and roll based film is another starry dive we know little about - however this time we'll find out soon when it debuts next month at SXSW Fest and releases in the following weeks. The trailer will be here soon, but we now have a vibrant poster to ruminate over. Some thoughts...

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The Oscar Week: post-nominations, the campaigns rev back up.

In this weekly feature from Murtada we follow Oscar contender appearances and interviews. After taking a week off, contenders are back to the grind for Phase 2.

Supporting Actress
The warmest presence on the Oscar campaign trail is undoubtedly Octavia Spencer. She’s as delightful in interviews and appearance as her Hidden Figures character is on screen, except of course when she’s dealing with Kirsten Dunst’s racist boss. No wonder she’s so popular. On Twitter she acknowledged her nomination by mentioning not only her director and producers, but also her friends from The Help (and fellow nominees this season) Viola Davis and Emma Stone. Then she went further in by congratulating Barry Jenkins, Ava DuVernay, Dev Patel and Denzel washington. How lovely is she?

This week she was honored as Woman of the Year by Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals group. She looked delighted throughout the parade through the streets of Cambridge, to the roast and the presentation of the traditional prize, the pudding pot. That pot, she quipped, was harder to get than an Oscar...

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