Give Me Roma Or Give Me Death

by Jason Adams

It's tempting to immediately call this "great news" and it is a positive... but it's also a bit like spinning sunshine out of an abusive relationship too -- Netflix is apparently set to announce they're going to be screening Alfonso Cuarón's Roma in "select cities" for two full weeks before the movie drops onto their streaming platform on December 14th. That means November 30th or so. 

Deadline says it should be around 12 U.S. cities total, and that Cuarón insists all the theaters it plays are Dolby Atmos eqipped, which is a thing you'll understand once you see the film and take in its astonishingly rich soundtrack. (Although given the fact that most people are going to be watching this on their iPads while they're cooking, maybe he should just encourage as many theaters as possible?) 

You can read Nathaniel's review of the film from TIFF right here - I didn't get the chance to review it out of NYFF myself but if you'd like my opinion it's the best movie I've seen this year, and if you can at all make it to one of these theaters, do. It's a total sense experience - the images, the sound, they really do envelope you and transport you to another world like only cinema at its finest can. Netflix owes us all a theatrical run, and I'm glad they seem to be figuring that out. Baby steps...

Can You Ever Link Me?

• In Contention Alfonso Cuarón could tie Walt Disney's record this year for most nominations for a single person in one year (six). And he could break the record for most nominations for a single person from a single film (four)
• /Film Katherine Langford (Love Simon, 13 Reasons Why) added to the cast of Infinity War's sequel
• Variety Extremely sad to report that Filmstruck is shutting down next week. It had become the go to streaming place for cinephiles once Netflix started having such crappy movie selections
• Next Best Picture if you're not sick of hearing me rave about Can You Ever Forgive Me? yet, I'm the guest on this podcast doing that again.

• TFE in case you missed it, our podcast on the same movie
• The Daily Beast hateful conservatives now targeting Netflix's brilliant Big Mouth series which is all the more reason why all of you should watch it. It's awesome.
• /Film this is kind of non-news given the caginess of the statements but TriStar is still hoping to mount a Labyrinth sequel with Jennifer Connelly reprising her role 30+ years later
• MNPP 13 moustaches of Halloween - fun series, now with more Sam Elliott and Vincent Price
• /Film to celebrate Dario Argento a ranking of his features. His most famous film, Suspiria, is NOT number one!
• Next Best Picture on recent under 15 minute performances nominated for Oscars with some possibilities this year like Sam Elliott and Daniel Kaluuya

Off Screen or Behind the Scenes
• Wall Street Journal thinks there is an atmosphere of fear at Netflix with their quick firings
• Variety Boy George interview as Culture Club releases their first album since 1999. It's called "Life" -- ftr I think "Colour By Numbers," their 1983 album is one of the most perfect albums ever recorded
• Playbill 10 plays and musicals that only require 2 actors
• Playbill Wicked is about to turn 15. Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel are sharing two things they added to the musical that weren't in the original script/score.
• Fast Company examines the state of Hollywood's middle class. Turns out the proliferation of content isn't good for everyone and the reasons why aren't all that apparent from the outside (shouldn't more content mean more job opportunities?). Note: this website has annoying ads that are confusing to get out of in order to read the article (hint) scroll down without hitting that scroll down sign! 

The Plane! The Plane! The Link! The Link!

As your host begins his final busy day at the Middleburg festival, here are some news tidbits and amusements to enjoy elsewhere...

• Variety Highlights from the Jane Fonda Masterclass at the Lumiere festival
• EW Peter Dinklage on playing Hervé Villechaize on HBO and disputing the claims of whitewashing 
• Vulture amazingly accurate collection of faux headlines about 'how the media would have covered the events of A Star is Born'
• New Now Next cute interview with Judy Greer about her gay fans and Jawbreaker
• Variety our hearts go out to Selma Blair who has announced that she has multiple sclerosis
• Out Cate Blanchett adamantly defends straight actors playing queer characters. I totally understand her reasoning and I think identity politics can sometimes feel anti-art and anti-creativity BUT actual gay actors are discriminated against so this is kind of tacky to be so aggressive about
• The Playlist Cannes and Netflix meet... perhaps 2019 will have a different outcome?
• MNPP Glen Powell photoshoot worth gawking at
• /Film Netflix seems to be on a cancellation spree. Now it's Luke Cage getting the chop
• io9 Turns out Disney wouldn't let Wreck-It Ralph make a joke about Kylo Ren from Star Wars. Or as Gerry Canavan so wisely stated on twitter...

maybe we should have more than one entertainment company

"Private Life", First Visit

Chris Feil wraps up his look at the films of Tamara Jenkins with her newest film, now on Netflix...

If The Savages was like Slums of Beverly Hills all grown up and disillusioned, Private Life is like Jenkins’ first two films in conversation, and it’s maybe her wisest. Here Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti play an intelligencia couple Rachel and Richard exhaustively exploring every avenue to conceive, with newcomer Kayli Carter as their young adoring niece Sadie naively slipping herself into their struggle. With this newest film, Jenkins casts her widest net of characters, all the more rewarding with the vulnerabilities of youth and middle age are in dialogue.

Jenkins chapters the film while still structuring it like messy memory, resembling a life so anxious it can only be delineated by doctor’s visits and holidays. At the point we meet them, Rachel and Richard exist in a flurry of procedures and hormonal upheaval to the point that it defines them. But despite pursuing all of their myriad expensive and physically taxing options to bring a child into their home, Private Life is really about coping with the waning amount of options life provides as we age.

Click to read more ...

Links

• IndieWire a brief interview with Steven Yeun about life after The Walking Dead -- strangely there are no questions about his new Korean movie Burning despite the fact that he's amazing in it
• THR Bradley Cooper getting an award from PETA for casting his own dog Charlie in A Star is Born. I mean.... the dog is perfection, so why not?
• Vanity Fair Fan Bingbing has broken her silence after disappearing. She is said to owe more than $100 million in backtaxes to the Chinese government

• /Film Trailer for The Conners series, essentially Roseanne without Roseanne
• The Guardian a wonderful interview with Samantha Morton about choices she made in her career, her new part on The Walking Dead, and why she was dubbed "difficult" in her early years of stardom.
• Playbill Emmy & Oscar winner Christine Lahti now starring in a play Off-Broadway about Gloria Steinem called Gloria: A Life. Steinem is quite the hot topic at the moment since there's also a biopic in the works
• Pajiba on the Bullseye rumors around Daredevil season 3
• Decider a Jeopardy moment that will go viral involving drag superstar Alyssa Edwards
• /Film Netflix will be releasing Paul Greengrass 22 July in 100 theaters (they're also rumored to be trying to buy movie theaters, which is odd considering how much they've worked to diminish the moviegoing habit)
• MNPP Luke Benward nine times
• Daily Beast and director Catherine Hardwicke reflect back on Twilight's success and the sexist aftermath

This Week's Must Read (s)
Wesley Morris has an amazing challenging essay about the new ways we discuss art and how they've come to center more on the artist and that person's perceived moral or representational correctness then the quality of the art.  I loved reading this because so much of what he's saying I've seen happening and whenever I tried to put my finger on why it was frustrating me, I couldn't quite locate the target. 

The essay also prompted this interesting discussion at Vulture among a panel of mostly female critics. I love the point raised that there's a way to discuss art in this new way while also balancing aesthetic discussion but a lot of younger critics haven't been trained in that way or encouraged to learn that skill in the charged political time we're living in.