Podcast: 'Nocturnal Elle's Halftime Walk'

We're back to weekly podcasts! This week Nick, Joe, and Nathaniel discuss the latest films from Tom Ford, Ang Lee, and Paul Verhoeven, only one of which we can recommend.

Index (42 minutes)
00:01-17:22 Ang Lee's awkward Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk starring Joe Alwyn and Garret Hedlund

17:23-29:45 Tom Ford's revolting Nocturnal Animals. We don't understand the initial acclaim at all

29:46-42:00 Paul Verhoeven and Isabelle Huppert's provocative collaboration Elle, France's Oscar submission (mild spoilers)

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments.

Nocturnal Elle's Halftime Walk

America, The Damned Thing

by Jason Adams

Nocturnal Animals is a strange little beast. I find myself tempted to call it the "Gay Straw Dogs" (gay in spirit if not in character) but that's not quite right - it is very much its own fascinating thing; it is very much the work of one man, one artist, grappling with his own art and the idea of himself as an Artist. And our idea in turn of him as an Artist. So much so that there's a discussion of Art and the Artist both framed by the film's structure - that of a "reality" where Amy Adams is reading a book and then a "fiction" inside the book itself - and by the film itself; that is to say that two characters actually sit down and have a conversation about what it means to be an Artist, to be critiqued, and to put one's self out into the world for that sort of judgement, bare-assed and vulnerable.

I think the most telling bits in the film comes early...

Click to read more ...

Links: Brangelina Kaput, Broadway Blockbuster, Festival Afterglow

Brangelina No More
Vox looks at the parallels between Liz & Dick and Brangelina
EW Madame Tussaud's already separated Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's wax counterparts. Nathaniel wept. (Seriously, I'm not doing okay with this. I don't care if anyone thinks its silly. Double star wattage couples of this magnitude happen only a few times a century.) 
Slate ranks the remaining A list power couples

Brangelina, smack dab in the middle of their storied romance

Liz and Dick were only divorced for 16 months before they got back together so if I may put in an early request for 2018 Wishes. Lots more (and not just Brad & Angie) after the jump.

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TIFF: Relating to Amy Adams in "Nocturnal Animals" and "Arrival"

Nathaniel R reporting from TIFF. The festival is winding down now but my mind keeps drifting back to the Amy Adams double feature on day two. If there were gif walls featuring all of Amy Adams close-ups in both of her movies this year, they would accurately describe this critics innermost thoughts about the movies they came from. Read on and I'll elaborate (without spoilers) though we'll obviously revisit and go into more detail when both movies actually...ahem... arrive in mid November which is unofficially 'Amy Adams Month' according to distributors.

ARRIVAL (Dir. Denis Villeneuve, US)
Paramount Pictures. Opens on November 11th

In this gripping and sensationally crafted sci-fi drama, adapted from the short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, Amy Adams plays Dr. Louise Banks. Dr Banks is a prominent linguist who is recruited by the government to attempt to communicate with extra-terrestrials. They have arrived on Earth or, rather, are hovering above it in twelve space crafts each in a separate area of the world, appearing to do nothing at all. Will the world's fearful governments nuke the ships or can Dr Banks save the world (if it's even threatened?) by learning why they've come?

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Thoughts I Had... Laura Linney in "Nocturnal Animals"

Chris here. We're pretty jazzed about Tom Ford's meta-noir Nocturnal Animals in these parts, even with (or because of) festival reactions are all over the map from negative to positive. Whether or not the film is a potential awards player, it did pick up the Grand Jury Prize in Venice and even the poor reviews call out Michael Shannon as a highlight. However, the buried lede in all of the conversation (and the just-launched trailer) is the buzzed about cameo by The Lovely Laura Linney, whose character shows up like this:

Praise the heavens, she's no longer a supportive wife trapped on a phone! And now she's letting her hair down up. Some takeaways:

• Category is: Oliver Stone First Lady Before She Betrays Him And Country Realness
• She's drowning in hair, pearls, and stiff fabric, yet her face is still luminous.
• The role may be small, but when has she ever gotten to go big even just if it's in costuming? Let's hope it's not just the look because we'd love to see her go wild.
• Linney is playing Amy Adams's mother, which could be as delightfully bonkers as the movie sounds if not for the depressing ageism repeated here. Linney is TEN years older than Adams, but in Hollywood years the math inexplicably adds up.
• But seriously: no husbands to concernedly call, Ninja Turtles to catch, or maiding to be done here. We're stoked to see her back in the game.

Anyway, since Animals isn't hers alone, feast on the trailer and try to decipher what the film is all about: