Linkville

Variety Will Hollywood forgive Mel Gibson with Hacksaw Ridge?
Variety Robert Redford to retire from acting. That's a pity. He was just starting to be in movies again regularly. 
MNPP Joe Alwyn eleven times 
Coming Soon Geoffrey Rush as Albert Einstein in a new series

/Film a new featurette about a Ghost in the Shell set visit
I Like Things That Look Like Mistakes on the resonance of Dogville's revenge fantasy 
Total Verhoeven the Film Society's Verhoeven retrospective just began. I'm anxious to see his Oscar nominated Turkish Delight (1973) for the first time!  
DListed first shot of Johnny Depp (or rather the back of his head) in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2. Can't believe they're already promoting the second one before the first one is in theaters (sigh) 

RIP Because 2016 continues to be the most hateful year ever  
Deadline Robert Vaughn (The Man From UNCLE, The Magnificent Seven)  
Criterion Corner Remembering Leonard Cohen (via McCabe and Mrs Miller) 

In this very difficult week these things gave me teensy moments of solitude or defiant strength
NY Mag Hiking and running into Hillary Clinton
Advocate People of the Year: The survivors of Pulse nightclub
Review "Rules for Survival" under men like Donald Trump 
Pajiba "never forget that Donald Trump is a profoundly stupid person" -perhaps his incompetence will help prevent some of the possible catastrophes
The Matinee "Dear America..."
Towleroad The continually scrappy Elizabeth Warren on Rachel Maddow "we fight back" 
The New Yorker "How to restore your faith in Democracy" 
Gothamist advice for how to protect your fellow citizens from Trump's embolded xenophobic and racist fans if you see bullying taking place

re: Isabelle Huppert's e-mails

by Nick Davis

Why did I hack into Isabelle Huppert's e-mails?  I mean, I do feel bad about it, and I didn't even swipe that much.  But if forced to state my reasons:

1. On a long Friday night, I was innocently taking a writing break from some essay revisions, only to discover that everybody is still all about digging into everybody's emails.  So, right there, I can plead temporary insanity... though I admit it made me curious if there's anyone whose e-mails I would illicitly want to read.

2. During the same writing break, I was confronted with the info that Nathaniel and Jessica Chastain, who are now on bestie/hugging terms, had spent the day cooing to each other about Isabelle Huppert, as sensible people do.  And then I thought: well, there's someone whose e-mails are probably pretty interesting...

Click to read more ...

Foreign Oscar Watch: Can "Elle" Slay the Competition?

Verhoeven & Huppert at Cannes this summer

France, as ever, was spoiled with options when it came to selecting their film for Oscar competition this year. Frantz (reviewed) from François Ozon would likely have appealed to Oscar voters but the selection committee went with the controversial Elle (reviewed at TIFF). It's a brave choice but we think a smart one; even if its divisive within initial voting, it will likely be a candidate to benefit under the Executive Committee 'saves' rule. Plus those who love it will love it passionately meaning it could even have a dark horse shot at a win. Not only does it have a high profile auteur and star (Paul Verhoeven and Isabelle Huppert) but it's got sensational reviews, a US release on the table in the thick of Oscar traction season (November 11th), and an outside shot at a Best Actress nomination. France has not won the category since Indochine (1992) despite numerous nominations.

Trivia: Paul Verhoeven has had one previous film nominated in this category for his home country The Netherlands with Turkish Delight (1973). If Elle is nominated it would not be the first time a director has competed for multiple countries: Akira Kurosawa, who competed many times for Japan, won the prize for the Soviet Union with Dersu Uzala (1975); Luis Buñuel who won the Oscar for France with The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) was also nominated twice for Spain, his home country; and Michael Haneke won for Austria with Amour (2012) and also competed for Germany with The White Ribbon (2009) 

More News:
Oscar's other favorite country Italy has selected the Golden Bear winner, Fire at Sea (reviewed at Berlinale), a documentary about the European migrant crisis. To my knowledge only two documentaries have ever been nominated in this category (Waltz With Bashir from Israel and The Missing Picture from Cambodia) but both of those were in the past eight years so perhaps Oscar votings are loosening up about these distinctions. Among countries who have not yet announced their submissions (with a week left) Poland and Argentina are the most formidable, statistically speaking, with Oscar.

Foreign Film Oscar Charts
Predictions - 15 films that could have the best chance at the finals?
Afghanistan to Finland - 22 submissions thus far
George to Morocco - 23 submissions thus far
Nepal to Venezuela - 28 submissions thus far 

TIFF: Isabelle Huppert is "Elle"

Nathaniel R reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 8th-18th)

On any given day around the movie internet you will see the headine "What You Need To Know About ['Movie You Haven't Seen Yet']". It's clickbait. The sum total of what you need to know about a movie before you see it is nothing. Go to the movie theater and actually experience it. So if the promise of a new acclaimed Paul Verhoeven feature (his first since the riveting Black Book in 2006) that's been loudly labelled a "rape comedy" starring the world's most casually transgressive movie star Isabelle Huppert is enough to sell you a ticket I urge you to not read any reviews before seeing it, including this one. It's not that the film has twists that can spoil the experience if they're known ahead of time so much as it's in the way the movie is itself twisted.

Just how twisted is revealed through the careful deployment of its psychosexual landmines. And just how often they're successfully played for laughter ... albeit of the discomforting 'what am I laughing at?' variety. 

Two provocative legends (Verhoeven & Huppert) on set

Which is not to say that the rape itself is the subject of comedy...

Click to read more ...

The Link Of...

• THR got the first look at Fences. Photos of Denzel, Viola and Stephen McKinley Henderson
• Awards Daily surveys the rave reviews for Nocturnal Animals 
• Playbill there's another musical about the life of Tennessee Williams on the way. The developmental concert is when I'm away at TIFF argh.

• /Film Riz Ahmed sees his Rogue One action figure for the first time (he's so skinny & British -- it's freaking me out a little post The Night Of...!)
• Coming Soon Tom Holland visits a children's hospital dressed as Spider-Man
• AV Club interviews Rob Reiner about his well loved filmography
• MNPP if you live in NYC please note that there's a Paul Verhoeven retrospective coming in November to celebrate the release of Elle. Naturally Showgirls and the other Hollywood films will be accounted for but so will his Dutch offerings. Can't wait to see Turkish Delight finally with Rutger Hauer!
• EW Tyler Hoechlin talks about becoming Superman for the CW's Supergirl
• Fusion crunched the numbers on the ballots for the BBC 100 greatest of the 21st century list to come up with an all female directors ranking. I'm a little stunned, given that ultra specific scenario that A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is so low on the list (only #59) and Bright Star can't even manage the top 20 (tied for #21)
•... the original list icymi 

Controversy
• Los Angeles Times powerful op ed from Gabrielle Union about sexual consent, rape culture, Nate Parker, and Birth of a Nation. She plays a rape victim in his film
• Variety Mark Ruffalo responds to the criticism of the casting of Matt Bomer as a trans woman in his new project. "Please have a little compassion. We are all learning" oh Jesus. Is Hollywood in so much of a bubble that they're still years behind everyone else? I find this hard to believe especially for the politically actives types like Ruffalo so it's hard to have compassion for people purposefully benefitting from the status quo.

Just For Fun
• Vice analyzes the exact amount of banter in the photo of those Eton schoolboys about to meet Putin. I LOL'ed and LOL'ed. Bloody well done 

Video o' the Day
Check out this neat montage celebrating Stop-Motion in film - it's very short and due to that it gets to our lifetimes way too quickly but it still brought back so many fun movie memories. 

THE EVOLUTION OF STOP-MOTION from Vugar Efendi on Vimeo.