Quick Links

• Coming Soon Ant Man and the Wasp has wrapped filming. Apparently there's a scene on a beach between Pfeiffer and Douglas
• Decider 10 movies you should stream right now to prepare for awards season
• The Guardian apparently Feud is just making its way to the UK so there's a new Susan Sarandon interview where she defends her baffling political decisions of the recent past

• Rotten Tomatoes Jude Law has nabbed the male lead of Captain Marvel opposite Brie Larson
• Los Angeles Times John Lasseter, Disney/Pixar's long time chief creative officer, is taking a leave of absence from Disney after complaints of inappropriate behavior with female employees
• Playbill what are the plays that Broadway revives the most often? The top 12 features well loved playwright's like Tennessee Williams (though I was surprised by his second most revived), Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill, and of course Edward Albee's masterpiece Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
• Variety Rance Howard, the character actor and father of Ron Howard, has passed away
• Gr8ter Days David Cassidy, 70s teen idol of the Patridge Family has passed away
• Variety The Seen and Unseen, which you'll remember I raved about at TIFF, has won two new prizes this past week, splitting the Grand Prize at Tokyo FilmEx and winning the APSA for Youth Feature. 

Exit Video
Have you checked out the new webseries "Power Couple"? We must thank Joe Reid for recommending it. The concept is simple and hooky (famous pairings through history) and the execution by Sudi Green and Matt Rogers is brilliant. My favorite thus far is Caesar & Cleopatra but they've also done Britney & Justin (with an amazing 50 Shades riff on negotiation) and Evil Queen & Magic Mirror.

Sneak Peek Review: Pixar's “Coco”

Jorge Molina reporting from Mexico where Coco has already opened...

The main thing that unifies all Pixar movies (and a big part of what makes them so successful) is how deeply they are rooted in specificity. A movie set in the world of toys, in the world of bugs, in the world of monsters, of superheroes, of cars.

But in all their movies until now, this very specificity has been universal. We’ve all had to let go of toys, and feared monsters, and wanted to become superheroes. With Coco, Pixar dives into their first film that is truly specific, based around a world, a culture and a folklore that only exists for one particular group of people.

A group of people that I happen to be part of...

Click to read more ...

"Ratatouille" is 10. What would you have Remy cook for you?

Pixar's genius "anyone can cook" classic Ratatouille turned 10 years old today. It's aging well and one thing it very much has going for it is that it's unlikely to ever have a sequel. That's a very good thing in so many ways today since too many great films are ruined by the need to "follow them up" or provide backstories by way of prequels. 

In its honor two questions for you:

1. Everyone loves the title scene where Anton the critic remembers his childhood but what's your second favorite scene?

2. What perfectly cooked dish would send you back to a bliss-inducing memory?

Box Office: Cars 3 road blocks Wonder Woman 1... temporarily.

By Nathaniel R

Rule #1 of Hollywood: If it's making money, keep sequelizing it. Yes, even if it's as much of a lemon as Pixar's Cars franchise, basically the sole significant weight dragging down their otherwise blissful quality to quantity ratio (Sigh). But the world keeps buying so they'll keep selling. Cars won't have much time at the top of the charts, though, since another long-in-the-tooth franchise that's a blight on the cinemascape (Transformers) arrives Wednesday with its 5th installment. With so many lackluster sequels out this summer it's no wonder that people have been so thirsty for Wonder Woman, which at least has the benefit of being a "first" in multiple ways. Charts are after the jump...

Click to read more ...

The Link Down

It's impossible to keep up these days. So herewith a bunch of news we haven't covered and other enjoyable places to go on the web today...

News
Baz Lurhmann has written a letter to fans about the cancellation of The Get Down, his Netflix series. My favorite bit because I like having him on the big screen in 2 hour doses:

All sorts of things have been thrown around for the future... even a stage show (can you imagine that? I can, concert version anyone? Next summer? Just saying.) But the simple truth is, I make movies. And the thing with movies is, that when you direct them, there can be nothing else in your life. Since The Get Down stopped, I have actually been spending the last few months preparing my new cinematic work...

Variety IFC is on a buying spree at Cannes, including Lars Von Trier's latest, a serial killer drama named The House That Jack Built starring Matt Dillon and Uma Thurman
BBC Star Wars' John Boyega hits the London stage in Woyzeck. Reviews are a bit mixed but everyone seems to love that he challenged himself to such an extent post stardom
Cartoon Brew Pixar has a new experimental shorts division without executive oversight. This sounds like a great idea for the company, fostering new creative visions without much investment or interference
Kenneth in the (212) Jeffrey Schwarz, who specializes in documentaries about gay or gay-interest historical figures (I Am Divine, Vito, etcetera) has a new documentary on Producer Allan Car (Grease 2, Can't Stop the Music)
Broadway World Glenn Close stops a performance of Sunset Blvd to address a rude audience member:

We can have a show or we can have a photo shoot

Variety Kirsten Dunst gets emotional at The Beguiled premiere
Variety Gina Prince-Blythewood (Beyond the Lights) tapped to direct Spider-Man spinoff Silver and Black  about the characters Silver Sable and Black Cat.
Angry Asian Man there's a Joy Luck Club tv series in the work and they're looking for Chinese American women

Good Reads
Vanity Fair on that new unforgivably hideous Spider-Man Homecoming poster
Jezebel on the terrible Dirty Dancing TV remake. (I have to ask though, why do people keep watching TV remakes of movies. They're all just t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e... remember that trainwreck that was Beaches recently?)

For Fun
Gay Comic Geek [nsfw site] Wonder Woman cosplay... by men
The New Yorker Joe Dator draws a comic about his fortieth anniversary with Star Wars. Cute.

Exit Video
Dynasty is getting a reboot.

I object that Krystle isn't a blonde and doesn't look that much different than Fallon (why does the CW have such trouble varying haircolors/styles and overall looks in their casts in all their shows?) but otherwise some of the changes are fun. The most potentially interesting touch being that trashy golddigger Sammy Joe (the Heather Locklear role) is a gay man this time but still after the same mark, Steven Carrington (the family's gay son). But, is this really the right era to idolize the super wealthy? Not sure it will sit as well in 2017 as it did in the 80s when people were more naive about the 1%'s havoc-wreaking on the economy of everyone else.