Posterized: Roland Emmerich

With 60 year old German director Roland Emmerich's latest sci-fi world-in-peril disaster flick opening (that'd be Independence Day: Resurgence) let's look back at his career for this week's Posterized! But first here's a really cute photo of the director with actress Joey King tying his shoes. (She's made two of his movies back to back now as she was also in Stonewall)

In poster form, at least, Emmerich's careers looks a lot a pitch perfect example of how capitalism works in Tinsletown, when they poach genre directors from other countries...

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Posterized: Duncan Jones

Duncan Jones has had a tumultuous few years so we wanted to honor him with a quick Posterized today. In January the 45 year old filmmaker lost his father David Bowie (he's the superstar's only son). His first child is due this month. His other new baby, the long-gestating video game big screen adaptation Warcraft is getting savaged by the critics.

And yet...

It wasn't so long ago that he was getting 'Hot New Director' drooling from the media, starting off strong with the sci-fi drama Moon. His second film Source Code wasn't as ecstatically received but performed decently. Three films isn't much to go on so we shall maintain high hopes. Do you think he will rally with a fourth film and make good on that initial promise? His next sci-fi film -- he's not straying from his preferred genre -- is called Mute, and stars Alexander Skarsgård as a silent bartender and Paul Rudd as some kind of mysterious doctor.  We don't generally think of Paul Rudd as mysterious but we're willing to give it a shot. (There's some internet speculation that Sam Rockwell will reprise his Moon character -- which would be very intriguing given the ending of Moon -- since Jones has indicated that Mute takes place in the same universe.)

How many of his films have you seen?
And if you've seen the first two, are you planning to hit Warcraft despite the reviews? 

Posterized: Movies About Young Black Girls

Not every movie has a white straight male protagonist. It just seems like that since that's Hollywood's default and also the preferred proxy of most (white straight male) auteurs.

But the times are finally a-changing. This weekend features the platform release of a mesmerizing new indie called The Fits -- please see it as soon as it opens near you. I was so proud to push for honoring it on my jury at the Nashville Film Festival. Fresh perspectives on the screen can be so exhilarating. That's especially true when the execution is this confident. Remember the debut director's name, Anna Rose Holmer, since we're hoping for more great movies to come.

In the meantime, let's take a trip back through other features with young black girls as the lead character. I haven't seen the first or the last movie on this list of nine below but the rest all fall somewhere on the spectrum of good to great. 

How many have you seen?

• Just Another Girl on the IRT (1992)
• Eve's Bayou (1997) - Really need to watch this again as previously earlier this week. It was the breakthrough role for Jurnee Smollett-Bell who went on to series regular gigs in Friday Night Lights, True Blood, and The Underground. 
• Our Song (2000) - When it comes to superstar Kerry Washington, it's important to remember that I saw her first. Articles from the early Aughts are no longer online but trust that I gave her a rave review when I saw this teeny tiny indie in theaters and was startled by her total naturalism onscreen.

• Precious (2009) - Best Picture Nominee at the Oscars, and right here.  
• Akeelah and the Bee (2006)
• Pariah (2011) - One of the best LGBT films of the decade

• Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) - Our #1 film of 2012, and also a Best Picture nominee at the Oscars
• Girlhood (2014) - terrific French film
• Annie (2014)

If you can think of other films with a child or teenage black girl as the lead character, please do share them so our list is more complete.

Posterized: Tye Sheridan

They grow up so fast *sniffle*. Tye Sheridan, the child actor revelation from Terence Malick's The Tree of Life (quite a debut) and Mud is already 19 years old and in major demand. What accounts for his mutant super power of aging rapidly is that Tree of Life actually began shooting when Tye was just 11. Malick takes forever in post production, don'cha know. Male stars don't tend to really come into their A list own until their late 20s or early 30s. DiCaprio is the grand exception to the rule but usually the ones that break out in their late teens or early 20s more commonly have career trajectories, like, oh, Chris O'Donnell. That's partially because the juicy roles for men tend to be the ones that require a 30 or 40something actor.  So it's anyone's guess as to whether or not Sheridan can build on his rather solid first five years in the movies. Are you that anyone? Care to take a guess?

While Sheridan isn't the star of X-Men Apocalypse -- the movies are STILL obsessed with making it all about Magneto, Xavier, Wolverine, and Mystique (sigh) even though we've seen that dynamic five times already (fwiw Wolverine is reduced to a cameo this time but he takes over the movie for a couple of minutes). If the franchise can ever reach for the ensemble magnificence of its source material, Sheridan would be in a great position to collect more than just a paycheck as Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, one of the most enduring and important characters in the books. (He's also onscreens right now in Last Days in the Desert which stars Ewan McGregor as both Jesus and Satan.)

How many of his 10 pictures to date have you seen? 

Next up for Sheridan, if it gets distribution, is Detour (reviewed at Tribeca), presumably more X-Men features as well as more leading roles including Friday's Child,  the crime aftermath drama Grass Stains, the Iraq war soldier drama The Yellow Birds (which he co-leads with Alden Ehrenreich), and Spielberg's sci-fi flick Ready Player One. 2017 could be the star-making year for him if two of those break out strong.

Posterized: Writer/Director Shane Black

Shane Black with Ryan Gosling at the Cannes premiere of Nice Guys this weekSince we've already done "Posterized" episodes on both Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling, who co-star together in this weekend's new comedy Nice Guys, let's look at the man behind their bantering bros curtain, Shane Black. The 54 year-old director hit the big time with his very first produced screenplay 29 years ago, the smash hit buddy action flick Lethal Weapon (1987).

He's stuck to the high-concept action/comedy genre like glue thereafter making obscene amounts of cash during the heyday of that genre (the early 90s). If he's not interested in stretching, at least he does them better than most. Eleven years ago he finally moved into the director's chair for the underseen critical darling Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005). Strangely for a successful creator in a lucrative genre that isn't exactly relegated to the arthouse, he's not been that prolific in his 29 year career. (If you're curious about how it all shook out this old piece at Grantland is a must read)

Boy movies, least of all buddy comedies, aren't a thing TFE is known for so it's a little bit of a curveball today in Posterized but we're curious:  How many of his 8 films have you seen? 

Screenplays: Lethal Weapon (1987), The Monster Squad (1987), The Last Boy Scout (1991), The Last Action Hero (1993), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996); Screenplay & Directing: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), Iron Man 3 (2013), and Nice Guys (2016).

And which is your favorite?