The Oscar Race Plot Keeps Thickening... or is it Thinning?

by Nathaniel R

For those of you who are wondering why the Oscar charts are still not updated, here's a simple fact. Every time I go to work on them, something huge changes and I have to start over. I'm fully aware that other pundits keep making breathless pronouncements of what will actually WIN the Oscars but I just can't do that. We STILL have no real sense of what will actually open since Hollywood keeps clearing and resetting the chess board. The latest upheaval is that West Side Story, Steven Spielberg's remake of the Oscar-winning classic that didn't need to be remade, has moved back an entire year to December 2021. So now both of the big latinx musicals that were originally intended for 2020 have just essentially scrawled a one over the final zero on their original calendars with The Heights in summer 2021 and West Side Story for Christmas 2021...

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"Elvis" gets back to work

by Ben Miller

Elvis and his manager Colonel Parker in 1958

Though the coronavirus is still raging in the US, the rest of the world is starting to get back to normal, and that means the restarting of international film productions.  One of the most noteworthy of those productions,  restarting in Australia, is Baz Luhrmann’s (as of yet untitled) Elvis Presley film, starring Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood’s Austin Butler as the King of Rock and the world’s most famous COVID patient, Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker.

The project itself is relatively unknown, but we do know Luhrmann, so don't expect the typical biopic treatment...

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Good Joe Link

• LA Times RIP the iconic Diana Rigg (1938-2020)
• MNPP celebrating Michelle Williams, who just turned 40
• /Film Ewan McGregor confirms that he'll return to the role of Obi Wan Kenobi for a one season series on Disney Plus. For what it's worth Ewan will be 50 years old when they start shooting next year but that's still young for Obi Wan adventures. Sir Alec Guiness was 63 when the original Star Wars was released in 1977

After the jump, we stan Jane Fonda, Oscar dreams for Mark Wahlberg?, a 'what if' for 2020 movie culture, Sigourney Weaver on set and more....

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Yes No Maybe So: Ammonite

by Nathaniel R

Okay. NOW it feels like prestige film season is about to begin... even though it isn't, not really, at least not in its traditional way. Behold the lovely poster for Ammonite, pairing two star profiles in ethereal fashion, The trailer is even more thrilling. Let's break down the Yes No and Maybe So of it all after the jump...

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Release Dates, for the hell of it...

by Nathaniel R

Remember when reporting on movie news and release dates used to have meaning? It's a distant foggy memory but there was, in fact, a time when release dates felt, if not certain, than likely... something to get giddy about while you waited for the next "Must See". The Bond and Fast and Furious producers who pushed their films No Time to Die and F9, respectively, several months away when people first started to learn the word "coronavirus" are looking very smart in hindsight. They got the hell out of there before anyone was sick! Disney with Mulan and WB with Tenet chose to play the "let's just wait one more month" game and keep playing it. Both movies have recently pushed back to August.

Here's the schedule of the big(gish) movies for the rest of the year though obviously you should read it with not a grain of salt but the whole Great Salt Lake from Utah...

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