Links: Andorra, Amelie, Billy & Jon. Plus Hayao Miyazaki Again?

The Kinsey Report looks back at the troubled history of early 80s sensation Gene Anthony Ray (aka "Leroy" from Fame)
Variety Director Fred Schepisi (Six Degrees of Separation, Roxanne, Plenty) is lining up an all star cast for his new dramatic thriller Andorra: Vanessa Redgrave, Guy Pearce, Toni Collette, Clive Owen and more. Can he regain some of his 80s/90s heat? None of his films have had much impact in the last 20 or so years
/Film Lin-Manuel Miranda is working on a secret Disney project with Zootopia's director. Guess he liked that Moana experience

 

Towleroad an interview with Martha Plimpton on The Real O'Neals and becoming a new gay icon  
Metro Michael Shannon is not afraid to speak his mind on the current political climate. Also he has a bajillion movies coming out 
AV Club why Moana will be named Oceania in Italy
AV Club Beauty & The Beast (1991) remains Disney's best modern movie
Pajiba Carrie Fisher & Harrison Ford were totally doing it on the set of Star Wars in 1976 
Coming Soon Robert Heinlein's classic Stranger in a Strange Land is being adapted to series on the Syfy network
LAist Multi-hyphenate talent Rob Reiner, like Michael Shannon, is not holding his tongue about our new US nightmare 

Stage
Theater Mania Philippa Soo of Hamilton fame takes on Audrey Tatou's famous role in the musicalization of movie favorite Amelie beginning in LA next month before a Broadway transfer. If you're in LA let us know how it is, won't you?!
Playbill Molly Ringwald is back on stage, taking on Shirley Maclaine's role in a stage version of Terms of Endearment. It opens tonight. 
Playbill If you've never seen Sweeney Todd on stage you have another chance early next year at the Barrow Street theater. The British cast of a new production is transferring over but when they leave in early April, Norm Lewis and Carolee Carmello (both of whom have sensational vocal instruments) will replace them. I guess we've got to see it twice!

Today's Watch: A new "Billy on the Street"
Would you have a threesome with Billy and Jon Hamm?  

The Only Magically Great News in Weeks
Hayao Miyazaki wants to come out of retirement for one last film.  The 75 year old director has pitched a feature (sprung from a short Boro the Caterpillar) that he wants made by 2020.

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.

When Harry Met Sally... (1989) Food for Thought

Anne Marie here on the 25th anniversary of a genre classic.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that any romcom made after 1989 owes large thematic debts to When Harry Met Sally… From the Meet Cute to the Bickering Couple to the Final Romantic Gesture (usually involving holidays and/or running), When Harry Met Sally… set a template that has defined an entire genre, and--depending on who you ask--killed that genre as well. But despite the cliches, Rob Reiner and Nora Ephron’s Oscar-nominated comedy script continues to sparkle 25 years later, because it is not a movie about romantic gestures. It is a story about people; their observations, their oversights, and most importantly, their food.

Watching When Harry Met Sally… for the first time, you’d be forgiven for thinking New Yorkers do nothing but eat and argue. As Harry (Billy Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan) meet, separate, meet again, fall into friendship, and fall in love, they do so against an ever-rotating backdrop of restaurants and parties. (Apparently nobody in New York cooks at home either.) A lingering fear in romantic comedies--a genre about bringing people together--is the fear of being alone, and these are public spaces that force the characters to interact with each other and avoid the lonely New York death that Harry jokes about early on. Most importantly, these settings also givethem a chance to eat.

It comes as no surprise that the woman who would write Julie & Julia twenty years later would be so interested in how food reveals character. Ephron establishes both of her young characters through how they eat. Of course, Sally’s infamously detailed instructions to the first waitress immediately brand the young blonde as a perfectionist who likes control. Meg Ryan's best scenes are ordering from the menu, which she does with neither self-consciousness nor self-awareness, making Sally opinionated but not apolagetic, and somehow very funny.

Sally Albright: But I'd like the pie heated and I don't want the ice cream on top, I want it on the side, and I'd like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it, if not then no ice cream just whipped cream but only if it's real; if it's out of the can then nothing.

Waitress: Not even the pie?

Sally Albright: No, I want the pie, but then not heated.

But Harry is also announced through his food, or rather through his bad manners while eating it. In their very first interaction sharing a car driving into New York, Harry introduces himself to Sally and the audience by talking through a mouthful of masticated grapes, and spitting grape seeds at the window. He’s messy, but he’s relaxed. (Minor characters also interact this way, including a brief fling of Harry's who is wrong for him because she bakes and he hates sweets, and Marie and Jess, who bond on a blind date over an article about wine.) Even when they're eating instead of talking, Harry and Sally are deliberately drawn opposites.

In between bites of food, Harry and Sally work as mouthpieces for Ephron’s musings and philosophies on relationships. When Harry Met Sally… plays as a series of dinner table debates interrupted periodically by plot, sex, or food. It’s a testament to Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan’s charming chemistry that they can make the discussion feel like action, and not just while banging on the table with fake orgasms. Harry and Sally discuss sex, loneliness, real estate, death, the ending of Casablanca, and anything else that pops into Ephron’s mind. 

Primarily, they concern themselves with one question: Can men and women remain friends? Or, to update it to 2014, “Is attraction an insurmountable obstacle to friendship?” Twenty five years later, it’s still a question that single people ask themselves. For the last few years, we've been hearing the supposed death knell of the romantic comedy, with the insistence that this genre is too cliche. But the fact that I had the friend vs romantic partner debate last week says to me that this foreboding may be a bit premature. The best new romcoms, like Obvious Child, are movies that carry on Nora Ephron's real legacy: some scattered observations, a question or two, and maybe a little bit of comfort food. 

"Inconceivable!" ~ a Princess Bride Reunion for NYFF

Hot off the presses! And given our wee Carol Kane tangent recently, we'll have fun storming this castle...

The director and cast of the adventure comedy classic The Princess Bride (1987), including Rob Reiner, Billy Crystal, Cary Elwes, Carol Kane, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon and Robin Wright, will reunite for a 25th anniversary special screening and Q & A at the 50th New York Film Festival on Tuesday October 2nd at 8:00 PM! Tickets will undoubtedly go fast for this one.

Oscar Trivia: It's worth noting that the Academy's bias against "light" movies can often cast them in an unflattering light historically. The Princess Bride only enjoyed one nomination -- a Best Original Song nomination at that -- in its year. It didn't even get a screenplay nomination which seems to strain all belief in hindsight. 1987's Oscar favorites were far from an anti-populist crop (Two Best Picture nominees, the wondrous Moonstruck, which definitely holds up in 2012, and the thriller Fatal Attraction were both blockbuster hits and Broadcast News was a major success, too) it's arguably The Princess Bride that remains 1987's most universally beloved film.

Miracle Max (Billy Crystal) and his wife (Carol Kane) in The Princess Bride (1987)

Does it make your top ten list from 1987? It made mine.

Unsung Heroes: The Props of "This is Spinal Tap"

Michael C here from Serious Film this week to throw a little love to the technical support who help make it possible for the geniuses in front of the camera to change comedy forever.

I do not for one think the problem was that the band was down. I think the problem may have been that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage in danger of being crushed by a dwarf. That tended to understate the hugeness of the object. -  David St. Hubbins

One of the things that makers of Hollywood spoofs and satires seem to have forgotten is that it is important to first establish the reality of the story, and then, and only then, does one proceed to twist and subvert the conventions of the genre. Kubrick knew to let Dr. Strangelove play out with stark simplicity for the whole opening act before the big laughs started to creep in. Mel Brooks knew to let Young Frankenstein feel like a convincing horror classic before the monster started putting on the Ritz. And Rob Reiner clearly knew that his off-the-charts hilarious This is Spinal Tap would be dead in the water if every detail didn’t ring true. The prop work and set decoration placed the bar for mockumentaries at a level that has rarely been approached since.

Everything here is exactly the right level of awful. The crappy plastic pod that captures Shearer’s Derek Smalls and the crappy plastic demon skull that looms over the stage are both just good enough to allow the band to delude itself into thinking they're awesome. The legendary amp that goes to eleven displays that extra level with the perfect degree of carelessness, as if a disinterested roadie hastily tacked on the elevens in order to placate the band. One of my favorite bits is the series of briefly glimpsed past albums. The blindingly tacky cover art lets you know in an instant precisely the type of horrible band Spinal Tap is.

And what words can do justice to Stonehenge? That henge has a lot of buildup to fail to live up to and it delivers spectacularly at failing to deliver. Yet one can still spot the faint glimmer of the awesome spectacle the band imagined it would be.

It occurs to me I may be going overboard handing out credit. The wonderfully cheap look of Spinal Tap’s props may simply be a fortuitous result of the movie’s limited budget and shooting schedule. But even if that were that case what difference would it make? Would it be more praise-worthy if Spinal Tap had a prop department the size of Lord of the Rings and the budget of Avatar? The question comes down to how much more perfect could every minor detail of Tap, from the tiny bread on Nigel’s refreshment tray to the cucumber in Derek’s trousers, be? And the answer is none. None more perfect.