New on DVD: Bridget Jones's Baby

David here on the return of one of the UK's most memorable heroines...

Bridget Jones's Baby is, as things stand, the highest-grossing film released in the UK this year. Quite the result for the long-delayed comeback of a female romcom heroine whose target audience isn’t typically recognised by the movie industry as big ticket buyers. Sure, Bridget’s return wasn’t as heralded at the US box office, earning a paltry $20 million. But Bridget’s peers amongst the UK public are more loyal creatures, and the film’s easy rewatchability is apparent in the abundant returns. (Perhaps as a result of the film’s longer theatrical lifespan in the UK, the home entertainment release on UK shores isn’t until the end of January.)

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The Many Genres of "Jane the Virgin"

Please welcome new contributor Jorge Molina to the team. Here's his take on "Jane the Virgin," returning to TV tonight, two seasons in...

Jane the Virgin returns tonight on the CW for season 3Jane the Virgin has always been a hard show to describe. Even its one-line, high concept premise takes a couple of reads to fully grasp: “A young Catholic Latina virgin gets accidentally artificially inseminated. Hilarity ensues.” 

Two seasons in and the show hasn’t gotten any less complex. Each episode adds more layers on plot, character, and style: someone will get pregnant or thrown down the stairs; there will be flashbacks, and murders, and small meaningful moments; and it will be as bombastic as it will be intimate. Sometimes in a matter of scenes.

Jane the Virgin is the rare case of a show that’s created entirely on pastiche, and yet has an unmistakable originality and essence that’s fully its own.

It embodies many genres, and weaves them all together in one single, coherent, Latin-loving storyline.  Five genres as example after the jump...

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Links: Separating Artists from Art, Studying Jake Gyllenhaal, Letting the Seven Samurai Go

Playlist on the complicated issues of "separate the art from the artist" in today's social media court of public opinion and 24/7 news cycles and Birth of a Nation's release
Gold Derby titles their article "OFFICIAL" and then claims to have inside intel on "hints" that Silence is actually opening this year despite no poster, trailer, release date, etcetera. This is not what the word "official" means. It will only be official when Paramount makes a statement. I'm hopeful, as the film has been in post forever, but it's definitely not official yet.
MNPP Jason offers to teach a course on "The Nudity of Jake Gyllenhaal 101" and we would like to audit the course -- Jake is always having nude breakdowns in showers.

The New Yorker has an interesting take on Bridget Jones's Baby's refusal to engage with some of the elements of the genre it helped define
Variety Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal will co-star in a movie called Wildlife based on the novel by Richard Ford about a boy witnessing his parent's marriage falling apart. The fun (?) part is that it's cowritten by real life couple Zoe Kazan and Paul Dano who we hope aren't falling apart. Dano will also direct
AMPAS they've uploaded all the speeches from the 2016 Student Academy Awards if you're interested. Perhaps one day some of these men and women will win normal Oscars? Does anyone have any stats on that?
E! Online congratulations to Idina Menzel who is engaged to her boyfriend Aaron Lohr (who had a bit part in the movie Rent) 
Interview talks to Zachary Quinto about Snowden and more 
I Like Things that Look Like Mistakes Kyle Turner on Sia's new video "The Greatest"
The Stake on the many remakes of Seven Samurai with The Magnificent Seven in theaters 
The New Yorker looks back at the obsessive photographer behind iconic 50s magazine Physique Pictorial  - was he the early Robert Mapplethorpe or the gay Hugh Hefner? 
Boy Culture Madonna reads ageist commenters to filth on her Instagram account. I have loved this woman so much and for so long that I find a kind of regular joy that she's so endlessly superior to all the litte minds that have been trying to bring her down for the past 32 years. But on the other hand, probably best for celebrities not to acknowledge all the people that hate them. Don't give them that power!
MNPP Thursdays Ways Not To Die' memorializes generic Christoph Waltz villain in The Legend of Tarzan 

Stream This: The Verdict, Black Widow, Holding the Man, and More.

In the effort to stay au courant we'll alternate between Netflix and Amazon Prime for streaming news, last chance viewings and newly available. We'll freeze frame select titles at random places just for fun and see what image comes up - you know how we do. 

LAST CHANCE NETFLIX

-A present? Nice. It looks just like our horse
-Should I bring it inside?
-It'd be rude not to. 

Mr Peabody and Sherman (2014, expires August 11th)
A little Trojan War humor for you there. Critics were marginally kind but our own Tim Brayton said...

here we are, with the latest in a long line of remakes that simultaneously gloss up, flatten, and embalm an old classic that needs none of those thing. 

So moving on with 9 more titles after the jump...

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The Linkening

But can she actually act? Golden Globe or not, American Horror Story: Hotel was not much to go on in that regard...The Ringer the No Strings Attached vs Friends With Benefits war of 2011 revisited
THR We'll believe any new version of A Star is Born when we see it because someone is always trying to remake it. The latest proposal is Bradley Cooper & Lady Gaga (with Cooper debuting as a director)
Deadline Captain America: Civil War is first title of the year to hit $400 million domestic. It just happened.
Playbill Phillipa Soo, currently starring in Hamilton, will play Amelie in the Broadway musical version of the Oscar nominated french film next year
The Guardian celebrates Patrick Wilson (The Conjuring 2) with five memorable moments 
Tracking Board Vera Farmiga's next co-star gig is with Liam Neeson in The Commuter as a mysterious woman who propositions him.
/Film Hollywood is so desperate for franchises they're even going to try The Saint again. Remember that Val Kilmer movie from the 90s? No? Don't tell Hollywood 

It's a Wrap
Coming Soon Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 has wrapped - expect it to thoroughly demolish the box office next May.
Viola Davis Fences is also a wrap. Looks like it'll be ready for Oscar after all. Viola tweeted a cute pic from the set

Oscar Hopeful?
/Film The Story of Your Life, the Amy Adams Denis Villenueve sci-fi drama on our Oscar charts has a new super generic title The Arrival. (sigh) It arrives on November 11th
Coming Soon welp, it looks like Judi Dench still wants that Best Leading Actress Oscar. She's playing Queen Victoria for a second time (after her nomination without a win for  Her Majesty Mrs Brown) in a forthcoming Stephen Frears film called Victoria and Abdul. Abdul (a young clerk from India) has not yet been cast though if we know Hollywood they won't even bother looking beyond Dev Patel. But it'd be cool to see someone else get a shot at leading a film.

...and it turns out Hozier wrote an original song for The Legend of Tarzan. Here's the video which just came out