TIFF: "Women Talking"

by Matt St Clair

After the masterful Stories We Tell (2012), the wait for Sarah Polley’s follow-up directorial picture has been agonizing. She’s long since proven herself a gifted actress, but watching her expertly blur the line between fact and fiction in that acclaimed docudrama begged the question of when, and how, she would wow us againwith her directorial skills. Thankfully, she not only has finally made a follow-up project, but one that is more than worth the wait...

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Links: Batgirl's Unexpected Demise, Bong's Mickey Clones, and Melanie's Just Rewards

• The Guardian An excerpt from Sarah Polley's new memoir concerning her child actor days on Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen 
• IndieWire Marcel the Shell is submitting as an Animated Feature. Will the Oscars accept it?
• Coming Soon The First Lady, which was meant to be an ongoing anthology series with new leads each year, has been cancelled. At least we got another tremendous Pfeiffer performance out of it!

The current Warner Bros / HBOMax Batgirl nightmare, our beloved Melanie Lynskey on Yellowjackets, Bong Joon-ho's next film, and Dev Patel as a real life hero after the jump...

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Soundtracking: Take This Waltz

by Chris Feil

Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz gets its name from Leonard Cohen’s indelible song, announcing itself immediately as musically astute. The film is a nuanced look at love and personhood, following Michelle Williams’ Margot through her affectionately dull marriage and flirtatious dalliance with a handsome neighbor. Cohen’s track arrives towards the film’s close, a swirling punctuation point on the film’s observations on love and sex as escape before reality (and mounting baggage) sets in. It’s the film’s largest stylistic flourish, but its richest musical insights lie elsewhere.

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Lukewarm off the Presses: Little Waspy Wonder Women

by Nathaniel R

Look at this lucky so and so getting a selfie with La Pfeiff!

Running so late! Three topics worth blogging about that slipped us by this past week. Michelle & pfans, Wonder Woman 1984 images, and Greta Gerwig's next project. That's a lot. Ready. Let's go...

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The Link and I

Link time. Here we go...

Screen
/Film Deadpool 2 and X-Men Dark Phoenix have both wrapped, both due in 2018
/Film Turns out Beyoncé was offered Plumette before Gugu in the recent Beauty & The Beast movie. Insane that they offered Beyoncé a teensy part when Belle was right there. WTF, Bill Condon?
Coming Soon Gong Li will lead Martin Campbell's next thriller Ana -- the tone is said to be similar to La Femme Nikita.  We'd be super excited because Gong Li is always welcome in leading roles but Campbell's new one The Foreigner with Jackie Chan isn't exactly winning raves
Film Society Helen Mirren named as the honoree at next spring's Chaplin Award Gala in NYC. Robert De Niro was the honoree earlier this year

 

Into Todd Haynes talks about Wonderstruck and about meeting with Barbra Streisand to talk Gypsy !!!
Variety it's official The Current War has moved to 2018 as the Weinstein Company sorts itself out
Tracking Board Sandra Bullock's Netflix thriller Bird Box casts Patti Cake$' breakout Danielle Macdonald 
Variety Alfonso Cuarón talks about the Lumière festival, The Shape of Water, his new Mexican film Roma his first since Y Tu Mama Tambien
Coming Soon the young cast of those four Avatar sequels hit Disney World (only one of them is playing a human character). 

Page Turners
The Guardian Tom Hanks has written a book of short stories
NPR there's a new book out on the ultimate screen classic Casablanca

Stage 
Playbill Sir Ian McKellen will provide the voice of the demon in a new stage adaptation of The Exorcist
Playbill Kelli O'Hara likely to reprise her Tony winning performance in the West End production of The King and I next summer in London
EW Whoopi Goldberg & Maggie Gyllenhaal to star in a Damn Yankees concert, how fun!

More Sexual Harassment Stories
NYT Sarah Polley on the switch she felt moving from actress to director in terms of respect
Variety Eva Green has joined the chorus of women who have awful Weinstein stories to tell
BBC Woody Allen reacts to the Weinstein allegations
TFE Björk's harassment story (in case you missed it)
Boy Culture model/actor Ronnie Kroell speaks about how harassment happens to men in Hollywood, too. There are gay Weinsteins out there

and something a little lighter to end with...
Medium a hack for men (using The Rock as a mental example) who dont want to be accused of sexual harassment