Podcast: Love & Friendship, Neighbors & Apocalypse

Katey is back! Our very pregnant team member returns to discuss a few new movies with Nathaniel, Nick, and Joe and catch up.

Index (43 minutes)
00:01 Katey is back!!!
02:36 Money Monster
11:30 X-Men Apocalypse
23:36 Love & Friendship
31:28 Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
42:05 Goodbyes

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes tomorrow. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you?  

Neighbors 2, Apocalypse, Love & Friendship

Swing, Tarzan, Swing! Ch.4: Gordon Scott's 'Great Adventure'

As we approach the release of The Legend of Tarzan (2016) we're ogling past screen incarnations of the Lord of the Apes...

Though old franchises like Tarzan are sometimes less visually sophisticated within their eras than our current franchises (probably because the new ones are no longer cheaply produced "B" pictures but Hollywood's main attraction) in one significant way they're vastly superior: they assume the audience doesn't need a perpetual origin story and will remember who the character is from film to film.

Consider this: With Gordon Scott, we are three actors into the Lord of the Apes (within the "official" series) and with his fourth feature film go at the character Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959), we're twenty-one films into the franchise and they have not once felt the need to retell (or even really tell at all) Tarzan's origin story. After twenty-one films! Imagine it. Origin stories are a waste of time. You don't need to perpetually relive them, *COUGH Batman and Spider-Man*, because your audience already knows them by heart.  [more...]

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Tweetweek: Babs, Ali, and Baby Alicia

Weekly tweet roundup for bite-sized amusements or insta-feelings. After the jump... X-Men, Alicia Vikander and goodbyes to Muhammad Ali (RIP) who led such an eventful life and inspired so many that I've lost track of how many documentaries there are about him. Plus that underappreciated Michael Mann biopic.  

Key detail: The Oscar is like, "I will pose with the rest of you, but you may not touch me." (h/t @wondermann5) pic.twitter.com/F2QqFsU2NM

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) June 1, 2016

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Streaming: J Edgar Drinking Games & Elizabeth's Golden Foreshadowing

Do you purchase or rent DVDs movies anymore or just wait for streaming -- however long that takes? If you do the following titles have emerged in the past week on Blu-Ray or DVD: The Finest Hours in which Chris Pine gets a man vs. ocean movie cuz Chris Hemsworth got one;  Gods of Egypt which is terrible but in so-bad-it's-great way; How to Be Single which is better than you'd think but way overstuffed but you should probably see it for another great performance variation on "the boyfriend" by Jake Lacy (he's got that market covered but he's so good at it with no two characters feeling like the same guy); Pride & Prejudice & Zombies which is fun for what it is if nothing more; also new are Race, Risen, Triple 9, and Zoolander 2. 

But on to the fun part, New to Streaming. Because, to quote the one and only Carrie Fisher:

Instant gratication takes too long.

Let's do our fun little freeze frame game on new streaming titles. The following films were frozen on one image completely at random to see what showed up. They're all new on either Netflix of Amazon Prime. Ready? Let's play!

J Edgar (2011) on Netflix

Charles Lindbergh. Lindbergh's baby has been kidnapped.

A fun drinking came while streaming J Edgar in five easy steps
1. Take a drink every time you wish Clint Eastwood wasn't terrified of color
2. Take a drink every time you wish Tom Stern would throw a damn light on the set for once
3. Take a drink every time you see bad old age makeup in closeup
4. Take a drink every time you're glad AMPAS dodged a bullet on this one and it's not part of Oscar history
5. Die of alcohol poisoning. 

Six Degrees of Separation (1993)

You said when artists dream they dream of money.
...I must be such an artist.

Love this movie. Stockard Channing was just sensational in it. (And what a great Best Actress year 1993 was)

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) and more after the jump...

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Who should direct / star in the next Bond?

In not surprising news, Sam Mendes is moving on from the 007 franchise after Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015). Daniel Craig is probably moving on, too, but rumors about who will replace him are, as ever, premature. The names floating about this time are Idris Elba and Tom Hiddleston (wishful fan thinking, maybe, since the internet has been suggesting these two names forever) and 30 year old Jamie Bell which is an interesting idea and probably not a bad one. If chosen he'd be the youngest Bond since Sean Connery (who was 30 when he was cast for Dr. No (1962) though most subsequent Bonds have been around 40 when they started. Plus Bell is super charismatic but underused in cinema.

Though Bond films are largely regarded as producer driven and leading actor focused pictures, rather than directorial feats, the man in the chair is important. In the past the franchise has generally relied on mid level directors rather than auteurs, the two with the most success outside the franchise are Oscar winner Sam Mendes and Oscar nominee Lewis Gilbert. Once the franchise even handed the reigns to a Bond editor who graduated to the director's chair (John Glen) for his directorial debut.

Directed the Most Bond Films

1. John Glen - 5 Bonds: For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View to a Kill, The Living Daylights, License to Kill (and he edited a few more before those); Key Picture Outside the Franchise: Not really
2. Guy Hamilton -4 Bonds: Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man With the Golden Gun; Key Picture Outside the Franchise: Force 10 From Navarone
3. [TIE] Terence Young - 3 Bonds: Dr No, From Russia With Love, Thunderball; Key Picture Outside the Franchise: Wait Until Dark AND Lewis Gilbert - 3 Bonds: You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker: Key Picture(s) Outside the Franchise: Alfie (Oscar Nomination), and Educating Rita
4. [TIE] Sam Mendes - 2 Bonds: Skyfall, Spectre; Key Picture Outside the Franchise: American Beauty (Oscar win), and Road to Perdition AND Martin Campbell - 2 Bonds: GoldenEye, Casino Royale; Key Picture Outside the Franchise: The Mask of Zorro

 If you could bend producer Barbara Broccoli's ear...
What would you whisper to the woman behind the franchise who makes those final hiring decisions?