'some say Link, it is a hunger, an endless aching need...♪'

The Star is TIFF about to get an "In Competition" slate at their annual festival? They've always avoided it
Playbill Sutton Foster visited "The View" and talked Thoroughly Modern Millie and her new show Younger (which she is typically excellent/adorable/funny in if you haven't yet watched it. No musical numbers yet though, boo!)
Wired has a longform oral history of ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) for its 40th anniversary, the fx house created originally for Star Wars that changed movies. 
The Daily Beast on Flula Borg, the German scene stealer from Pitch Perfect 2
Playbill this always kind of annoys me but non-nominated musicals will be performing at the Tony Awards: Gigi, Finding Neverland, and It Shoulda Been You. Better to spend the time focusing on nominees, I think.
Comics Alliance Vertigo Comics was totally prepared for the world to go wild for Mad Max Fury Road. They already have prequel comics and an art book with pre-comissioned tributes by major comic artists.
Towleroad Nick the Gardener takes you on a behind the scene tour of Magic Mike XXL for Ellen

Cannes Cannes
RogerEbert.com loves Hou Hsiao-hsien’s longawaited epic The Assassin starring Shu Qi. Another Palme d'Or contender? This year seems highly competitive.  But mixed on Youth... which is apparently highly influenced by 8½
Awards Daily Sasha says that Paolo Sorrentino's Youth about two old men in the film industry, one retired (Caine) one still working (Keitel) will be catnip to Oscar voters 
In Contention says Emily Blunt is "spectacular" in Sicario but Benicio del Toro is the MVP
The Playlist [NSFW] has a clip from Gaspar Noé's Love  

"Mad" Must Reads
Because people can't stop writing about the Mad Men finale and George Miller's fourth Mad Max film. These are highly recommended!

Emily Nussbaum on the "existential brilliance" of the Mad Men finale 
Julianne Escobedo Shepherd examines how the meaning of Don Draper --or what we thought the show was about -- seem to have shifted over time
Alan Sepinwall grapples with the two Dons or rather Don & Dick and what we want from a person/character and who they really are
Mark Harris on "Artisinal Macho" and why the Mad Max Fury Road action scenes make recent action films feel so weightless 
Arthur Chu offers up a rundown of the long form feminism and "toxic masculinity" of the Mad Max franchise - the headline and subheader are kind of misleading but the actual point by point content / argument is terrific 

1979 to Go
Criterion Collection got Bette Midler to reminisce about The Rose (1979) for a dvd release!!! Take a look.

Chang Chen Marries

Wedding bells. Congratulations to Chen Chang (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Grand Master) who married his girlfriend of 4 years Monday in Taipei.

She passed the bouquet to Chens second most famous onscreen romantic partner Qi Shu (Three Times). Awwww. The starstudded guest list was conveniently already in town since the 50th Annual Golden Horse Awards take place tomorrow. TFE Reader Tony is calling tomorrow's event "the red carpet to end all red carpets" as far as Chinese-language cinema goes. Over 40 past Best Actor and Best Actress winners are expected to attend.

Could you imagine how fun that would be at the Oscars? I would say we'll have to wait until Oscar's 100th anniversary (February 2028!) but since they care so little about their own history these days that's unlikely.

[Left: with Crouching Tiger lover Zhang Ziyi promoting The Grandmaster]

Who will win the Golden Horses tomorrow? 
Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmaster (an Oscar submission) is the nomination leader but Chen who has never won the Golden Horse is not one of them. His co-stars Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Zhang Ziyi are nominated, though. The Grandmaster will have to fight off significant threats to win though. The lineup is a strong one including critical hits Stray Dogs and A Touch of Sin, Johnnie To's Drug War and Ilo Ilo (Singapore's Oscar submission).

Maggie Cheung & The 50th Anniversary of The Golden Horse Awards

For those of you who still miss Maggie Cheung (i.e. all people with good taste who've seen anything she's done) you should know that she's been named the Ambassador for the 50th anniversary of the Golden Horse Awards (one of three major Oscar-like awards for Chinese language films). She's a good choice since she's won five (!) of them (from six nominations, only losing for Dragon Inn from 1992), the most of any actor. Nominations are announced in October with a November 23rd ceremony in Taipei.

Since it's the 50th anniversary they're pulling out all the stops and famous actors and directors are talking about what the awards meant to your career. In this promo video you can see TFE favorite Tony Leung Chiu Wai (only one of the great living movie stars) as well as other recognizable faces like director Ang Lee and hotties like Aaron Kwok and Shu Qi (which...where's she been lately?)

The best news is that elusive Maggie has shot a one minute commercial (though we hope it's more like an abstract short film) with the acclaimed director Hou Hsiao-Hsien and cinematographer Lee Ping Bing (the cinematographer of In the Mood for Love!). It's not available yet but stay tuned...

"Golden Horse" Nominees Include Two Oscar Hopefuls

China's Oscar submission this year, Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War (previously discussed) was not released in time to show up in the nominations for its own country's Oscar equivalent. Nevertheless two Asian submissions for this year's Best Foreign Film Oscar race are competing for the "Golden Horse". While there are multiple film awards which hail from Asia (it can be horribly confusing to follow) The Golden Horse is the oldest and most inclusive of the awards institutions as there are no nationality requirements, only that the film be predominantly in a Chinese language. As is our habit and general proclivity let's start with Best Picture and Best Actress, the two most important categories in any awards show.

Let the Bullets Fly, Piano in a Factory and A Simple Life (pictured) compete for "Best Feature Film" alongside "Return Ticket" and "Seediq Bale"

Best Picture

• Let the Bullets Fly (China / Hong Kong)
• The Piano in A Factory (China)
• Return Ticket (China Taiwan)
• A Simple Life (Hong Kong's Oscar Submission!)
• Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (Taiwan's Oscar Submission!)

Let the Bullets Fly, set in the 20s, pits Chow Yun Fat (playing a local tyrant) against an intruding bandit chief for control of a provincial town. The Piano in a Factory is a dramedy about a child of divorce who lets it be known that she will live with whichever parent can provide her with a piano. Her money-strapped musician father concocts a plan to raise the money. I couldn't find much info on Return Ticket (damn those movie titles with utterly generic titles that lead you all the wrong places in google searches) The Oscar submissions are discussed on the Foreign Film Charts so chase those links above.

Best Actress 

Chen, Ip, Hailu and Shu Qi compete for Best Actress

• Michelle Chen, You Are the Apple of My Eye
• Deanie Ip, A Simple Life 
• Qin Hailu, The Piano in the Factory
• Shu Qi, A Beautiful Life

The Best Actress shortlist has a huge age range from 28 year old Chen (who looks even younger) to 63 year old frontrunner Deanie Ip who recently won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for her role as an aging nanny who needs the man she raised (Andy Lau) to care for her. The category is rounded out by superstar Shu Qi (sometimes credited as Qi Shu) who is familiar to international audiences from several films that have travelled the world (Millenium Mambo, Three Times, So Close, Transporter, etcetera). A Beautiful Life is described as a romantic tragicomedy in that it begins as a romcom only to veer towards disability drama as the beautiful gold-digging Shu Qi meets and mistreats a man who really loves her before he receives a terrible diagnosis.

Complete nominee list and controversial Oscar submission after the jump...

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