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Entries in Star Wars (151)

Friday
Jan082016

Link Linker Linkiest Linking Links 

New York Post has wise words for Netflix on their strange feet dragging for Season 2 of Jessica Jones
Slate Movie Club 2015 closes I'm assuming you read all 18 entries. They were A-MA-ZING. My favorite Movie Club by Slate ever I think. Mark Harris, Dana Stevens, Amy Nicholson, David Ehrlich, and Dan Kois outdid themselves. 
Decider great piece by Joe on the rise of the bad seen as villain in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and other blockbusters 
Decider Joe also counts down the 10 times Globes were more fun than Oscars (10? This list could go to 1000) but there's a massive typo in his post because it says "7." [sic] by the part about Elizabeth Taylor slurring "GLADIAAAAATOR"  

 

THR excerpt of a new interesting book  "Starflacker" from a longtime PR pro Dick Guttman
The Guardian Anthony Hopkins and Sir Ian McKellen remade the Oscar nominated film The Dresser (1983) for the BBC in 2015- how did I miss this news? 
The Wrap Annihilation, a female led sci-fi picture from Alex Garland (Ex Machina) may star Tessa Thompson and Gina Rodriguez
Variety 33 people will be honored at the Academy's annual Scientific and Technical Awards

Towleroad So John Boyega is just a wee bit shy of how fun he seems so far in public. He's already put the kabosh on the gay Star Wars rumor saying that it's all in Oscar Isaac's head  
The Envelope a video chat with Michael B Jordan about Creed
Vanity Fair Ryan Coogler would be just the guy to direct the Hamilton movie adaptation. Make it happen world.
Tracking Board looks at series orders from various TV distributors (we don't call them networks anymore, right, since they're are so many ways to get tv?). Netflix has a series called Gypsy. Unfortunately it's not a musical about the stripper. 
Pajiba pays tribute to Brie Larson's social media game  

 

 

Top Tens & Best Of Lists
Yes, they're still going on. Check out: John Oursler's which has Phoenix and Tangerine and The Tribe; Kyle Turner takes a more holistic 'best of' approach of with all sorts of personal notes and thus personal obsessions like Noah Baumbach, Spectre, and such; David Poland published his but without commentary of any kind. I don't even know if they're in order

Oscar Confusions
Voting has closed. I love how utterly perplexed almost every professional and amateur pundit is this year. The guilds and precursors have been all over the place. Kris Tapley tracks the events that happened while balloting was going on. This is an absolute joy if you like the unpredictable AND you don't have a particular film you can't live wihtout. Unfortunately I have two masterpieces to worry (which is more than usual!) so I'm having trouble enjoying the will they or won't they nerves.  But I'll start doing final predictions this very weekend so bear with me! If you need to think about this RIGHT NOW though check out Fisti's thoughts (he predicts that both my masterpieces will be shut out. Thanks, man. Argh). Glenn Whipp still thinks that Mad Max Fury Road will lead nominations. I've never been that bullish on it but still crossing my fingers. There's also a Gurus of Gold update. Though honestly I think some of my numbers are from the previous week because I definitely haven't been confident in Redmayne or Mara lately.Hmmm

Video of the Week
It's beautiful that the week Anne Marie began her Judy Garland series another Judy Garland spectacle made the rounds. Obsessed with this Wizard of Oz video am I. It recuts the film to be in alphabetical order by word (post credits though the credits themselves per title card are also quite a trip). I've only watched through to the "home" which took 45 minutes lol... the time flew by. But only two moments I was expecting to be favorites were "because" and "Dorothy." The other best parts aren't at all the parts you'd be expecting. I'm especially fond of "arf" and "back" and "dead" and "doing" and "frightened" and "ha". It really is mesmerizing how the video just naturally gives you these weirdly gorgeous breathing moments between its hyper edited assaults as with "Boo!" and "bye" or even "hhh" -- Judy Garland is a heavy breather, don'cha know!  Or how words that are only used once feel weirdly crystalline in this new context like "billowing" and "delicately" or how some super fast strings of words appear to be in conversation with each other like "heroes" "heroine" "herself" 

Of Oz the Wizard from Matt Bucy on Vimeo.

 

I'll stop talking now and leave you with a song, in this format...

a a And are blue come do dream dreams heard high.
I in land lullaby of Once
Over over rainbow rainbow Really skies
Somewhere Somewhere that that the the the
there's true up way you 

 

 

Sunday
Jan032016

BB-8 is Basically Round WALL•E

Chris here. One of the most exciting elements of The Force Awakens is the fresh heroes we have to idolize. But Rey, Finn, and Poe aren't the only new blood worth obsessing over: we also have fan favorite BB-8.

So much of The Force Awakens relies on our collective nostalgia for the originals, but BB-8 seems to be his own charming creation. If you're thinking of C-3PO and R2-D2 as sources for our new friend, they're not the droids you are looking for. Delivering more humanity than his droid predecessors and drawing the most laughs, his extroverted connection to the other characters embodies the optimistic spirit of hope that is the staple of the franchise.

And yet something still felt too familiar. Who did BB-8 keep reminding me of?? And then, it clicked...

A playful breakdown after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Wednesday
Dec302015

3 Hateful Links. 16 Nicer Ones.

As you may have heard The Hateful Eight expanded a smidge early today into nearly 2000 theaters after the success of its roadshow weekend. So here are 8 links about the movie because we're feeling masochistic...

Variety The Hateful Eight is leading current movies in spending the most for TV ads
Deadline an interview with Hateful Eight's costume designer Courtney Hoffman. (Everyone knows I hate the movie but I actually liked her work in it a lot!)
Awards Daily Sasha struggles to suss out what Tarantino is doing with Daisy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) in The Hateful Eight and tries to make sense of the many journalist opinions on whether its an inherently "misogynist" work. I'd love to defend Tarantino on this front personally but I have to face facts. He hasn't written a good female character since Inglorious Basterds. He's lost that particular skill. But I don't think he's misogynist so much as betraying his ultimate misanthropy with his ugliest most masturbatory movie.

Escape From Minnie's Haberdashery (for more hospital climes)
Gothamist Russell Crowe throwing tantrums again -- this time about hoverboards 
Guardian I'm eager to hear what our resident Australian Glenn thinks of their choices for best Aussie films of the year 
Gawker "the year in Gay"
Empire first look at Michael Fassbender in Assassin's Creed
Vanity Fair picks the best new TV characters of the year from series including Daredevil, Empire, UNReal, Fresh Off the Boat and more
Antagony & Ecstasy Tim's razor sharp review of 45 Years is a must-read but then so is his...
Antagony & Ecstasy ...review of Carol. Basically he continues to be one of the web's most underappreciated frequently inspired film critics.

Meanwhile on Jakku...
Variety Carrie Fisher on her body shamers 
imgur "how BB-8 works"
NPR Nigerians are getting excited about Star Wars... in large part thanks to John Boyega 
i09 going to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens a second time? i09 has a list of 23 things to watch out for
LA Times talks to the designers of Mad Max, Star Wars, and Mockingjay sequels on their dives into genre work
LA Times and here's a dissenting voice on the cultural phenomenon if you're not feeling the love 
Reverse Shot has an amazingly insightful lengthy review of The Force Awakens that grapples with the film only speaking its own Star Wars language and impatiently exploiting old adventures to venture out on new ones.  

Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe are "Nice Guys" - Movies are make believe! 

2016?
We're so not ready to go there. It's not really our practice at TFE to look ahead to the following year before the Oscars wrap (the true end to the film year) but I have bookmarked this article "61 Original Movie We're Dying to See in 2016" because it's cute on the rare occasion that people realize that non-sequels exist. The Guardian has no such anti-sequel slant in their "75 films we're excited about" and they go full in for any movie that drives traffic so say hello to the superhero films even the ones that are daring us to agonize over how bad they might be like the scowl-a-thon of Batman v Superman. 

 

Monday
Dec282015

Flung Out of Tweet Space

Before we get to the past week in contemporary cinema tweeting, let's take a moment to check in with the Tilly sisters, Jennifer and Meg who were visiting their mom in Canada...

 

 

This tweet made me so happy. I think because I had just randomly scene The Fabulous Baker Boys again on Cinemax and Jennifer is so funny in it as "Blanche/Monica". I like to fantasize that in private Jennifer and Meg call each other by their full titles, like...

Jennifer: Yum. What kind of pies are we having tonight Oscar Nominated Actress Meg Tilly? 
Meg: Well Oscar Nominated Actress Jennifer Tilly I made a bunch. Pecan, Apple...

Tweet Randomness starring The Revenant, Carol, Star Wars, and more after the jump

Click to read more ...

Sunday
Dec272015

Podcast: Joy & Star Wars: The Force Awakens

In this week's podcast Nathaniel and Nick return happily to that galaxy far far away and go off consensus to enjoy the Jennifer Lawrence hit Joy. (Plus miscellania but you'll have to listen to see how Carol and Batman v Superman show up since you know how we do...)

43 minutes 
00:01 Written on the Wind (1956)
03:00 David O. Russell's Joy feat. Isabelle Rossellini, Virginia Madsen, Robert De Niro and Elisabeth Röhm
12:00 Loving Star Wars: The Force Awakens and sexy Oscar Isaac.
27:00 Childhood fascinations with the original trilogy and minor quibbles with the new/old plot and the First Order. 
36:15 Nasty Baby & Mississippi Grind (2015)
40:10 The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989)

Further Reading for Context:
Nick's Oscar Isaac Theory & Ordinary People Tweet
David Ehrlich's A24 Article

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes

 

 

 

Star Wars and Joy