Oceans 8. Links 16

• Variety we now have seven of the names for the Oceans Eight gender flipped movie: Blanchett, Bullock, Hathaway, Bonham Carter, Kaling, and two musicians who moonlight as actors Rihanna and Awkwafina 
• NYFF the 54th annual festival has released the main slate titles - Opening Night: The 13th (Ava Duvernay); Centerpiece: 20th Century Women (Mike Mills); Closing Night: The Lost City of Z (James Gray); plus their usual array of buzzy titles from other festivals only this time there are a lot of female leads (which is a huge change) including Aquarius, Toni Erdmann, Personal Shopper, and an Isabelle Huppert double in L'Avenir and Elle.
• Pajiba debates Suicide Squad's interpretation of Harley Quinn
• Variety a new lawsuit about Out of Africa's profits. That's timely! (People forget that it was a giant hit at the time)
• Deadline David O. Russell pitching a TV series with Robert De Niro & Julianne Moore. What the what now?

 

• Variety FX executive on Peak TV, Netflix and when the "Peak TV" bubble will burst
• Vulture Matt Zoller Seitz on the problems with serial-dramas on TV right now -- the model is shifting yet again
• Pride Source Meryl Streep talks her discomfort being imitated (!), Florence Foster Jenkins, sequels, and her connections to the LGBT community 
• IndieWire Greta Gerwig writing another screen version of Little Women - we get one every generation it seems
• /Film a Ghostbusters sequel with the ladies seems unlikely as the film will record a theatrical loss due to that ginormous budget
• Comics Alliance breaks down the Luke Cage trailer
• i09 Black Manta will be the villain in Aquaman 

Off Screen
• Playbill Tony Danza names his favorite stage performances. Somewhat surprising but cool list featuring Mare Winningham, Mark Rylance, Faith Prince and more...
• GQ "Stop trying to get perfect abs." Love this -  Define your personality instead.  
• The Adequate Man "Steve Martin is My Body Icon" on looking like the same exact person for ages 

Today's Must Read
Todd VanDerWerff has a gorgeous personal essay up on Vox called "Hamilton isn't perfect. But it's *perfect." I couldn't write for a month after I saw it". That's a mouthful but cozy up and be moved. It's on seeing Hamilton, the power of who is telling your story, and Todd's birth parents. 

Stream This: The Others, The Piano, Inside Llewyn Davis

In the effort to stay au courant we'll alternate between Netflix and Amazon Prime for streaming news each week. And 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 AMAZON PRIME

Felton: I look... is distinguished a word?
Lange: It's a word.

In Secret (2014, expires August 18th)
What is this? Oscar Isaac, Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Felton and Jessica Lange? Big name casts for movies that don't seem to actually exist that you suddenly realize do, in fact, exist, are kind of unnerving. Like how do movies that never really get released find financing to get made in the first place? Apparently Oscar Isaac plays an artist in this one (they're looking at a portrait he painted of Felton) so that's kind of smudgy hot regardless. Isaac with paint stains I mean.

Men weren't up to the task!

Robocop (2014, expires august 18th) 
So that errant quote that popped up when I slid the bar to a random point in this useless movie is as good a quote as any to describe the foolhardiness of remaking a Paul Verhoeven picture. The Dutch auteur is many things but "remakeable" is not one of them. You've lost before you've begun essentially. See also the Total Recall remake and whichever one gets remade after that... maybe Basic Instinct?

seven more freeze framed films, some great/some terrible, after the jump...

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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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Stream This: Two Mia Farrow Greats, Hannibal (S3), Terminator 5, Etc...

In the effort to stay au courant we'll alternate between Netflix and Amazon Prime for streaming news each week. And 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 AMAZON PRIME

Amazon Prime has a far better movie selection than Netflix on a month to month basis but they are officially the worst streaming provider in terms of providing dates of expiration on their movies/tv shows. Sometimes the titles don't expire after they're marked for expiration and sometimes they vanish even if they haven't been marked. Sometimes without warning they suddenly cost money when they were once free. And they don't do press releases to announce expiring titles like the other services. So it's all rumors in a way. But supposedly they're losing these titles (among others) at the end of July and they're all worth checking out...

There's no reason why you shouldn't have complete confidence in your chances to come out of this alive and in one piece." 

Airplane (1980)
This smash comedy mocked the disaster epic genre and started the spoof craze. That spoof genre peaked early - maybe even here. It's kind of unreal how fast and quick the visual and verbal gags come. 

7 more freeze frames after the jump... 

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Stream This: Mustang, The Big Short, Hello Dolly, The Painted Veil

In the effort to stay au courant we're going to try to do "new to streaming" weekly, alternating between Netflix and Amazon Prime sometimes, big lists, sometimes highlights. This will also give us a chance to link to previous coverage of the old films that are "new" again via the power of the internet. But first a last chance notice...

Last Chance Netflix (Expires July 16th)

-Y'all were watching I take it. Did you see us fight?
-No.
-Trap." 

Serenity
I've been curious to watch Serenity (and Firefly for that matter) again to see if you can easily chart Joss Whedon's growth from self-created warm-up to Studio-hire mega-success in The Avengers. He was always good at selling team dynamics, though. That was clear from the earliest episodes of Buffy. We previously covered Serenity in Season 3 of Hit Me With Your Best Shot. I miss Whedon as TV creator on his own urges -- Agents of SHIELD just did not do it for me.

New to Netflix
We've freeze framed nine more titles totally at random to share whatever popped up for your amusement. Here we go...

-Lot of smug looking people here.

- It's like someone hit a piñata filled with white people who suck at golf."

The Big Short (2015)
Remember when this was suddenly a major Oscar player last season. That took me off guard even though I was at the actual premiere. It won Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars. Serious films with funny memorable lines are often popular in those categories.

I've decided to join the human race again.

Hello, Dolly! (1969)
Babs. Babs. You're really overworking this monologue...

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