Infinity Links... "a fun filled year of lensing"

Esquire cool interview with the director of John Wick: Chapter 2, a former stuntman
Stage Buddy on a new book about the immortal classic Casablanca
Vox an excellent piece on AMC's Humans and how it differs from HBO's similarly AI themed but wildly different Westworld  
NYT Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy to return to the stage 
Indie Wire Tulip Fever gets pushed back AGAIN even though it was supposed to open in less than two weeks
Silver Screening Room on the Adapted Screenplay race of 1976 for reasons I dont know but I enjoyed 

More after the jump including Avengers Infinity War...

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Nicole Kidman for Aquaman?

The Aussie goddess, most recently spotted defying fashion rules with parrots at the SAG Awards, maybe should have worn seahorses instead? She's in talks to play Atlanna in Aquaman (due October 2018). For those of you who don't know -- I wasn't a DC kid growing up so I also didn't know this -- Atlanna is the mother of Aquaman. Never mind that Nicole Kidman is only 12 years older than Jason Momoa, you know how Hollywood do. (If you've been following along, previously she was supposed to be Wonder Woman's mother but that didn't work out.)

Comic books are always rewriting their own histories so who knows if this is considered true anymore or was true for any longer than five minutes but from my understanding Aquaman is only half human, from the father's side, while she's more of an underwater goddess sea-dweller and Queen the way Triton was King in The Little Mermaid. If Kidman is going to be stuck playing supporting moms from now on, we hope she collects a big paycheck and they go really crazy with her underwater couture. 

Final Predictions: Animation, Documentary, and Sound Categories

Another day another dizzying array of last minute nerves over this confusing Oscar race. We've already talked Picture, Director, Actor, and the Screenplay categories right here. Now several more categories...

Animated Feature
A couple of months ago The Red Turtle looked like the sure thing "art" entry in the this category but it doesn't appear to have gathered much momentum and I worry it may be omitted. Working the opposite trajectory is Kubo and the Two Strings (more and more popular... could it even give Zootopia a run for the win?) and My Life as a Courgette which could pick up nominations in both animated feature and foreign language feature, something that has never happened before.  

Documentary Feature
The only question that seems relevant at this point is "can anything beat O.J.: Made in America?"...

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2016's Box Office Scorecard. Big & Minor Hits (Some Flops due to Budget)

Each day for the past two weeks we've been looking back on the year that was from different angles. Today, the biggest hits of 2016 in two different categories (franchise vs original).

It will surprise no one that the year's biggest hits continue to prove Hollywood right (sigh) in pursuing nothing but animated and superhero pictures and franchisable intellectual property and neglecting the nurturing of movies for adults. On the bright side quality pictures do occassionally break through audience resistance to original concepts and voices, often with the help of awards at year's end. So next time you hear people complain about awards season, remind them that we might never get movies made for adults if there weren't shiny gold statues to chase.

How many of these 35 pictures have you seen and which will you hit next? 

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Cinematic Shame... with a "Stay Positive!" Twist

Year in Review. Every day a new wrap-up. Tonight, the "worst" of the year... 

Since we are absolutely determined to make 2017 the greatest year it could possibly be despite oppressive circumstances, let this post serve as last call for excessive negativity. Get it all out of your system in the comments, mkay? We'll also put a positive spin on these dubious "awards" for ungreat things at the movie theaters this year... 

WORST OPENING SCENE(S)
Hacksaw Ridge begins with such overworked hokey cartoonish Americana and Andrew Garfield plays his eventual pacifist hero as such a Forrest Gump style village idiot that it's something of a miracle that the movie becomes a surprisingly watchable war drama thereafter.

Even Garfield manages to turn his initially quite awful (sorry) performance around in the final hour of the film. I personally haven't seen a decent / good movie start so much like it was a terrible movie since Juno, have you?

WORST MIDDLE
Suicide Squad is so inept that it never gets past character introductions. Criticisms that it was just a movie trailer with a real movie running time proved to have deadlier aim than Will Smith's Deadshot.

Best Acting in Bad Movies, and other "Honors" after the jump.... 

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