I didn't link it, but if i'd linked it, how could you tell me that i was wrong?

The New Yorker Anthony Lane on Mike Nichols
Playbill congratulations to Chicago which became the 2nd longest running Broadway show of all time tonight surpassing Cats
Screen Crush bitches about the long uneventful Part 1s of modern franchise culture as I've been bitching about forever. But as long as audiences keep buying tickets, why should Hollywood stop? They make double the money this way.
YouTube first TV spot for Jurassic World. It's mostly Chris Pratt & Bryce Dallas Howard's faces and you know what they look like. But a brief flash of dinosaurs, too.

Critic Wire the terrifying children's book in The Babadook (opening Friday!) is now a real book you can buy
Vanity Fair since I officially stopped watching How To Get Away With Murder I said goodbye by reading / enjoying / giggling through this post on the "who killed Sam" episode
Empire more new projects for Channing Tatum and his creative partner Reid Carolin (who you'll remember as the sister's date in Magic Mike)
Variety why did Mockingjay Part 1 perform below Hunger Games expectations (which were sky high)
Interview Michael Shannon interviews Amy Ryan (currently onscreen in Birdman)
THR is excited about those Lana Del Rey songs in Big Eyes but I only remember the title song (which is played somewhat inside the movie but not enough of it to have a firm opinion of it) I remember the lines being something like "Big Eyes.... and your Big Lies..."
Film School Rejects looks at connections between the documentary and best picture category this year
LA Times Jennifer Aniston on 'drunk singing' for Cake
In Contention The Fault in Our Stars finally does some campaigning for Shailene Woodley
Samuel L Jackson The Hateful Eight cast have met 
Deadline checks out the numerous very dark horses in the Best Actress race: shout-out to Sally Kirkland and Gena Rowlands from the veterans. An interviews with the former and possibly the latter coming up. Stay tuned...

Pic of the Moment
Jake Gyllenhaal submerged. I wish it were in Oscar buzz! [src] (I was horrified to get blank faces from Oscar voters when I brought up this movie at a recent luncheon. They weren't in the actor's branch but still. How had they not heard of his remarkable performance?)

Chart Updates?
Best Actress & Supporting Actor made minor adjustments following Into the Woods & Big Eyes screenings. Unbroken screenings just after Thanksgiving as we enter the final month of the film year. So exciting.

Whither Nicole Kidman?
I missed Before I Go To Sleep in theaters (it left town instantly) and despite wrapping her roles on five more films we don't have firm release dates on any of them! If you're keeping track they are: Queen of the Desert, Strangerland and Grace of Monaco (lead roles) and Paddington and Genius (supporting roles). Here's a teaser for Strangerland.

It's an Australian drama with Hugo Weaving and Joseph Fiennes in which a couple's daughter goes missing. They freak out, naturally. Looks intense. Might it actually be good? I have high hopes for Queen of the Desert, too, given that Werner Herzog is behind the camera but she probably needs one of these films to be at least a minor hit.

Horror Haikus for Halloween

Glenn here wishing you a happy Halloween! I’m not sure if you noticed, but this year has been pretty slim on mainstream horror movies. But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been great ones out there worth seeking out, it's just that they're predominantly in limited release and on VOD. The three best horror titles of the year are all such films, the kind that audiences will likely (hopefully?) discover for years to come rather than immediately like The Conjuring. All three are feminist takes on the genre and deserve more eyeballs on them than they’ll ultimately get, but we can plug them anyway.

One is Under the Skin, which was released back in April and one that I really hope critics organizations remember in between trying to predict what Oscar will select. The second is Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook, which is out now on home entertainment in its homeland of Australia, in cinemas in the UK, and out exclusively through DirecTV in the US before going to theatres and other VOD services in late November. If you miss it you’ll be missing one of the scariest movies in years. Your best actress roster may just take a shaking, too, if Essie Davis’ fraying mother impresses you as much as it did me. The last such title is A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, which I saw at the Sundance Film Festival and labelled “one of the greatest and most hypnotically enthralling horror movies in some time.” It may be my number one film of 2014 now that it’s getting theatrical release next month.

Anyway, because I’m pumped for time – I have to go and watch the 196-minute Winter Sleep for Stockholm Film Festival jury duty – I thought we should celebrate these three incredible movies in the briskest way possible: haiku! Maybe you can join in with your own favourite films of the year? I’d love to hear them.

Under the Skin

Alien of space
Devouring souls of Scotland
Her sex killed by fire

The Babadook

A mother’s dark grief
Flesh texture of goose-pimples
Ba-ba-dook-dook-dook

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Chador at your door
Iran industrial wasteland
Get out while you can

Got a horror haiku of your own you'd like to share? Speak up in the comments!

Tribeca: Five Films From Midnight

Here's Jason on five films off of the Midnight Movies portion of the Tribeca Film Fest's expansive programming.

Rupert Evans in the great new horror film "The Canal"

Every year when the New York Film Festival rolls around I always find myself a little bit saddened by the lack of horror offerings. Oh sure I'm always up for the latest Claire Denis joint, I'm not complaining, but sit as it does on the cusp of Fall my mind's usually turning towards Autumnal things at that time, which for me equals Haunted Houses just as much as it does Oscar-Bait. But if I wait around til Winter's passed it's good times again for a genre-loving New Yorker, since the Tribeca Film Festival always offers up a thorough Midnight Movies program. Here's my quick takes on five of the flicks they're offering this year that go bump in the Spring night.

Saving the best for first, The Canal tells the story of a film archivist named David (played by Rupert Evans) who moves his expectant wife into that old standby, The House They Really Should Have Done Research On Beforehand. Sure enough as the mysteries pile up so too do the news-clippings of its horrifying past, which begins to seep its insanity into everybody inside. Somehow the Kubrick it reminds me of is Eyes Wide Shut more than the similarly plotted The Shining (that green party dress the wife wears gives off total Kidman sensations, not to mention all the Christmas-bulb lighting) but it comes across as a harrowing Kubrickian experience all the same. Think if Stanley had directed Don't Look Now. [more...]

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