Time to Head to the Theaters -- A Big Weekend for Oscar-Watching

Damn, Hollywood. Spread the wealth a little right? After two relatively quiet months for adult moviegoers all distributors have decided en masse that YOU are going to the movie theaters this weekend. As a result they've just released everything. All at once. If you've been all 'Netflix and chill' or dragging your feet with the movies for any reason, time to get up, stretch, text your friends and hit a movie. Or two. Or three. You don't want to get behind because it doesn't let up from here on out. (Next weekend is Suffragette and the following weekend Our Brand is Crisis) 

The images below will take you to our reviews (or the last major post on the film) if we've written one. If you're all like "this looks like the sidebar" it's our reminder to you that sidebars are there for a reason. Use them if you want to look up a particular film or topic.

Opening Wide This Weekend
		also: Goosebumps, Woodlawn
Opening or Expanding (Limited Release Only)
		Steve Jobs goes wide on Oct 23rd
Still in Theaters  See them soon if you've wanted to. They won't be around forever

What's your priority this weekend? 
 

ICYMI

Hello all. Nathaniel, returned home, back from vacation. You may not have even noticed that I'd gone but I was almost completely offline for the past 5 days. I was in Austin, TX to visit a friend I hadn't seen in a few years and we had a ton of fun. While travelling I read "The Devil in the White City" and y'all were right -it's absolutely gripping. It's also so dense with information and fascinating details that Leo & Marty may well have a tough time pulling it off. Especially if they make it a star vehicle since the book screams for more of an Altman Ensemble feel. 

On the trip home my friends and I discovered we were sharing the flight with Pearl (from RPDR) so the return to NYC felt even more glamorous than usual. This long weekend vacation was the last movie and computer free moment before The Season which, roughly speaking, consumes my entire life from mid-September to late-February each year. Thank you to Jose and Manuel for keeping the lights on while I was out and to Murtada, David, Kyle, Glenn, Sebastian, Amir, and Margaret who also pitched in.

Why not catch up on anything you missed this morning? I'll be doing the same. 

A Heaping Handful of Highlights
Chris Eigeman talks Metropolitan - This uniquely pleasurable 1990 indie just turned 25
100 Things I Love About Movies - off the top of my head
HBO LGBT: "Normal" - Manuel's great series is revealing that HBO has really been ahead of the curve
Bergman Kisses - a grand swooney journey through Ingrid Bergman's onscreen love life - she may be well be the greatest romantic heroine of the movies
Mr Robot and Humans - we started a new weekly TV discussion series with these two paranoid examples of our current communal disconnection. The series continues tonight with Masters of Sex
Smackdown 1995 - that's how we started the month and Smackdown 1954 is how we'll end it 
Disney's Upcoming Slate - Moana, Zootopia and more 

Meanwhile in Oscar Land
The forthcoming Oscar race is all starting to feel very real what with the releases of Hateful Eight's trailer, Germany's long list, Carol's teaser, and that image of Tom Hiddleston in a big hat...

Reviewed Recently
Fantastic Four (Tim), The Gift (Jose), Man From U.N.C.L.E. (Kyle), M:I - Rogue Nation (Tim), Ricki & The Flash (Nathaniel) and Woman in Gold (Nathaniel) 

100 Things I Love About the Movies

I recently had the pleasure of participating in a group project for the Broken Projector Podcast's 100th episode in which several cinephiles were asked to list 7 things they loved about the movies. You should listen to it! I got a little carried away and was too longwinded (sorry!) but I highly recommend a listen because even though I do carry one, others are more succinct and the podcast also features various writers from Film School Rejects and our friend Katey Rich among fabulous others. I purposely didn't lean into geek culture titans like Star Wars and Spielberg classics and all of that because I new they'd be amply covered. But yes, I love early Star Wars and early Spielberg, too. I just rarely talk about it because it's all you hear about elsewhere. 

Anywayyyy... Not related but in a similar vein I chanced upon The Best Picture Project blog doing a 100 wide list, too, and... well, why limit myself to seven. So herewith, a mostly off the top of my head listing of 

100 Things I Love About the Movies 
(in no particular order and literally off the top of my head) 

 

1. The feeling of possibility in that moment when the curtains go up or, rather, expand to fit the wider screen
2. Opening titles that are their own short entity, not just overlayed on the movie
3. Musicals - for being the greatest of film genres and essentially combining every art form
4. Women Who Lie To Themselves™ - the greatest of subgenres
5. The Redford Theater in Detroit (which played old movies every other weekend on a massive screen with a live organ pre-show) which is where I first fell in love with Old Hollywood
6. That time exiting a revival of Singin' in the Rain as a kid when I swung around a pole in unbridled enthusiasm for the movies
7. The pride of learning every nonsense syllable of "We Go Together" from Grease
8. My mom's deep enthusiasm for Witness (1985) and her weird guilt about loving it so much
9. Dreading my dad's grumpiness when the family went to Titanic (1997) on a Christmas break only to realize he loved it. And how.
10. Liz Taylor doing Bette Davis "What a dump!"
11. When Dorothy Gale opens her door and leaves sepia tone behind for color
12. The complete works of Pedro Almodóvar
13. "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
14. Moulin Rouge!
15. Catherine Deneuve's hair
16. Vivien Leigh's eyebrows
17. Marilyn Monroe's voice
    
    83 more things after the jump...
    
    

Click to read more ...

Links: Video Game Movies, Big Lebowski Reads, Oscar Site Purchases

David Poland won't review Pixels 'because... why?'
Variety Our Brand is Crisis starring Sandra Bullock gets an October 30th release date. With that film, The Walk and Freeheld all coming out it could be a huge year for features based on documentaries at the Oscars
TFE in case you missed it Ann Dowd is in that film, too and loved being part of the ensemble
Towleroad I interviewed the director/star of Do I Sound Gay?, a documentary on the gay voice that's out right now
The Guardian reviews the latest Jason Reitman live read (The Big Lebowski) and loves on Michael Fassbender as "The Dude" and Patton Oswalt (in John Goodman's role of "Walter" and Mae Whitman (multiple parts) in particular. Not so much Jennifer Lawrence in Julianne Moore's original part

Variety interviews legendary documentarian Barbara Kopple. My shame: I've still never seen Harlan County, USA but people always say it's amazing
Comics Alliance on rumors about "Robin" in Batman v Superman. He might be played by Zach Snyder's son Eli who has only worked for his dad but it's "not entirely" and only "sort of" nepotism. (Related: on the internet, words continue to lose their meanings)
/Film looks at upcoming video game based movies. I don't play video games so none of this means anything to me but if you do... (I amend. There's one I'll see called Assassin's Creed but that's only because Fassy and Cotillard are both in on the heels of co-starring in Macbeth)
Awards Daily loves Grandma and agrees with us that Lily Tomlin needs to be in the Best Actress conversation 
Gold Derby I forgot to mention that they were bought up by a larger media company so congrats to Tom O'Neill. That leaves David Poland, Jeffrey Wells, Sasha Stone and little ol' me as the last of the original indies still doing this. Not everyone wants to be bought up... I'm not sure who I'd be without The Film Experience... but on the other hand, money is nice. green. useful.   

Off Cinema
Esquire has a fascinating/terrifying long read on climate scientist 'what if the end of the world was your day job?' 
Stage Buddy for Kander & Ebb's 50th anniversary, a ranking of their top 50 songs. Wow this is comprehensive. The order is all out of whack (Cabaret and Chicago combined only get 3 songs in the top 25!)  but still, good job Andrew! This reminded me how much I loved the music in The Visit and how great the music is in New York New York.

Speaking of... here's your Showtune to Go from The Scottsboro Boys (2010) which I'm so sad I never saw during its Broadway run (this song "Go Back Home" which comes fairly early in the show is so gorgeous). I only heard raves and it won 12 Tony nominations but in the season of The Book of Mormon there was no oxygen for the competition. Maybe someone will one day make it into a movie?

Sad Wednesday

Feeling blue today. I know there is much to be happy about but some days it just gets to you even if, with a little perspective, you know that your life is kinda all right. Call it The Pixar Depression (and please do click on that link for an illustration).

I was sad to read this morning that The Dissolve has closed shop effective immediately. They had so many good writers, and were kind enough to link us a couple of times. I hope we hear so many of their regular voices elsewhere soon. 

With the Pixar depression caveat in mind, let's just say that running a daily website about the movies is tough work. Though it can be emotionally and intellectually rewarding, it's no easily sustainable road financially... and can also be tough socially and creatively (you don't know what I'd give for a little corporate sponsorship in these parts -- the ability to hire full timers and meet in an office space and brainstorm ideas on a wipe board, and not to have to beg for donations). I sometimes think the movie web is not unlike the current movie business. If you're not on the blockbuster side of things (which for the entertainment web means paparazzi celebrity sites, aggregate list sites, and superhero movie rumor sites) you're only ever going to scrape by if you can scrape by at all. 

THINK HAPPY THOUGHTS IN THE COMMENTS TO CHEER US ALL UP

And today hug a fellow cinephile! The internet brought so many of us together but we are still a rare and precious breed.