Prime in August: The Elephant Man, How to Talk to Girls at Parties

Time to play Streaming Roulette. Each month, to survey new streaming titles we freeze frame the films at random places with the scroll bar and whatever comes up first, that's what we share!

Eat me alive. Mommy, mommy 🎵

How to Talk to Girls at Parties (2017/18)
We should talk about this movie at some point real soon now that you can all see it. L-O-V-E this entire scene. My favorite in the movie though these screen pulls are random as promised. I want this nominated for Best Original Song though it never shall come to pass...

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Review: The Glass Castle

This article was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

‘This would be easier to take on the page.’

That thought kept striking me from odd angles all during the new movie THE GLASS CASTLE  now playing nationwide. In 2005 the writer Jeanette Walls turned the rags of her childhood into adult riches with her memoir “The Glass Castle.”  The book won several awards and sold millions of copies. It was translated into dozens of languages. The big screen, however, has a tricky vocabulary and grammar all its own.

The Glass Castle flashes back-and-forth between adult Jeanette Walls (Brie Larson), a gossip columnist ashamed of her oft-homeless parents (Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts), and her memories of her difficult nomadic childhood...

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Link Blog Repeat and Repeat

The Muse another movie that believes shark lives are worth less than dumb humans endangering themselves
Coming Soon The Glass Castle sets a release date for August. YAY. We love a counterprogrammed adult drama in the summer
Film School Rejects on the proliferation of streaming services. A bursting bubble?
Gothamist Rooftop Films in NYC announces their summer lineup which includes buzzy titles like Beach Rats, Menashe, and The Big Sick
MNPP Who wore it best? Darren Criss or Max Greenfield
EW First images of Naomi Watts in the Netflix series Gypsy

Film School Rejects on highlights from the Godfather 45th anniversary reunion -the original cast showed up!
/Film Edge of Tomorrow is getting a sequel (with both Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise returning) and its riffing on the original film's tagline for its title: Live Die Repeat and Repeat
Collider why Rian Johnson asked JJ Abrams to make a small switch to the ending of The Force Awakens to help out The Last Jedi
The New Yorker Anthony Lane reviews Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. This tossed off line about Kurt Russell's character honestly made me LOL but I think it's only funny if you're old enough to know Yes albums.

Ego has built his own planet, apparently after consulting the covers of Yes albums.

Off Screen
AV Club Pepe the Frog dies, killed by his cartoonist creator who was upset that his initially harmless creation had been turned into a symbol of hate by Neo Nazis
EW Nicki Minaj went on a spending spree for fans for an hour on twitter, paying their student loans and tuition
Boy Culture congrats to Dustin Lance Black and Tom Daley who reportedly married
Towleroad a rave review of the London production of Angels in America
Jezebel leaked tracklist for a deluxe reissue of Prince's masterpiece Purple Rain 

Exit Video
I almost never post SNL videos because frankly I never understand why people think that show is funny. It's always such a long slog with just a couple of laughs. Chris Pine hosted and did an opening number about how he's not Chris Evans or Chris Hemsworth or Chris Pratt but Chris Pine. It included one little similarity I hadnt even though of: Evans and Pine both play guys named Steve in superhero pictures that also double as World War period pieces. But this Chris Pine's guested skit about RuPaul's Drag Race is sneaky funny and super up-to-the-minute.  

Best Supporting Actress - April Foolish Oscar Predix

With so many of our favorite working actresses in key potential Oscar roles this year this season is either going to be tremendously exciting or crushing disappointing. 

Can Woody Harrelson & Naomi Watts get his & hers nominations as the "deeply dysfunctional" parents of THE GLASS CASTLE?

THE SUPPORTING ACTRESS CHART IS UP

Answer me these questions three:

• Who you think we're underestimating?
• Which performance on the chart are you most anxious to see?
• Do you think any of the 4 time nominees (Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, and Michelle Williams) move to 5 nominee status this year? 5 is actually such a major threshold that's really hard for people to break into. Only 29 women, if I'm counting correctly, have done it with Julianne Moore and Amy Adams being the most recent inductees to that exclusive club). With maybe 2 exceptions (Geraldine Page and Thelma Ritter)  everyone who's ever managed 5 has been a rather huge movie star of their day, certainly bigger than Michelle Williams is now for example. Not that she couldn't do it with The Greatest Showman if the part is good enough. Some working giants that are, like Kidman and Roberts, currently at four (acting) nods include: Bening, Lawrence, McDormand, Mirren, and Emma Thompson.

Give Me All Your Linkin'

Me Says a gushing fan moment with Cate Blanchett. Adorable
Gold Derby rumor: David O. Russell's Joy will compete as a drama at the Golden Globes. That makes Best Actress Comedy or Musical a race between (if they campaign this way) hmmmm: Lily, Maggie, Blythe, Meryl, Sandy, Bel, Melissa and... wait, is that it? Elizabeth Banks?
Variety Suffragette's director Sarah Gavron will be honored with something called the "Juice Award" at Hamptons Fest. Sounds messy
AV Club Cinemax, perhaps emboldened by its success with The Knick, is clearly aiming for bigger original series now. They've picked up the rights to George R.R. Martin's werewolf noir Skin Trade. 
Empire yes, somehow there is going to be an Expendables 4. They will never end even though I've yet to meet anyone who thinks they come anywhere close to living up to their potential in concept! 

The Guardian profiles the Welsh foreign language film Oscar contender Under Milk Wood which stars Rhys Ifans. Yes, it's based on the same play that brought us the Liz Taylor movie
Twitter is Michelle Pfeiffer really making a movie with Keifer Sutherland named Kyra? If so, why? She has such weird unfortunate taste in projects/co-stars whenever she deigns to work
Empire so happy to report that Brie Larson is in demand enough at this point (5 plus projects on the way) that she's starting to get Jennifer Lawrence's sloppy seconds. She may take over the part in The Glass Castle which is a Destin Cretton project (Short Term 12 reunion - woot). This is very good news as she's a better actress and people, at least up to now, have not had the urge to cast her in roles for which she isn't well suited
Moviefone asks YA novelists to suggest YA novels they'd like to see on the screen. Have any of you read these?

Finally...
For those of you who are enjoying or soon to enjoy Madonna's Rebel Heart tour you should consider buying Matthew Rettenmund's amazing Encylopedia Madonnica 20th Anniversary Edition. I am trying to read it slowly rather than bingeing it in one sitting (tempting if impossible). When I first met Matthew some years ago one of the first things I said to him is "Why wasn't there a sequel to Encyclopedia Madonnica?" which is one of my fav pop culture books. The 20th anniversary edition puts the original to shame. It is MASSIVE (597 pages in the limited edition) and features loads of rare photos as well as super fan art. One of my favorite things about the book is the nifty one word quotes from nearly 100 celebrities Rettenmund asked to describe Madonna in one word that are superimposed on the edges of pages here and there like colorful graffiti. That's typical of the OCD detail of the book.

Full disclosure: I am in the book as one of the twenty-fiveish (I think?) Mega-Fans who get spotlight profiles. 

A photo posted by Nathaniel R (@nathaniel_tfe) on Oct 11, 2015 at 8:56am PDT