Prime in November: Excalibur, It's a Wonderful Life, and Julia Roberts x 3

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. No cheating.  What does Amazon Prime offer us for free viewing this month? Let's survey...

-Can I help you with something?
-Fuck, what was I gonna ask?

Homecoming Season 1 (2018)
Julia Roberts first TV series! She's about take a tour of 'the facilities' (MOST PRODUCTION DESIGN) in one long showy tracking shot. I have no idea what this show is about but I'm eager to watch it. Especially since it's only 1/2 an hour long.

[Laughter / Gasp / Sigh]

Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert (1994)
Bonus points to anyone who knows exactly what the queens are reacting to in this scene...

Click to read more ...

RIP: Lupita Tovar & Robert Vaughn

Didn't mean to let these two farewells slip by.

After the death of Luise Rainer, Lupita Tovar held the title of 'The Oldest Living Screen Star of Note' for a few years. She died Sunday at the 106 years of age so here's to enduring genes. The Mexican actress's original claim to fame was starring in the Spanish version of the famous horror picture Dracula (1931). Though her last movie was in 1945 she continued to affect the movies via her gene pool...

Click to read more ...

The Magnificent...Two

Movie Stars still matter. As long as they're real movie stars and not just "leads". Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks both became famous in the 1980s and they continue to be two of the most reliable leading men thirty-ish years after their first hits. So nothing about the success of The Magnificent Seven and Sully is complicated or surprising. Congrats to those perennials. Here are the weekend box office charts:

TOP TEN WIDE
01 The Magnificent Seven $35 NEW Review
02 Storks $21.8 NEW 
03 Sully $13.8 (cum. $92.3)  Review
04 Bridget Jones's Baby $4.5 (cum. $16.4) Review
05 Snowden $4.1 (cum. $15.1)
06 Blair Witch $3.9 (cum $16.1) Review & Remembering Blair Witch (1999)
07 Don't Breathe $3.8 (cum. $81.1)
08 Suicide Squad $3.1 (cum. $318.1) Review & Worst of Year
09 When the Bough Breaks $2.5 (cum. $26.6)
10 Kubo and the Two Strings $1.1 (cum $45.9) Review

TOP TEN LIMITED
(Excluding Previously Wide)
01 No Manches Frida $740K (cum. $10.3)
02 The Beatles: Eight Days a Week... $397K (cum. $1.4)
03 The Queen of Katwe $305K NEW 
04 The Hollars $273K (cum. $729K)
05 The Dressmaker $180K NEW
06 Don't Think Twice $132K (cum $4) Review 
07 Hunt for the Wilderpeople $78K (cum. $5) Review
08 Cafe Society $57K (cum. $10.9) Review 
09 Greater $55K (cum. $1.8)
10 Indignation $25K (cum $3.3) Review

While the inspirational drama Queen of Katwe didn't exactly sell out its shows this weekend at 52 locations, word of mouth has been so strong on that picture that we can expect it will expand well once that word of mouth has a chance to be heard. The Dressmaker wasn't quite as big a draw in select cities but Kate Winslet and the movie's wackiness (anyone longing for the days of hit Australian comedy imports of the 1990s should run to the theater) should help keep that one afloat for a bit.

What did you see this weekend?

Links: Separating Artists from Art, Studying Jake Gyllenhaal, Letting the Seven Samurai Go

Playlist on the complicated issues of "separate the art from the artist" in today's social media court of public opinion and 24/7 news cycles and Birth of a Nation's release
Gold Derby titles their article "OFFICIAL" and then claims to have inside intel on "hints" that Silence is actually opening this year despite no poster, trailer, release date, etcetera. This is not what the word "official" means. It will only be official when Paramount makes a statement. I'm hopeful, as the film has been in post forever, but it's definitely not official yet.
MNPP Jason offers to teach a course on "The Nudity of Jake Gyllenhaal 101" and we would like to audit the course -- Jake is always having nude breakdowns in showers.

The New Yorker has an interesting take on Bridget Jones's Baby's refusal to engage with some of the elements of the genre it helped define
Variety Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal will co-star in a movie called Wildlife based on the novel by Richard Ford about a boy witnessing his parent's marriage falling apart. The fun (?) part is that it's cowritten by real life couple Zoe Kazan and Paul Dano who we hope aren't falling apart. Dano will also direct
AMPAS they've uploaded all the speeches from the 2016 Student Academy Awards if you're interested. Perhaps one day some of these men and women will win normal Oscars? Does anyone have any stats on that?
E! Online congratulations to Idina Menzel who is engaged to her boyfriend Aaron Lohr (who had a bit part in the movie Rent) 
Interview talks to Zachary Quinto about Snowden and more 
I Like Things that Look Like Mistakes Kyle Turner on Sia's new video "The Greatest"
The Stake on the many remakes of Seven Samurai with The Magnificent Seven in theaters 
The New Yorker looks back at the obsessive photographer behind iconic 50s magazine Physique Pictorial  - was he the early Robert Mapplethorpe or the gay Hugh Hefner? 
Boy Culture Madonna reads ageist commenters to filth on her Instagram account. I have loved this woman so much and for so long that I find a kind of regular joy that she's so endlessly superior to all the litte minds that have been trying to bring her down for the past 32 years. But on the other hand, probably best for celebrities not to acknowledge all the people that hate them. Don't give them that power!
MNPP Thursdays Ways Not To Die' memorializes generic Christoph Waltz villain in The Legend of Tarzan 

Review: "The Magnificent Seven"

by Chris Feil

Drawing on the original iterations of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and the 1960 American remake by John Sturges, Antoine Fuqua's The Magnificent Seven arrives as another attempt to reanimate the American western.

Denzel Washington leads this bursting cast as Chisolm, corralling a ragtag mini-militia to help protect a small town from a violent and overbearing tycoon (Peter Sarsgaard). There are familiar faces (Ethan Hawke, Chris Pratt, Vincent D'Onofrio) and emerging talents (Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Martin Sensmeier) rounding out the Magnificent bunch with more shared attention to each player than you might be anticipating...

Click to read more ...