My New Link Parts

Benjamin Walker: still waiting for the mainstream breakthroughPajiba If you needed some contrarian Grace & Frankie critique try this. I love Dustin but he actually thinks that Grace & Frankie are the problems with Grace & Frankie. Say what? Is this opposite day?
The Dissolve Xavier Dolan's Tom at the Farm getting US distribution two years late. (sigh) So weird that it took so long since it's a) good b) marketable being of the thriller genre and c) only 90 minutes long (that's practically a "short" by the standards of the Dolanverse)
People Actress Jennifer Grey (Dirty Dancing) honored her legendary dad Joel Grey (Cabaret) at a recent event
Broadway World The awesome but still relatively unknown Benjamin Walker (aka 'Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson' Himself and Former Streep-Son-in-Law) will star in American Psycho: The Musical on Broadway next spring.
Towleroad Tony Award predictions
Gold Standard predicts Best Drama Series at the Emmys - suggests that Breaking Bad dominance will continue with Better Call Saul. NOOOooooooo

Today's Must See(s)

Color me so impressed that this site did a video entry for "Hit Me With Your Best Shot". Why didn't I think of that? Maybe it'll inspire others to join us! *crossing fingers* Now go read Movie Motorbreath and subscribe totheir YouTube channel (I hope STinG does this every week). 

This short video is like Action Filmmaking 101. And obviously a lot of action directors working in Hollywood need to go back to school since John Seale (cinematographer) and George Miller (director) and Margaret Sixel (editor) just reminded everyone how it's done. This video describes one of the main reasons that Mad Mad Fury Road is so incredibly exciting without ever being disorienting. (Hat tip to Polygon for bringing this to our attention.) 

Superhero Link Quota
Heroic Hollywood looks at Marvel/Netflix's Defenders plans post Daredevil success. The proposed Black Widow series is never happening though, get real. ScarJo is too much of a movie star to settle
Comics Alliance Luke Mitchell promoted to series regular for Agents of SHIELD S3. (I liked him a lot but I'm done with that show. It's just far too incoherent and inferior to other Marvel product out there - Agent Carter runs circles around it for one and you can't watch everything.)

Show Tune To Go!

Musical hater Jason would not approve of me commemorating his baby My New Plaid Pants's 10th birthday this week by sharing a showtune but that's why I have to. Otherwise this would be way too sentimental because MNPP is my personal favorite blog (4realz). It's always hilarious and sexy and puts a smile on my face when I'm down and Jason is genius. So go and wish him well. For his tenth anniversary he counts down the ten hot movie stars he's posted about the most over the years. Naturally Jake Gyllenhaal wins but the order is interesting and for the show tune to go I've selected features Bachelor #8 Dominic Cooper's Bathing Suit from Mamma Mia! I can't imagine most TFE readers aren't already aware of Jason's blog (since he posts here regularly, too) but if you aren't, get familiar. There's something for everyone: cinephiles will love "The Moment I Fell For..." and "Five Frames From..." and his succinct reviews; Horny admirers of the male form \will love NSFW stuff like "Gratuitous" and "Anatomy IN a Scene" and "Do, Dump, or Marry"; if you're a horror fan you'll be way more at home over there since he has totally gross but inspired series like "Ways Not To Die," too.

So happy anniversary and keep making the internet a better place with "nonsense incarnate," everyone!

Posterized: Xavier Dolan

Mommy, which spurred spirited conversation at Cannes (and really wowed our woman on the ground, Diana) and could walk away with a prize this weekend (as literally all of director Xavier Dolan's previous features have but for Tom at the Farm, which went the Venice/Toronto route instead).

Xavier Dolan at the photocall for "Mommy" at Cannes, 2014

I remain perplexed that an international star with this much critical cachet and this many easily marketable elements (young, hot, queer) hasn't found a deep pocketed patron in the world of US distribution, in the way many auteurs do. Think of how Miramax used to favor certain directors or the way Sony Pictures Classics really invested in building the Pedro Almodovar brand. I keep hoping a younger edgier disribution company (my dream: A24) will fall in love with him because with the right promotion and cultivation, he'd have a devout following Stateside. For now, if only here, he'll have to make do with critics and really hard-working cinephiles who attend festivals regularly.  

The Canadian wunderkind just turned 25 and Mommy is his fifth feature in five years. If he keeps up this pace he could have a filmography that's impossible to be a completist about later on. Get in early and sample the goods. They're yummy. Distributors might not have made it easy for you wherever you live, but at least Netflix has been kind. How many of his previous features have you seen?

I Killed My Mother (2009)
Dolan's debut won much acclaim at Cannes including two prizes and became Canada's Oscar submission (it was not nominated). Much film festival chatter and an international release in major cities around the world, EXCEPT THE US, kept the buzz going for another year. Supposedly it hit US theaters this past March (yes, in 2013, four years after taking international cinephilia by storm) but I want proof that it actually happened because it seems like every year since 2009 we were told it was opening. [Available on Netflix Instant Watch]

Heartbeats / Imaginary Lovers (2010)
This unrequited love triangle, available on Netflix Instant Watch, won the "Regards Jeunes" at Cannes and was released in the US briefly in 2011 under its new boring title. [Nathaniel's Review at Towleroad]

Laurence Anyways (2012)
This trans epic, Netflix to the rescue again, ran nearly 3 hours, and was the first that Dolan didn't star in himself. It took another two prizes at Cannes ("Queer Palm" and "Best Actress") and a brief US release in 2013. [Glenn's love for this movie is huge.]

Tom at the Farm (2013) 
This thriller about a young man (Dolan) attending his lover's funeral in the country, only to discover that the lover was closeted and the family virulently homophobic, is still awaiting US release. [Nathaniel's TIFF Review]

HOW MANY HAVE YOU SEEN?

Link Commando

Vanity Fair Bradley Cooper's commando White House trip
Theater Mania a screening of West Side Story on Sunday at 5 PM in New York. Rita Moreno will speak to the crowd. Who's going?
PopBytes Pushing Daisies might be coming back... as a musical! 
1:37:1 How often are entire Oscar nominated shortlists absent a Best Picture nominated film? Rarely. And almost always in the same category. I'll give you one guess  

Broadway World somehow I missed these images in early February from the set of Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard so maybe you did, too?
Guardian films that use both black and white and color sequences
Film School Rejects looks to Foreign Correspondent, not Rebecca (both 1940) as the prototype for Hitchcock's Hollywood films 
NYT Neil Patrick Harris prepares for his Broadway turn in Hedwig and the Angry Inch
/Film Roger Deakins is not returning to the land of 007 post Skyfall for the the as yet untitled Bond 24. This is going to be a tough movie for all of them: how do you follow up that 50th anniversary behemoth?
NPR talks to Steve McQueen and the Oscar nominated editor of 12 Years a Slave about assembling the movie
MNPP Jake Gyllenhaal doubled up in Enemy, a behind the scenes look
In Contention an oral history of Reality Bites (1994) for its 20th anniversary 

Finally...  The Film Stage reminds us that Tom at the Farm, Xavier Dolan's wonderfully tense queer thriller still doesn't have US distribution but it has a new poster. Bam

I miss the days when US audiences went to the arthouse and talked about subtitled hits... *sniffle* Now people only binge-watch American television. We're a nation of shut-ins!

"At the Farm" or "By The Lake", Queer Films Among Best @ TIFF

This article was originally published in my column at Towleroad

The French famously call an orgasm "la petit mort" or, the little death. In two new French-language films playing at the Toronto International Film Festival (in full swing through next weekend) this euphemism forgets to be euphemistic. If you like your sex all mixed up with danger -- you know, the way straight people did during the mainstream erotic thriller years (the Glenn Close thru Sharon Stone continuum) -- consider these films 'must sees' when they hit your city. IF they hit your city. It's tough out there for art films, especially gay ones, as recently discussed in a fascinating piece at IndieWire mapping out the problems.

Prolific twenty-four year old writer/director/actor Xavier Dolan has been a sensation on the festival circuit and in Canada since his award-winning debut I Killed My Mother in 2009. Despite the accolades Dolan has yet to win the Stateside following he deserves, even among LGBT audiences. This is largely because his films are in French and they have had a weirdly hard time making their way onto US screens. I Killed My Mother was famously delayed and delayed and delayed again. Before I received a screener a couple of years ago I was convinced that it was an imaginary movie, dreamt up by journalists to make the rest of us feel jealous that we aren't fabulous enough to party in Cannes with them each May. Dolan's subsequent features, the stylish unrequited love triangle Heartbeats (also known as Imaginary Lovers) and the recently released three hour trans drama Laurence Anyways only increased his wunderkind reputation. His latest TOM AT THE FARM may well be his most accessible but reviewing it presents a challenge because the less you know about it going in the better.

Let's keep it very simple AFTER THE JUMP... 

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