America, The Damned Thing

by Jason Adams

Nocturnal Animals is a strange little beast. I find myself tempted to call it the "Gay Straw Dogs" (gay in spirit if not in character) but that's not quite right - it is very much its own fascinating thing; it is very much the work of one man, one artist, grappling with his own art and the idea of himself as an Artist. And our idea in turn of him as an Artist. So much so that there's a discussion of Art and the Artist both framed by the film's structure - that of a "reality" where Amy Adams is reading a book and then a "fiction" inside the book itself - and by the film itself; that is to say that two characters actually sit down and have a conversation about what it means to be an Artist, to be critiqued, and to put one's self out into the world for that sort of judgement, bare-assed and vulnerable.

I think the most telling bits in the film comes early...

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Linkscaping

Comics Alliance Joss Whedon on which Avenger would make the best US President
Vulture Tom Ford celebrates Jake Gyllenhaal's lack of manscaping
THR Viola Davis to star in Steve McQueen's Widows, a female heist picture 
Acidemic offers tips for hunting for buried genre treasures (in this case vampire films) on Amazon Prime
Bloody Disgusting the "Godfather of Gore" Gordon Lewis has passed away at 87. He's the cult filmmaker Juno and her new pal Jason Bateman obsessed over together
Huffington Post Danielle Brooks and Gabby Sidibe love their plus size bodies for Lane Bryant. Cute commercial

Watch This an interview with John Butler who made Handsome Devil which will hopefully get a release soon. Fair warning: the type is ridiculously small. What is this, Tumblr?
Coming Soon Dr Strange gets wobbly cosmic blurs motion posters
US Weekly continuing the garbage fire theme of 2016 in which both people and Love keep dying, Naomi Watts & Liev Schrieber are breaking up 
EW Tom Holland in Spidey suit with mask off, a image from filming a scene or just goofing off?
CASFFA 2016 our own Glenn Dunks was on the jury and Best Film went to Eva Nova which is Slovakia's entry in Foreign Film
TFE... those foreign film charts if you missed them. Sooo many exciting prospects to seek out 
Playbill Tony Awards announce their eligibility dates for next summer. The awards show will be June 11th 
Playbill The Broadway adaptation of Disney's Frozen just had a creative team shakeup
Kenneth in the (212) King Cobra opens next month. I forgot all about James Franco's latest gay baiting 

Off Cinema
Time Out lists the 25 best Broadway cast recordings of the new century. I definitely don't love the whole list (the high placement for The Full Monty is rather baffling) but there are many gems here. The two albums I've listened to the most from this list are Wild Party (love this write up) and The Light in the Piazza (utterly sublime -it would've been my #1)
Slate the cast of Wil & Grace reunites for a special episode about the 2016 Election
John Oliver breaks down the Trump scandals vs the Clinton scandals. The punchline is a work of prop department genius 

Tweet of the Day
Post-presidential debate movie jokes for the win 

Last night's debate was like a nightmare version of 9 to 5 in which Dabney Coleman had the same amount of screen time as Dolly, Jane, & Lily

— Matthew Eng (@Eng_Matthew) September 27, 2016

TIFF: Relating to Amy Adams in "Nocturnal Animals" and "Arrival"

Nathaniel R reporting from TIFF. The festival is winding down now but my mind keeps drifting back to the Amy Adams double feature on day two. If there were gif walls featuring all of Amy Adams close-ups in both of her movies this year, they would accurately describe this critics innermost thoughts about the movies they came from. Read on and I'll elaborate (without spoilers) though we'll obviously revisit and go into more detail when both movies actually...ahem... arrive in mid November which is unofficially 'Amy Adams Month' according to distributors.

ARRIVAL (Dir. Denis Villeneuve, US)
Paramount Pictures. Opens on November 11th

In this gripping and sensationally crafted sci-fi drama, adapted from the short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, Amy Adams plays Dr. Louise Banks. Dr Banks is a prominent linguist who is recruited by the government to attempt to communicate with extra-terrestrials. They have arrived on Earth or, rather, are hovering above it in twelve space crafts each in a separate area of the world, appearing to do nothing at all. Will the world's fearful governments nuke the ships or can Dr Banks save the world (if it's even threatened?) by learning why they've come?

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"Nocturnal Animals" Posters

by Chris Feil

Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals is one of our most anticipated (even if our opinions of Ford's A Single Man are all over the map), and the positive reviews have amplified our enthusiasm. What originally sounded like a sexy thriller now promises to be a surprisingly funny and metafictional feat of storytelling, with performances from Laura Linney and Michael Shannon being the delectable standouts. We've had so few glimpses of the film thus far, but now we have an intriguing set of character posters!

So the overall ripped aesthetic of these character posters recall the fantastic ones from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - but if those posters were sexysad and wanted to kill you. 

Amy Adams may have more heat forArrival, but if Nocturnal shows her to be the low-key femme fatale of this poster, consider me excited. Those eyes!

Gyllenhaal and more after the jump...

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Tweetweek at the ballet with a wacky neighbor and frosted pop tarts

Two Tweets that are consuming most parts of my brain at the moment...  

I still think about how different things would be if BURLESQUE ended with 'Simple Song #3' and YOUTH ended with 'Show Me How You Burlesque'.

— Guy Lodge (@GuyLodge) August 28, 2016

Dear Anne — You sang “At The Ballet” to perfection! Besides your beautiful voice, I remember your glowing face xo B pic.twitter.com/SClszOQkHs

— Barbra Streisand (@BarbraStreisand) August 31, 2016

Babs getting verklempt over Hathaway is too camp for even me.

I mean. Between those two tweets who can we think of anything else now? Okay we'll try after the jump with tweets on tv feminism, Sully anticipation, Sally Field's range, and finding Mr Darcy...

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