Link World Dominion

• Variety Actors on Actors with Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong
• Vanity Fair interviews Julie Andrews who talks Mary Poppins, The Princess Diaries and her new voice role in Aquaman 2
• Deadline Scarlett Johansson to star in Kristin Scott Thomas' directorial debut My Mother's Wedding. We haven't seen her onscreen since Black Widow last summer but she has a lot of projects lined up now.
• MNPP gifs of Trevante Rhodes as Mike Tyson in a new Hulu miniseries called Mike

more after the jump including stop motion feature Wendell & Wild, Judy Garland's centennial, Stranger Things hairdos and music revivals, and the new Jurassic World movie...

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Review: The United States vs. Billie Holiday (Hulu)

by Christopher James 

How can a remarkable life lead to an unremarkable film? On paper, The United States vs. Billie Holiday has so much going for it. Oscar nominee Lee Daniels is an inspired, live wire choice for director and Andra Day makes a fantastic acting debut. She more than rises to the inimitable challenge of playing a legend like Billie Holiday. Unfortunately, The United States vs. Billie Holiday falls into a common biopic trap. All of the information feels a mile wide and a foot deep. We breeze through so much of Billie’s life, but we never get a moment to digest what we’re seeing or piece together a central character. The movie moves quickly through all events in Holiday’s life, leaving the audience behind in the process...

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New Oscar Predictions: Best Actor

by Nathaniel R

Curiously all the action, or "buzz", to date is in the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor races. The other two acting competitions are seriously wanting... at least from this vantage point. We haven't seen a Best Actor race this empty of potential players since circa 2003. Sir Anthony Hopkins (The Father) may well be destined to become the oldest actor ever to win in the male leading category (he's 82, and the current record holder Henry Fonda was 76). Gary Oldman's upcoming take on Mank and Delroy Lindo's much acclaimed turn in Da 5 Bloods are probably can't-miss nominees given the lack of competition unless something goes very wrong for them. But the 4th and 5th slots just might be a free-for-all. 

Much of that is due of course to the sparse field of films planning on opening before the eligibility deadline in February of 2021. Given this (currently) wide open race we might see someone from an ensemble picture like Trial of the Chicago 7 or One Night in Miami campaigning as lead. Who do you think might surprise us with a robust campaign and/or wild acclaim? Check out the new Best Actor chart. 

The New Classics: Moonlight

By Michael Cusumano 

Scene: Kevin and Black at the Diner
We consider Trevante Rhodes’s Black carefully throughout the last act of Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, searching for traces of the younger versions of his character. That we don’t find many is not surprising considering how we’ve seen this child get battered and abused by life. Chiron doesn’t grow from segment to segment so much as he transforms as survival demands. Moonlight’s second movement ends on such a violent act of self-annihilation, we should be surprised to spot any remnant of the adolescent in Black when he walks into Kevin’s diner a decade later. 

And yet despite the intimidating presence Black developed as a barrier against the world, the aspect that unmistakably connects him with his teenage self, and to Little before that, is his fragility. All his outward defenses - the bulked up physique, the sullen manner - hang on him like an ill-fitting suit of armor. When he is in the presence of Andre Holland’s Kevin it looks a stiff breeze would blow him over...

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Review: "Bird Box" on Netflix

by Eric Blume

The new limited-theatrical-release / now-on-Netflix movie Bird Box is a puzzlement. It’s a post-apocalypse thriller directed by Oscar and Emmy-winner Susanne Bier, and stars Sandra Bullock, John Malkovich, Jackie Weaver, and Trevante Rhodes as survivors of a world-ending crisis.  A lot of talented people are involved in this film, so it’s a true curiosity that the whole thing ends up a gigantic shrug.

The details of this apocalypse are a little murky, but it goes something like this. Scary creatures (which we never see) are appearing around the globe, and they tap into your deepest fears somehow(?), and cause you to immediately commit suicide...

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