Podcast: Gone Girl, Whiplash, and Kathleen Turner Sightings

The Podcast is back! 
And just in time for awards season to heat up. Please welcome back Nick Davis, Joe Reid, Katey Rich and your host Nathaniel R, as they discuss Gone Girl's conversational staying power, agnosticism about the very popular Whiplash, and fun anecdotes from Nick's jury duty at the Chicago Film Festival.

The discussion goes like so:

• 00:01 Wild Anecdote & Podcast Reunion
• 01:20 Kathleen Turner & Chicago Film Festival
• 03:50 Gone Girl
• 25:52 Wide Open Supporting Races
• 27:31 The Selma Plan? 
• 29:20 The Gotham Awards
• 32:00 Whiplash
• 41:25 Goodbyes

Articles Referenced in This Discussion
Gone Girl's "Psycho Bitch" |  Vulture Gone Girl's Woman Problem | Katey on Supporting Actress | Nathaniel on Supporting Actor | The Gotham Award Nominations 

You can listen at the bottom of the post or download on iTunes tomorrow (it generally takes 24 hours to show up there). Continue the conversation in the comments! 

Whiplash, Girl !

Ten Tweets o' the Week

The showbiz related tweets that made me laugh, smile or think the most this week all collected for your quick perusal. A silly quick diversion from the lengthier top tens on this all top ten day extravaganza.

Please to enjoy these quick thoughts on Marion Cotillard Gone Girl, Neil Patrick Harris, Fight Club, Doctor Strange, the weirdness of 70s filmmaking and much more...

Also: #Birdman's all-drum score >>>>>>>> the totality of Whiplash.

— Jordan Baker (@jbaker475) October 15, 2014

Imagine a little kid watching a studio movie right now and thinking, "When I grow up, I want to be a franchise brand manager!"

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) October 15, 2014

Whatever just happened on How to Get Away with Murder made my granny hang up on me.

— Wesley Morris (@Wesley_Morris) October 17, 2014

Gone Girl and Doctor Strange after the jump...

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Meet the Contenders: J.K. Simmons "Whiplash"

Each weekend a profile on a just-opened Oscar contender. Here's abstew on this weekend's new release, a hit at Sundance that just played the New York Film Festival.

J.K. Simmons as Fletcher in Whiplash

Best Supporting Actor

Born: Jonathan Kimble Simmons was born January 9, 1955 in Detroit, Michigan

The Role: Writer/Director Damien Chazelle's festival hit first came to attention with its screenplay that was featured on the annual Black List in 2012. The film follows a first year drum major (Miles Teller) at the fictional Shaffer Conservatory of Music that joins the elite Jazz orchestra headed by a sadistic conductor named Terence Fletcher (Simmons). Fletcher is well respected and can make or break a young musician's career, although his methods of achieving perfection (violent outbursts, name calling, and physical abuse when he actually throws a chair at Teller) are somewhat unconventional.

To fund the feature length film, Chazelle first made an 18-minute short (an excerpt of the complete script) that was shown at Sundance in 2013, with Simmons as Fletcher, that won the Jury Award in short film. When it came time to make the full-length film, there was talk of re-casting Fletcher with a bigger name (Kevin Spacey, Kevin Kline, and Jeff Daniels were all considered), but Simmons ultimately was able to reprise the role he created. And the film received the Audience Award and top Jury Prize when it premiered at Sundance this past January. 

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Friendly Reminder: Good Weekend to See a Movie!

But, no, I'm not talking about Dracula Untold or The Judge...

For Everyone:
Paddy Considine humbly requests that you see Pride this weekend! It's no longer an exclusive joy for New Yorkers and California residents. It's moved into several more cities in 19 more states so check your listings and see it. If you still need convincing, read our review and interview with the director (who is bringing the stage hit Matilda the Musical to the screen next).

For the Oscar Watchers:
You'll definitely want to check out Whiplash which can safely expect one nomination for J.K. Simmons in Supporting Actor (even though he's really a lead... same as it ever was) but it's the type of movie that might snowball given the enthusiasm and end up in the big race. (Here's Michael's review)

For the Actress Enthusiasts:
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby has finally arrived in its intended Her (Jessica Chastain) and Him (James McAvoy) format. I did not see it as the shorter Them which wasn't well received at the box office. I can't speak to that but in the Her and Him format it intrigued and gained from the repetitions and slight skewing of perspective.

Even then, last fall, I worried about splitting OR fusing them (as they eventually did). As I wrote in my original review... 

As I happened to see it at its premiere with Him preceding Her, this 3 hour movie felt like perfect conjoined fraternal twins, each of 90 minutes in length. I say fraternal since The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him (the one starring James McAvoy with Chastain in a supporting role) and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her (the one starring Jessica Chastain with McAvoy in a supporting role) have very different temperaments, casts, and only share a few scenes... but not, crucially, the same takes of those scenes. We understand the drama wholly only through seeing both sides of it. 

I can't imagine that its safe to surgically sever Him and Her and release them into the wilds of arthouse theaters. And keeping them together but lopping off their limbs (say 20 minutes from both which seems likely) seems like high-risk business for something this delicately wrought and inventively conceived.

Any big movie plans this weekend? I'm off to Birdman at the New York Film Festival.

NYFF: Whiplash: The Passion of the Drummer

The NYFF coverage continues. Here's Michael on Oscar buzzing Whiplash...
 

Terence Fletcher is a notoriously demanding music teacher whose go-to story is about how Charlie Parker got a cymbal thrown at him by drumming great Jo Jones when Parker choked onstage at a jazz club as a teenager. To hear Fletcher tell it, that public humiliation was the impetus for Parker to dedicate himself to his craft and become the jazz legend known forever as Bird. Knowing this about Fletcher, it’s little surprise that freshman Andrew Neyman’s gets a metal chair thrown at his head for the crime of being off tempo on his first day on drums as a member of Fletcher’s elite studio band. 

To be clear, that’s thrown at his head, not near his head. Damien Chazelle’s blistering Sundance smash Whiplash makes it clear that this is not the story of a hard-assed but wise teacher who applies tough love to coax the best out of his students. Fletcher’s behavior crosses the line quickly and often. His “lessons” are often little more than playing interrupted by slurs, slaps, and cruel mind games. It’s as if he learned how to teach by watching Alec Baldwin’s Glengarry monologue on a loop. 

To Fletcher, there is no such thing as too far, because any student capable of greatness needs someone like him to test his or her mettle against. [more...]

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