Audra, please make more movies

by Cláudio Alves

With Rustin now on Netflix, cinephiles worldwide can enjoy one of the season's top Best Actor contenders. However, one shouldn't presume there's no more to George C. Wolfe's picture than Colman Domingo's spirited turn. Indeed, there's a vast pool of brilliant Black actors around him, breathing life into civil rights icons left and right. Among them, Broadway's First Lady and Tony champion Supreme stands out, the one and only Audra McDonald as Ella Baker. She's only in a couple of scenes but leaves a lasting impression, embodying strength and conveying a rich history between the activists that goes beyond the narrative's limited scope.

As of late, that's McDonald's big screen specialty, serving excellence for a scene or two, and then – poof – she's gone. Just look at her other 2023 movies…

Click to read more ...

Yes No Maybe So: Boys in the Band (2020)

by new contributor Gabriel Mayora

This week Netflix released the trailer for the Ryan Murphy-branded second film adaptation of Matt Crowley’s iconic and controversial 1968 play The Boys in the Band. Crowley’s play is often seen as a landmark in mainstream gay representation though at the same time as it has developed a reputation as “dated.” This new adaptation is based on the hit 50th anniversary Broadway revival produced by Murphy and helmed by acclaimed Tony-winning director Joe Mantello (who also directs the new film), with the entire cast from the revival—all of whom are openly gay actors—reprising their roles. Here’s the official IMDB synopsis:

A group of gay men gather for a birthday party in 1968 New York City, only to find the drinks and laughs interrupted when a visitor from the host’s past turns the evening upside down.

Will the remake provide audiences with a fresh new perspective on a classic gay play? Netflix is releasing the film on September 30, so we don’t have to wait too long to find out. In the meantime, let’s give the trailer the Yes, No, Maybe So treatment...

Click to read more ...

Would you rather?

Sharing our fav Instagram posts semi-weekly via a little game we like to call Would you rather

... lift weights with Laura Dern?
... get piggy with Zachary Quinto?
... celebrate Pride at Disneyland Paris with Rossy de Palma?
... cave swim with Rebel Wilson?
... stroll by a Yalitza Aparicio mural with Yalitza herself?
... stuff your face at Applebees with Gabrielle Union?
... commute to work with Glenn Close?
... work without sleep with director Ari Aster?
... eat lots of ice cream with Nina West?

Pictures are after the jump to help you decide...

Click to read more ...

Beauty Break: Celebrity Portraiture by Damon Baker

Glenn ClosePhotographer Damon Baker took that insanely great photo of Glenn Close while they rocked out to Janis Joplin recently together in his studio. Though he just barely turned 27, he's been a famous celebrity photographer for years now, first signing when he was just 18. He prefers black and white but lately has been experimenting with color. His favorite subjects appear to be Cole Sprouse (from Riverdale), singer Rita Ora, and a Swedish model named Simon J Loof.

Amazing portraits of Sir Ian McKellen, Tilda Swinton, Rami Malek, Zachary Quinto and more after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Link Wood

THR Felicity Jones replaces Portman in a Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic
Vox How Tom Holland's dance training makes him a fresh Spider-Man
LA Times talks to 18 funny black actresses about their comic careers
Vulture Revenge of the Twink as slimmer male stars finally start getting action roles -- a nice switch over from the steroid set. For now at least

Pajiba five reasons why HBO's proposed Confederate series, from the guys behind Game of Thrones, is a terrible, disappointing, irresponsible idea
Vulture Bilge Elbiri ranks all of Christopher Nolan's movies. The new one, Dunkirk, is #1
IndieWire David Ehrlich ranks all of Luc Besson's movies so you don't have to. The new one, Valerian, is #6
My New Plaid Pants honors the current social media exhibitionistic streak of Zachary Quinto and his boyfriend
Playlist Jonathan Glazer (Birth, Under the Skin) working on his next film already. Yaaas!
Den of Geek People are still fantasizing about Christoper Nolan doing a James Bond movie including, apparently, Nolan himself. 
Leonard Maltin interesting article on film preservation -- what happens to the cannisters and film -- and the impending distintegration of the Hopalong Cassidy westerns
IndieWire reminds us on Dunkirk weekend, that Atonement already went to that infamous war plagued beach in that film's breathtaking 5 minute tracking shot

Off Screen
Show Score Radical Idea... what if stage shows kept the house lights on?
The New Yorker gives good satire on why Hillary Clinton should disappear from public life
Out Greyson Chance, who first came to fame with a viral video of a Lady Gaga cover when he was just 12 has come out at 19 years of age
GQ "it's time you stopped believing in 'dressing your age'"

Oh and Today is...
INTERNATIONAL NATALIE WOOD DAY
i.e. a holiday that should be real since July 20th is her birthday. She would have been 79 today... the same age as Diana Rigg, Jon Voight, Terence Stamp, and Richard Beymer who all still work. Imagine what kind of movies and TV projects Natalie Wood could have done in in the past 40 years. *sniffle*  I imagine she would have moved to TV early as so many movie queens did in the 1980s but I bet she would have had a movie comeback too, given that she was still so young when she died.