Jake and Tilda Serving Fashion on the 'Okja' Set

Category is: behind the scenes sci-fi satire realness.

Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer follow-up Okja already has one of the coolest casts since... well, Snowpiercer. And if the set photos from New York this weekend are any indication, the film itself will be even more outlandish than Joon-ho's last - at least as far as the cast is concerned.

The film returns Joon-ho to monster movie territory, but chaos and destruction to entertain when you have Tilda Swinton in and Jake Gyllenhaal in costumes like these? I don't know if Tilda is playing Taylor Swift and Jake is Rooster from a safari production of Annie, but this first look tells you everything you need to know about why you should be excited about Okja.

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Oscar Chart Updates: Visuals, Sound, Animation & Documentary

Mos of the Oscar charts are now updated but for foreign film and the acting categories. We'll get to them soon enough but otherwise we've finished the July shifts. 

Things to wonder about right at this moment... (discuss in the comments, plz)

• If The Legend of Tarzan can make any headway towards a Costume Design consideration for Ruth Myers since there's so few "showy" period or fantasy costume films this year outside of the many competing works of Colleen Atwood?
• When we will get our first look at images or footage from the WW II drama Allied (with Brad Pitt) or the sci-fi drama Arrival (with Amy Adams)?
• If Florence Foster Jenkins has any strength in it beyond Meryl? (Costumes? Hair and Makeup? Score?)
• If Marvel Studios will finally break through in tech categories (like Batman films sometimes do) or if they'll continue to snag just one or MAX two nominations for their most popular films like Civil War?
• If Fences, The Founder, and Loving, which all take place across roughly the same time period will be too "muted" in terms of visuals to snag craft nominations or if Oscar will love their possibly modest naturalism?
• Why we've heard so little about How to Talk to Girls at Parties release strategy? Is it going to be pushed back?
• Will Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton goodwill get him an Oscar for Moana despite what sounds like strong competition in the song category? 
• If Finding Dory's massive box office haul we'll be enough to edge smaller originals out of the animation race even though they're sometimes stingy with sequels?

NEW CHARTS
INDEX | PICTURE | DIRECTOR | SCREENPLAYS |
VISUALS | AURALS | ANIMATION & DOCUMENTARY 

Stream This: Two Mia Farrow Greats, Hannibal (S3), Terminator 5, Etc...

In the effort to stay au courant we'll alternate between Netflix and Amazon Prime for streaming news each week. And we'll freeze frame select titles at random places just for fun and see what image comes up. You know how we do. 

LAST CHANCE AMAZON PRIME

Amazon Prime has a far better movie selection than Netflix on a month to month basis but they are officially the worst streaming provider in terms of providing dates of expiration on their movies/tv shows. Sometimes the titles don't expire after they're marked for expiration and sometimes they vanish even if they haven't been marked. Sometimes without warning they suddenly cost money when they were once free. And they don't do press releases to announce expiring titles like the other services. So it's all rumors in a way. But supposedly they're losing these titles (among others) at the end of July and they're all worth checking out...

There's no reason why you shouldn't have complete confidence in your chances to come out of this alive and in one piece." 

Airplane (1980)
This smash comedy mocked the disaster epic genre and started the spoof craze. That spoof genre peaked early - maybe even here. It's kind of unreal how fast and quick the visual and verbal gags come. 

7 more freeze frames after the jump... 

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Beauty vs Beast: Girl-On-Girl Power

Jason from MNPP here feeling sweaty and gross here in the annual inferno named July -- I wish I could say I was using this week's "Beauty vs Beast" to cool us down but instead I'm turning the heat up up up thanks to today being the 78th birthday of the spicy Paul Verhoeven, helmer of the hotly anticipated rape-revenge thriller Elle with Isabelle Huppert, and of legendarily epic dumpster-fires (a term I use in this context with extreme admiration) like Showgirls and Starship Troopers and today's honoree, 1992's Basic Instinct. Muy caliente! So everybody slip off your underpants (if you're wearing any), straddle your favorite gal-pal in the bathroom, and help me slash away at this one...

PREVIOUSLY Anticipating this past weekend's Ghostbusters we hit rewind to Paul Feig's last great comedy Spy, forcing you to choose between Head Funny Lady Melissa McCarthy and Supporting Funny Lady Rose Byrne - well it was as called in these parts a total Supporting Actress Smackdown, with Byrne slinking off with 73% of your votes. Said Jakey:

"What a stupid fucking retarded poll."

Ranking the Ghostbusters Orginal Star Cameos

Murtada here. It’s been a full 3 days since Ghostbusters has been released. The reviews, including Nathaniel’s, are respectable but not euphoric. Same with the the box office. It could’ve been much worse. The Ghostbros still won’t shut up, so let’s rank how their so called childhood heroes, did this time around.

Ghostbusters tried to blend nostalgia with a new story and characters, the same way that Star Wars did successfully last year with The Force Awakens. While I liked the movie and thought it was the best blockbuster released this lackluster summer season, I would say that its nostalgia blend was not successful. All of the original cast - except for Rick Moranis and Harold Ramis - came back for at least one scene each. But most of the cameos were extraneous to the plot and could’ve easily been cut. The actors’ commitment also left a lot to be desired.

Let the ranking begin! 

SPOILERS ahead, proceed with caution...

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