The Midnight Sky in 275 Words

Never have the heavens felt heavier than they do in George Clooney's The Midnight Sky -- perhaps that's because instead of their usual light and air they're suddenly stuffed with space debris, muddled exposition, exhausting musical compositions, bland characters, weird interior design, Felicity Jones' single facial expression, the eternal strain for some sort of emotional or philosophical resonance or significance, a splash of cosmos twinkle, and David Oyelowo's bicep-accentuating future shirts, maybe not in that order. No wonder Clooney's main character can hardly lift his head. It's heavy, man. 

Set about 25 years in the future immediately following a vague apocalypse Clooney's character finds himself stationed at a stark frozen outpost -- my favorite thing in the film is the station's name, a Carpenter-ian flourish worth a smirk -- all on his lonesome. Except, hark Newt, he's not -- there's suddenly a mute little girl standing there. Cue the strings, and the strings, and the goddamned strings -- when Alexandre Desplat's soundtrack started plinking as the adorable little girl rolled some microwaved peas across the table I, for my sanity, had to check the hell out.

There are a couple of well-done set-pieces of the action sort -- what starts out as a rip-off of Gravity ends instead on a nicely underplayed note of tragedy, and there are scattered glimpses of cosmic brilliance in the film's expensively shot sheen. But my god I never cared. I never cared about the astronaut characters because they're never flesh-and-blood characters, and I never cared about the people on the ground because their scenes are so molasses-handed, thick with pushy melodrama, I skittered backwards in my seat as if shoved by a magnetic force. 

Say Hi To Big Ben

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We have our Ben! Kiwi actor Jay Ryan - who's been on a ton of TV shows over the past two decades (his first two roles were on Young Hercules and Xena!) but most recently has been seen on Top of the Lake and Mary Kills People - has just signed on to play the character of grown-up "Ben Hanscom" in the second It movie. 

We had been hoping that Jerry O'Connell, who went and got all shredded after famously playing the "chubby kid" in another Stephen King adaptation called Stand By Me, might land the role because that would've been fun (and I would've been able to title this post "Ben and Jerry") but that was not to be. Oh well, I don't hold it against Jay Ryan here though, because...

... I'm too busy wanting to hold other things against him. Ahem. Anyway all of the kids in the "Losers Club" have now been cast except for "Mike Hanlon." I wonder what's taking them so long to cast Mike? You got something better to do, David Oyelowo? In summation here is another gif of Jay Ryan without his shirt on:

Do Dump or Marry: Bushy Gringo Triad

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Nash Edgerton's new movie Gringo premiered last night - we showed you the trailer to the film way back when - and its red carpet was a veritable smorgasbord of beardage. A tonnage, even! And stars Sharlto Copley, David Oyelowo and Nash's little brother Joel weren't shy about getting all up in that business.

I mean were they all on ecstasy? So much face rubbing! I am not complaining - everyone should take ecstasy before hitting the red carpet if you ask me. Anyway I sadly missed a screening of this movie this week so I can't tell you if it's good or not but one thing I can tell you is it's got a cast (also including Charlize Theron and Melonie Diaz) that makes quality a secondary characteristic. I want to stare at these people for two hours no matter what. 

Tell us in the comments your 

Do Dump or Marry with these three!

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Three By Netflix

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Somehow I ended up having an entirely Netflix-centric weekend this past weekend - I did go out to the theater to see some movies but they were all things I had seen before; the new stuff I watched was all on Netflix. I don't watch many movies on Netflix anymore - I usually just turn the streamer on for one of their series - so this was a real anomaly kinda experience. Point being you too can be like me and watch any or all of these movies on Netflix whenever you like, and I'm gonna do a trio of quick review-like things to tell you what I thought. Even quicker: I definitely recommend the first two!

Strong Island -- This doc, which tells the story of director Yance Ford's brother being murdered and the subsequent totally botched police response, finds entirely unexpected ways to be quietly, profoundly devastating - it's not at all preachy with any political agenda (not that there's not a way to do that right, but it's not always the way); it just ingratiates you into this family, see their love and feel their humanity, understand their story, and then just presents you with a portrait of painfully intimate devastation. And in saying these things I keep hesitating because to do so makes it sound like a slog, but it really isn't - Yance has an utterly transfixing face that we watch in close-up, and so much of this story is joy, and life, and family. It's only in the aftermath where the loss truly takes hold. Not to be missed. (Strong Island is nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars this year - you should read my friend Glenn's review of the movie, which goes into better depth and which I totally co-sign, over at The Film Experience.)

The Wound -- I'm not one hundred percent sure it sticks its landing - I'm not sure whether the inevitability of what happens is profound, in its inevitability, or whether it was just a smidge too obvious a choice - but the path that The Wound takes to get there felt so singular an experience I'm surely willing to cut it some slack. Set in rural South Africa it tells the story of a possibly doomed gay love affair against a tribal initiation ritual - I guess no one outside of the tribe itself knew about this practice (yes, it involves male genital mutilation) until about a decade ago when Nelson Mandela wrote about it in one of his books? Anyway even against that backdrop The Wound has an arresting and unexpected story to tell that's no doubt a landmark in its own country, and it tells that story in surprising and frank ways. 

The Cloverfield Paradox -- This is digging into the Way Back box and a fairly obscure reference but does anybody remember the skit on Mad TV that made fun of the delightfully craptastic syndicated sci-fi series Cleopatra 2525? The main joke was about how the show only had one set, a single room, that the characters would run from one side of to the other side and back again. I thought of that joke watching The Cloverfield Paradox, which spends I swear to god at least a quarter of its runtime having characters run off in opposite directions down hallways. 

We watch Gugu Mbatha-Raw run down a hallway one way, then we watch Chris O'Dowd run down a totally different hallway, then we watch Ziyi Zhang run down another, and on, and on, and The Cloverfield Paradox has a really big cast. A really big cast of really excellent actors that spend most of their time... running down hallways. There are some fun, smart ideas buried inside these box, but you really gotta dig around to find them. Mostly, hallways.

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I Am Link

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--- Kill Planet Kill - Did anybody watch Mosaic on HBO? That's Steven Soderbergh's murder-mystery starring Sharon Stone & Garett Hedlund. I think it is good so far (I'm halfway through it), enough that I am hooked to see it through - mostly due to some deliciously unlikable work from Stone - but I wouldn't say it's blown me away like I was hoping for. Still there's plenty more to see so... we will see. Anyway on the Soderbergh tip the trailer for Unsane, his "shot on an iPhone" thriller starring The Crown's Claire Foy, dropped recently, you can watch it right here. That's out on March 23rd, so soon! And today comes word of his next project, roundly burying his recent retirement from movie-making but good - all we have is a title, but it's a doozy - Planet Kill. Sounds like something! Oh and it's co-written by his frequent collaborator Scott Z. Burns, who wrote The Informant! and Contagion.

--- Neighbor Knocking - This is old news at this point but that's what these link round-ups are for, to catch up on things I missed - Tom Hanks is going to play Mister Rogers in a bio-pic! That in itself is neat, if a little on the nose, but what's actually exciting about this news is the film will be directed by Marielle Heller, whose film The Diary of a Teenage Girl was one of my favorites in 2015 but she hasn't made a movie since. She has several projects listed in production on IMDb though, so hopefully they all happen. Just give her all the work.

--- King of the Castle - I still haven't watched the trailer for Toni Collette's upcoming horror movie Hereditary, even though I posted it, and here's another thing I am posting even though I'm not going to watch it: here is the first trailer for Castle Rock, the upcoming Stephen King series set in that titular Main town full of bad juju, which will bring together the entire Stephen King universe while starring a tippy-top-tier collection of actors like Melanie Lynskey, Bill Skarsgard, and Sissy fuckin' Spacek. I don't need to watch that damn trailer, I was sold months ago!

--- Taking Shape - If you're as excited (and yet wary at the same time) as we are about David Gordon Green's upcoming Halloween movie then you should read this quote from John Carpenter himself that DH shares today via a recent interview - JC is a producer and a consultant on the new movie, plus he's doing the music! And here he talks about why he's signed up to work on this one even as he's avoided the sequels in the past. And he doesn't even mention the word "money" once! If you missed it we shared a shot of Jamie Lee Curtis on set with DGG earlier this week.

--- Super Quick CMBYN link round-up! THR interviewed Sufjan and he talks about going to the Oscars! Book author Andre Aicman is making the rounds - here's a chat with Lambda Literary and here's a chat with the Globe & Mail. (I couldn't read the second one because of a paywall though.) But most importantly...
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The LA Times just dropped an alternate take of the final shot of #CallMeByYourName -- watch it here https://t.co/481c1iF9vo (thx Mac) pic.twitter.com/YivTEaDEZc

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) February 2, 2018

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--- Tiffany's a Trip - I couldn't finish Girl's Trip when I tried to watch it, I thought it was awful, but Tiffany Haddish was very funny despite weak material and she's been a joy to watch over the course of the past couple of months - I'm hoping she'll get to work with material up to her level soon; if the whole PTA collaboration comes through that'd be something! Anyway she talks about that and more, much more, in this super fun chat with Vulture, and obviously I gotta share the Timmy bit:

Vulture: There’s also Timothée Chalamet from Call Me by Your Name, who took a picture with you at the New York Film Critics Circle. You two had the biggest fruit-sex scenes of last year. Did you compare notes?
Tiffany: His was way more sexier than mine! Oh my God. He was like, “You’re into fruit, I’m into fruit,” and I was like, “Yeahhhh, but your fruit has a cream filling!"

--- And Finally if you've ever seen Nash Edgerton's film The Square from 2008 (here's a brief review I wrote) then you have reason to be excited about his new directorial effort (yes this is the first feature-length film he's made in a decade) called Gringo even before you find out it has a cast to die for - it stars David Oyelowo as a hapless salesman (this is clearly a much more comic movie than The Square was) who gets in over his head in Mexico, and it co-stars Joel Edgerton (Nash's brother), Amanda Seyfried, Charlize Theron, Thandie Newton, Sharlto Copley and Harry Treadaway. It's out on March 9th. Here's the trailer:

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Pic of the Day

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Our first look at Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley in the movie version of Chaos Walking is here! This is a behind-the-scenes picture obviously - given that great big camera in frame - but this is what their characters Todd & Viola will look like, at least. (Tom's dirty tank top for the win.) Doug Liman is directing and the film also stars Mads Mikkelsen, David Oyelowo, and Damian Bechir; it isn't supposed to be out until 2019 so don't hold ya breath. See our previous posts on this movie here.

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I Am Link

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--- Everybody Wants Chaos - Tom Holland posted a picture on his Instagram from the set of Chaos Walking the other day (he also posted that picture to the left, which is way more interesting) calling attention to the fact that it had begun shooting finally, which is news we have waited a very long time to hear, so yippee for that. And an even bigger yippee to today's news that no less than David Oyelowo has just joined the film's cast! He is playing another bad guy alongside Mads Mikkelsen, whose casting we celebrated (along with Nick Jonas) the other week. Add on Daisy Ridley and that is one super cast that Doug Liman is gathering up here.

--- For The Love Of Alf - That list of the 100 Greatest Comedies of All Time that the BBC collated from a bunch of critics has been hogging all the attention this week which is a shame because there's another list worth a look-see - Rolling Stone came up with the Top 40 Science-Fiction Movies of the 21st Century, and it's filled with super picks! (And my real world friend Sean T. Collins wrote up a few of them so keep your eyes peeled for his name.) I've been in a big sci-fi mood thanks to MoMA's amazing summer series, which I pray they make an annual thing.

--- Bad Hellboy Bad - I kind of wanted to avoid this news in hopes it would go away - Neil Marshall & Co were doing so well in casting their Hellboy reboot! David Harbour and Milla Jovovich and American Honey's Sasha Lane and Ian McShane! Very good! But now they have gone and cast Ed Skrein - who I like a lot, mind you - to play a character that is half-Japanese in the comics, which is a terrible, terrible decision. Why won't they learn already? Ugh!

--- Break Forth - I figure I should give you the heads-up on this one since I reviewed it at Fantasia Fest a couple of weeks ago and it's not half bad - the trippy Cronenbergian horror movie Sequence Break, which I called "a love letter to films like Videodrome and the practical effects of 80s horror," has been picked up by Shudder (along with five more horror movies), the online streaming service, so stay tuned for that.I imagine I will help you do so by mentioning it when it has a date and a trailer.

--- David Hears You - Every time I have done one of these link round-up over the past couple of months I have said the same thing at some point therein - I could make this whole damn thing nothing but Twin Peaks writing! And here we are again. I'll just give you two though, and there's related even more specifically - here is an interview with David Lynch in the New York Times where he talks about creating the show's soundscape, which anybody who's ever seen anything from David Lynch knows is like way important. And on that same front the fine folks at the site Welcome to Twin Peaks uncovered a fun little aural Easter Egg in the new season's premiere. Oh wait here's another one - Lynch chatting with ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons about industrial noise for The Guardian. Sure, okay!

--- The Tippi Point - Because I've only been doing one of these posts per week lately (they're so time consuming because I can't stop myself from rambling) (case in point) some of this news is a little old, like this - the BBC is remaking The Birds! Well, they are making a miniseries from Daphne du Maurier's novella anyway, which is incredibly different from the movie Alfred Hitchcock ended up making. The only thing they have in common... is birds.

--- Call Me Luca - I haven't had a chance to listen to this yet myself but The Playlist shared a Q&A with director Luca Guadagnino at the Melbourne Film Festival last week where he apparently talks about both Call Me By Your Name (which was screening there) and his upcoming remake of Suspiria (which probably won't screen anywhere until next year is my guess). Somebody listen to it and tell me the good parts!

--- And Finally I thought about making gifs from this but I think it probably works better as video, uninterrupted - Sam Taylor-Johnson directed a commercial for Givenchy (thx Mac) starring her gorgeous slab of husband Aaron Taylor-Johnson and it's a real joy; it's easily the best thing I've ever seen her direct. But then I only made it halfway through 50 Shades of Grey and I only watched one episode of Gypsy before giving up so what do I know? (I'd say I know a lot.) Wisely she got Aaron to dance, channeling that REM music video he starred in - he needs to make a musical, obviously. Watch!
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Proud of what we made here. @aarontaylorjohnson @aarondoucette @mr_stephengalloway @thestylecouncilparis #givenchy #givenchybeauty #aarontaylorjohnson #elizabethsalt @lucyhalperin @gunning8

A post shared by Artist & Director (@samtaylorjohnson) on Aug 22, 2017 at 12:32pm PDT

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Finn Wittrock Eleven Times

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To be honest it hurts my heart looking at these sexy pictures of Finn today (via, thx Mac) -- I've been trying day in and day out to win tickets to see him and Daniel Craig and David Oyelowo's staging of Othello on stage here in NYC, but I haven't had any luck after weeks and weeks of it, and there's only about a week of the show left. So I'm thinking my luck (or lack thereof) has run out. 

(See pics from the show here.) You'd think that all the free press I've given these dudes over the years they could've thrown me a bone by way of a ticket (or possibly other ways you throw "a bone") but no, they just leave me to sit in the corner eating wet cigarette butts. So be it. Hit the jump for more of treacherous, hot Finn...

Pics of the Day

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I have been trying day in and day out to win the ticket lottery to see Daniel Craig and David Oyelowo and Finn Wittrock do Othello for the New York Theater Workshop but so far to no avail...

... but I still have a few weeks so everybody say a nondenominational irreligious prayer for me, please. (And if anybody has a ticket and needs a date, I'll put out.) Until then I'll have to make do with these pictures of them in rehearsal that Vanity Fair just posted on their site - hit the jump to see the rest...

Do Dump or Marry: Gimme Moor

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We already knew and were very very excited about the news that Daniel Craig & David Oyelowo were planning on staging William Shakespeare's play Othello here in New York later this year. Well yesterday they announced the rest of the cast (thx Mac) and one name leapt off the page and pawed me in the eyes slash other pieces - our favorite tighty-whitied serial-killer Finn Wittrock will be playing the role of Cassio, aka Othello's right-hand bro. Oh to be a chorus boy trolling this backstage area! 

But if you did happen to be a chorus boy trolling this backstage area, whose "backstage area" (wink wink) would you troll the hardest? I pray thee Take to the comments to Do, Dumpeth & Wed the three menfolk of our most extraordinarie tale, but do make sure thou weigh'st thy words before thou givest them breath!!

Good Morning, Oyelowo

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I shouldn't be surprised that I keep being able to find new scenes where David Oyelowo took his clothes off in his career whenever the moment arrives for such things (see previous examples here and here) but I always am because he feels like a fresh presence in our movie-going lives... and yet, like most actors of color, he's been toiling away at it in smaller roles for a very long time. He's been working for 18 years! Well I'm glad he's finally found success, because dude has got it.

And by it I don't exclusively mean a gorgeous face with abs to match, but neither of those things are precisely hurting my affections either. These shots are from a 2009 TV movie called Small Island, a WWII era love story starring him and Naomie Harris (not to mention a snotty looking Ruth Wilson). Has anyone seen it? It seems fairly obscure but I guess if you're British (it aired on the Beeb) you might've. Okay anyway it is his 40th birthday today, so hit the jump for a bit of his birthday suit...

I Am Link

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--- God's Chosen Ones - JJ Abrams continues to put his money (his so so so much money) where his mouth is and give leading man and leading lady roles to diverse, deserving actors - he's just announced that the beautiful and talented duo of David Oyelowo and Gugu Mbatha-Raw will star in The God Particle, a sci-fi thriller he's been attached to produce for awhile. The story "follows an American space station crew who, believing they have destroyed Earth via a Hadron accelerator, allow the crew of hostile nations to board their ship, with disastrous results." Well with that cast it's more, in the wise words of Marge Simpson, "sexy results" if you ask me.
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--- Golden Beasts - Cary Fukunaga  talked to Alec Baldwin on his radio show this morning and I guess he sounded kind of, you know, irritable about how Netflix messed up their awards run for his flick Beasts of No Nation. I loved Beasts and I think it shoulda been, as the saying goes, a contendah, and I also do think if more people had been forced to sit in a theater and watch it rather than be relied upon to click "play" when something less depressing like Orange is the New Black was right there next to it, it would've helped. Idris was robbed though.
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--- President Patty - This morning as we communally ogled Henry Cavill's furry super bosom I stated that I was done, professionally done, with Batman v Superman, but I do feel the need to share this lil' nugget that I didn't know -- apparently Patrick Wilson's voice makes a cameo as the President of the United States at one point. Corner me right now and ask me when we heard the President speaking on a phone and all you'll draw from me is a glass 100 yard stare so dulled was my brain by that "movie" but I guess he's there!
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--- Master Wayne - As long as the subject of DC superheroes has been broached though, you should definitely read this piece over at MTV from friend-of-the-blog Teo making the one hundred percent correct case for Tim Burton's Batman Returns as the best of all the Batman movies, bar none. As we've argued here ourselves Michelle Pfeiffer's turn as Catwoman blows even Heath Ledger outta the water.
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--- Master Of Fish - I keep forgetting that Insidious director James Wan is signed on to make the stand-alone Aquaman film - DH has a couple of quotes from him about what we can expect from his take on the finger-webbed wonder, including  an unsurprising enthusiasm for sea monsters. I just hope that Wan shows more interest in exploiting his star Jason Momoa, who lives for exploitation, than Wan's shown with frequent collaborator Patrick Wilson. He never exploits Patrick Wilson enough! In related news there's a new trailer for the second Conjuring movie out; I haven't watched it yet though. (Here's our take on the first one, in case you missed it.)
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--- Gotham Punk - Okay okay we'll do another Batman link, you forced us - have you been following "The Furniture," our pal Dan Walber's series on production design over at The Film Experience? It is fan-furniture-tastic stuff, I highly recommend you read them all. This week's entry was on Tim Burton's first Batman film, specifically the scene set in the art museum. Choice bit:

"It’s a compelling, if unholy, concoction of influences that range from the Art Nouveau chairs of Rennie Mackintosh to the futuristic buildings of Shin Takamatsu. This refusal to draw from a single period is part of why it still looks so unique."

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--- Underground Filmmaking -  Gremlins director Joe Dante is making another horror movie (his recent flick The Hole 3D is terribly underrated) - it's called Labirintus and it's about a paranormal investigator and a couple other science-types who get stuck in some Russian catacombs when the demons come. The film will star Mark Webber, who you oughta know from Todd Solondz' Storytelling or from Scott Pilgrim.

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--- Good Eats - Hugh Dancy has that new show about cults called The Path premiering on Hulu tomorrow (I have heard good things) and so here's an interview he did with Flavorwire about it, but mainly we're just there for the bit where he says he recently saw Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller and Bryan told him his idea for a fourth season and that it might make sense for a few year's break in between, so, you know, let's keep hope alive like a cannibal serial killer playing with his food for awhile. Let's! (thanks Mac)
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--- And Finally I guess shooting's already kicked off on the second season of Ash vs Evil Dead, hooray, and io9 has got the very first look at it, seen below. I hope and trust that you've all watched the first season by now - it injected such a much-needed sense of fun into Horror TV, which has gotten a little poseury (cough The Walking Dead cough) as of late. Party party party!
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Send Us An Angel

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I googled around to see if there was a picture of Selma director Ava DuVernay and actress Lupita Nyong'o anywhere and of course there was, since all black people know each other -- I even got some sexy Common and David Oyelowo to boot! If only Nate Parker was cradling David in his arms like an adorable little tuxedo'd baby this picture would be literally perfect. Aaaanyway today some news broke about the book-ending ladies that I be googling, and over at The Film Experience I wrote it all up. Click over, learn something.

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I Am Link

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--- United Colors - I feel as if I have to post this even though it's not entirely in my wheelhouse, but then it does involve David Oyelowo so it's not a massive sacrifice - you know how just the other day I was wondering where the hell Rosamund Pike had gone (girl) to? Well here's an answer! EW has the first image of her and Oyelowo in A United Kingdom, about the true-life story of the 1940s romance between a regular ol' white English gal (I mean she looks like Rosamund Pike though, let's not be crazy or anything) and the Prince of Botswana, which was a big scandal and forced the Prince into exile.

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--- Forget The War - Why would you take a book titled The Spy Who Tried To Stop A War: Katherine Gun And The Secret Plot To Sanction The Iraq Invasion and re-title it as a movie called Official Secrets? SNOOZE. The Spy Who Tried To Stop A War is a terrific title! Anyway the thing is being directed by Justin Chadwick, who directed The Other Boleyn Girl and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, so he knows from SNOOZE. But he has gathered up quite a cast - Natalie Dormer, Paul Bettany, Harrison Ford, Martin Freeman and Anthony Hopkins will star as various real folks in over their heads.
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--- La Barbie - I had my own "white privilege" slap me upside the head the other day when it didn't even occur to me when I posted about Joseph Fiennes playing Michael Jackson to consider the racial implications - I was just thinking about the physical  match, which is there. But I get why people were upset! Anyway I had no such problems recognizing the race problem right off the bat with the news that noted-Latino Charlie Hunnam just got cast as a Mexican drug-lord. According to that source the dude he is playing "was also light-skinned and blue-eyed, apparently, and he had the football and cartel-nickname of La Barbie" but still. This is a bit much.
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--- Mama In Law - In my mind I seem to have convinced myself that I like Mama, the 2013 horror flick produced by Guillermo Del Toro, but I think what it is is I just liked it slightly more than my boyfriend, who hated it. I remember thinking it was okay. Anyway there is going to be a sequel because the original film did great business and they just made a really terrific choice on who's directing - Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch, the directors who made last year's terrific Hollywood nightmare called Starry Eyes, will take the helm.
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--- That Face - This article amused me -- a site called The Inverse took a look at "The Psychology of Why Mads Mikkelsen Looks So Fucking Evil" by diving into the shapes and contours and individual forms of his glorious and particular visage. The specter of Creepypasta's "The Expressionless" is summoned, and at that point I was rolling on the floor. It's all good though!
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--- Anon Anon - I should probably stop waiting for Andrew Niccol to make a movie as good as his first movie Gattaca (or his second script for The Truman Show) because it probably ain't gonna happen at this point. I did like last year's drone-thriller Good Kill well enough to keep paying attention though, and news on his next thing is positive -- it's called Anon and it's a sci-fi story about a future with no crime and a mystery woman, and it will star Clive Owen. Probably not as the mystery woman, but who knows. Anything's possible.
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--- Make A Scene - Phew, I've got my lunch-time reading all sorted out -- the New York Times spoke to Todd Haynes at length about his visual references for Carol, which he apparently sorts out into photo collages to create a texture and a feel for what he's gunning for. Clearly some enterprising publisher needs to get this shit together and make copies for all of us to have! (thanks Mac)
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--- Mighty Weiner - Nate Parker's ultra-buzzy The Birth of a Nation sold for an enormous sum of money out of Sundance, which is awesome, I can't wait to see it, but it swallowed up the other happy-making Sundance buy which is that Amazon bought Todd Solondz's film Wiener-Dog with Greta Gerwig for "seven figures" and the contract apparently stipulates "a significant theatrical release" which is all great news for Solondz. When I first read Amazon bought it I figured it'd show up on my Prime account next week with no fan-fare or something. I mean I wouldn't mind seeing it that fast but Todd should bank some buck once in awhile.
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The Man The Myth The King

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Today would've been the 87th birthday of civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr -- Monday marks the federal holiday here in the US, which has been celebrated ever since 1983 when it got signed into law. Since I was only five when that happened as far as my brain is concerned it has been a holiday since time immemorial, especially since it's was always so close to President's Day - MLK was mixed right in with Abraham Lincoln and George Washington in my development, which is why such recognition matters so much; in the words of Mr. King, "The time is always right to do what is right."

Which is why it seemed so insane when Selma came out in 2014 that a proper movie had never been made about the man... and then a bunch of white people freaked out that the movie wasn't nice to them. Sigh, white people. Sigh. Specifically it was the film's treatment of President Johnson that was deemed "problematic." Which was a ripe pile of horseshit, but whatever, it probably affected the film's Oscar chances - an easy escape-hatch for the under-the-radar racist impulses in Hollywood.

Am I sounding irritable a bit? Could this year's second batch of 100% Color-Free Acting Oscar Nominees possibly be on my mind? Hmm, I wonder. (As an aside you should read my pal Joe Reid's amazing Alternate Universe Oscar Nominations, which give us a spate of 100% Of-Color Acting Oscar Nominations - you go, Joe.)

Anyway as if to right Selma's so-called "wrong" we will very soon have an HBO movie version of Bryan Cranston's Broadway vehicle All the Way, which tells the story of the same moment in Civil Rights history but from the white dude's perspective because god forbid we not have that point of view in the world one time. Sigh, white people. Sigh.

I never went and saw Cranston in the play and I am sure, knowing what I do of Cranston, that it's liberal and well-intentioned, and I will probably nod my head at it. The fact that it took 50 years for a movie about the Selma march from the point of view of the Selma marchers to be made and then just like 50 weeks for the White Person Version to get green-lighted for a movie after that, well, that's what summons my side-eye, is all.

Anyway to under-cut all of my highfalutin political jibber-jabber and self-seriousness, let's have some fun with MLK today. The beautiful and talented David Oyelowo played the man in Selma, and gave a shoulda-been-nominated performance for the ages. Next up, the beautiful and talented Anthony Mackie is playing King in HBO's All the Way adaptation. Sexiness Contest!

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Take Me Captive, David Oyelowo

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Have any of you guys heard about, or maybe even seen, some movie called Captive with David Oyelowo and Kate Mara, which apparently was released back in September? I was looking up David because of his upcoming Othello on Broadway with Daniel Craig (sidenote: if anybody wants to buy me tickets to that for Christmas, go ahead and feel free!) and I stumbled across that picture above and, uh, now I would like to see Captive please. Here's the trailer:

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And after the jump some more pictures...

I Am Link

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--- Flame On - I'm behind on news (too busy posting butt-cheeks, I guess) so some of these stories are a little old, like this - Crimson Peak is already a week-old and declared a flop (even though it's absolutely fabulous and you all need to see it) but while making the press rounds Jessica Chastain geeked out over meeting Austrian provocateur (aka beloved dickhead) Michael Haneke, proving Jessica Chastain remains the coolest. Also the coolest her Crimson director Guillermo Del Toro, who gave his Top Ten Horror Movie list to HitFix. It's a good list!

--- Slash To The Stars - Noted Horror Expert slash our pal slash Final Girl Stacie Ponder put the emphasis on the slashes when talking to The New York Times (!!!) about slasher movie final girls -- reason number one billion to love Stacie: She gets love for Friday the 13th Part 2's leading lady Ginny (played by Amy Steel), considered by those in the know to be the premiere final girl of all the final girls. We just love her so. Oh and if you haven't been over to Final Girl lately, do! Stacie's been reviewing a movie a day for "Shocktober!" and she's covered a bunch of great ones.

--- Hot Iago - Great, another expensive theater experience that I won't be able to go see because money sucks -- Daniel Craig and David Oyelowo are starring in an adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello in the Spring. Well it's "off" Broadway so maybe it'll be affordable...? And maybe while I'm dreaming up things that won't happen maybe they'll turn the entire play into the sadistic homoerotic fuck-fest that it's always cried out to be.

--- Liquid Eyeliner - Famous 90s Club Kid James St James apparently wrote a memoir called Freak Show and it's being turned into a film that Sting's wife Trudi Styler is directing? Okay. I only mention it because Bette Midler's been cast as the lead character's mother, and my Beaches-raised ass will forever adore Miss M. I wish something would come out of her publicly clamoring to play Amy Schumer's mother in her next movie but I think Bette's burned an awful lot of bridges in Hollywood so I have my doubts...

--- The Original Fancy Man - Not to be all "Pshaw I already knew all of this!" but I was indeed very familiar with the story of William Haines, the so-called "First Out Gay Leading Man" from the 1920s who became an interior decorator to the stars when he refused to pretend he was straight - I've got a book about his design filled with pictures of Joan Crawford because I'm an A+ Homosexual thank you very much. But still Slate did a great job telling the story, it's worth a read if you don't know it.

--- Love Me Murderer - Over at The Film Experience Manuel beat me to reviewing You're Killing Me, the gay serial killer comedy that's showing at NewFest - well he beat me because I haven't watched it yet, I will watch it this weekend. But it looks fun; I do love Drew Droege, the comedian who's most famous for his Chloe Sevigny web-videos; I saw his one-man show Bright Colors and Bold Patterns and he is no one-trick pony, he is straight-up amazing.

--- Of Which She Is Very Proud - I can't remember what the context was but I went on this rant about the awesomeness of Jan Hooks this past weekend (rant's not really the right word since it was a happy expression of love - a happy rant!) and how awful it is that she's gone, so clearly I put it into the ether and inspired this long piece on her awesomeness at Grantland. Anyway we would be anxiously awaiting her cameo as Tina the Alamo Tour Guide in the new Pee-wee Herman movie in a decent world, sigh. Tortilla! (Thanks Mac)

--- And Finally I haven't even watched this yet but I will after I post it (I'm always bent backwards, you know this) -- the trailer for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has arrived, which stars blah blah a whole bunch of ladies and also the super sexy Douglas Booth and he's what I am there for, if I am there at all, which is just a maybe. But I know the general consensus on Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter is not good but the consensus is wrong and if this is fun like that I'll have fun? Fun.

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