Friday, November 17, 2017

I Am Link

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--- Stranger Than Non Fiction - Note to new actors on how not to talk in an interview: do not jibber jabber a bunch about the social media analytics for your Instagram posts, please. I say this with love, Stranger Things recent gratuity recipient Dacre Montgomery, but your interview with Nylon magazine is kind of excruciating for this. And hey listen I am the world's worst conversationalist so I get it - if somebody shoved a microphone in front of me and asked me to be witty I'd literally dissolve into a puddle of piss right in front of them. Just don't next time. Anyway you look great! 

--- What Was Up Doc - I am really really really very angry at myself for sleeping on the DOC NYC documentary film festival that just concluded here in New York yesterday - I kept meaning to dig through the schedule and it kept getting set aside. In my defense they show SO MANY MOVIES, I was overwhelmed. Anyway I keep hearing titles they screened and getting angrier at myself and this is no exception - I guess they screened the Scott Bowers doc (Bowers wrote a beyond juicy queer tell-all a couple years back about Old Hollywood Gay Stuff that boggles the mind); you can read a review right here. The movie did just get picked up and will be released in April so at least there's that.

--- Sacred Cows - While I think this piece at Film School Rejects is wrong-headed in the negative way it spins its take on the acting of Yorgos Lanthimos' movies I also think it's a pretty interesting introduction of just what is going on with the acting style at the same time. I just don't see it as ultimately empty an experience as the writer does? And I think they're kind of wrong when they say The Killing of a Sacred Deer doesn't function as class commentary.

--- Who You Calling Crazy - There's like next to no details on what the heck it's about but Deadline reported earlier this week that Steven Soderbergh has a thriller called Unsane that he shot on his iPhone coming in March. What we have is this: it stars Claire Foy and Juno Temple (oh plus Blair Witc's Josh Leonard!)  and it "centers on a young woman (Foy) who is involuntarily committed to a mental institution where she is confronted by her greatest fear — but is it real or is it a product of her delusion?" So basically every movie starring women in an asylum ever. But it's Soderbergh, so I'm there.

--- Wander This Way - Reading the description of Toni Collette's new TV show I got a little worried for a second, thinking back through all her previous bad TV efforts and also having flashbacks to Naomi Watts' recent Netflix flop Gypsy - Toni's show is called Wanderlust and it's about a therapist who begins assessing her own marriage through the lens of her clients." But then I saw that the show is written by the playwright Nick Payne, aka the dud that put Jake Gyllenhaal, Morgan Spector and Charlie Cox on stages in front of me in the past couple of years (Jake in Constellations and Charlie + Morgan in Incognito) and suddenly I'm more inclined towards optimism. Which is great because Toni deserves way better than what she's been getting.

--- Be My Michael Tonight - There's an interview with Danny Mcbride over at Yahoo! (and if you were a fan of Halt and Catch Fire I sure hope you can't help but read "Yahoo!" without hearing it in Kerry Bishe's voice cuz me neither!) where he talks a bunch about his script with director David Gordon Green for the new Halloween movie... or at least he talks about it without being specific; we really still have no idea where they're going with this besides it's ignoring everything except the first movie. Anyway I am glad he says there are no jokes, it's straight horror, because I was worried given these two goofballs. Lovable and talented goofballs, but goofballs nonetheless. (thx Mac)

--- Divorce Baumbach Style - Noah Baumbach is lining up his next movie and hoo boy can he get himself a cast in 2017 -- the movie will star Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, and drumroll please the goddess and legend Laura "Laura Fucking Dern" Dern. I am actually kind of surprised that Dern hasn't worked with Noah before, they seem like a perfect fit, they just click right into place in one's mind upon hearing their names together. Anyway all we know is the movie's about "divorce" and films in the spring. Maybe I can stalk the set!

--- And Finally knowing what I do about the wonderful folks who read this here blog I figure you've already seen the news that the ever incredible Film Society of Lincoln Center is doing an astonishing series on "Melodrama" here at the end of the year - they're screening over 60 movies through December and early January, stuff from Sirk to Fassbinder to Wong Kar-wai to Almodovar to on and on and on. I plan on spending half my holidays cooped up in there!
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Anyway related to Brief Encounter, aka one of my favorite movies of all time, if you're not in NYC but rather in London there is a stage reading of actress Celia Johnson's letters by her daughter that is happening later this month and it sounds absolutely fascinating; you can read about it here, with a ton of insight into Johnson's approach to Brief Encounter specifically. (thanks Mac)
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1 comment:

Forever1267 said...

I am pre-jealous of you seeing "Brief Encounter" on the big screen. Enjoy!