I Am Link

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--- Thin Ice - Have you read my review of I, Tonya yet? If you're waiting to see the movie, i get it, but if you just missed it you can read it right here. I bring it up because I've been thinking about the movie a lot this week - it's not a perfect thing by any means (I might have lost the framing device of the talking heads altogether myself, even though some of the movie's best lines are in there) but the one complaint I see as wrong-headed and precious is the one complaint I see the most, and that's about its "funny" treatment of domestic violence. That tone seems to me entirely honest to the film's subject, but Vulture was nice enough to talk to the film-makers themselves about it and this was very much on their minds as they made it. Says the director:

"It was one of the first questions that Margot asked me: How would you portray the violence? I said, ‘We have to reflect the life that Tonya came from and the abuse that she went through that gave her the armor that she had, and the way that she sees the world.’ To not show it would be a disservice.”

--- Crazy Woman - Kimberly ripping her wig off on Melrose Place is kind of my own personal Field of Dreams - if you post about it, I will post about your post. And so here head on over to The Cut where they wrote a whole thing about what a fracture in the universe that moment created - there is Before, and there is After.

--- Good Times Ahead - This story's going on two weeks old but I keep meaning to mention it - Robert Pattinson, fresh off his maybe best performance yet with Good Time, is proving his indie-cred bonafides with his next project and then some: he's signed on to star in the new movie from Ciro Guerra, whose hallucinatory Amazonian film Embrace of the Serpent was one of the highlights of 2016. It's called Waiting for the Barbarians and it will also star Mark Rylance, but I think that's all the info we have so far (as if that is not enough already).

--- Holiday Fear - I should make a list of my favorite Xmas movies at some point this month now that I think about it, but you can bet your bottom that Joe Dante's Gremlins would have a spot. Nothing gets me in the spirit quicker than watching Mrs. Deagle flying out her second-story window. There's a nice little chat with Dante and the film's star Zach Galligan over in The Guardian where they reminisce about the making of the movie. Justice for Phoebe Cates! I wish she'd talk.

--- Gays On Screen - Yesterday IndieWire posted a list of the Best LGBT Movies of 2017 (thanks Mac) - I think you can surmise that if I were to make this list myself their number two would be my number one (ya think?) but I think BPM is an astonishing piece of movie-making too so I don't begrudge it a topping here and there! Anyway you really can't argue with any of the movies on the list - that Top Five is just an astonishing and diverse group of films. This year's one for the record books. At least cinematically speaking we're doing well!

--- Stories For Scaring - Have you guys seen The Autopsy of Jane Doe yet? It's a totally solid spooker - here's my review - and it's been long out now where ever you watch movies, I believe. Give it a twirl! I bring it up because the film's director André Øvredal (he also made the fun-time Trollhunter movie) has officially signed on to direct the movie version of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Alvin Schwartz's book series that creeped out an entire generation mostly thanks to the terrifying illustrations by Stephen Gammell. I really don't know how you make a movie from those books, which were all short short stories that relied for most of their bite from those drawings, but good luck to him trying! If nothing else maybe we'll get a fancy edition of the original books.

--- Barry's Harem - Yet another good looking dude has jumped on-board Moonlight director Barry Jenkins next project, an adaptation of a James Baldwin book called If Beale Street Could Talk - this time around it's Game of Thrones and Narcos' actor Pedro Pascal. (thanks Mac) The other week we told you how Dave Franco and Ed Skrein were both joining the cast. Lookers left and right. Not sure how they all figure into the story, which is about a pregnant woman trying to keep her accused-of-murder partner safe from the forces closing in, but I look forward to finding out.

--- And Finally earlier this week I shared the poster for Andrew Haigh's upcoming "teenager and a horse" drama Lean on Pete and told you the trailer was due soon - well soon has come and gone but I'm just getting to it. If you haven't seen it yet here's the trailer below; I'm really excited to see how young Charlie Plummer does - he was so good in King Jack a few years back. He's got a big year ahead - he's also in that Christopher Plummer movie (ha) All the Money in the World as the rich kid who gets kidnapped.
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