The Critics, We Choiced

This marks my second year voting as a member of the Critics Choice Association and I long ago made peace -- well before I even became a member -- with the fact that my weird personal picks would end up falling through the cracks of a general consensus and not get much representation in the final tallies. It's just par for the course with this type of thing. That's what I have my personal awards for, and uhhh hopefully some time I'll get to those. But today what I have to share with you are the Critics Choice nominations! And there are a few things I voted for up in here -- you can be sure that any nominations for Hard Truths, Nosferatu, The Substance, the two Guadagninos were among my votes -- and that makes me happy. I will glom my hopes onto them. Oh and as a sidenote -- I am planning on going to Los Angeles for the ceremony this year! So stay tuned for coverage from that! Exciting star-fuckery ahead! Okay now let's hit the jump and see the entire list of nominations...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Incendies (2010)

Notary Jean Lebel: Will of Mrs. Nawal Marwan... To Notary Jean Lebel: Bury me with no casket, no prayers, naked, face down, away from the world. Stone and epitaph. I want no gravestone, nor my name engraved anywhere. No epitaph for those who don't keep their promises. To Jeanne and Simon: Childhood is a knife stuck in your throat. It can't be easily removed. Jeanne, Mr Lebel will give you an envelope. The envelope is for your father. Find him, and give it to him. Simon, the notary will give you an envelope... The envelope is for your brother. Find him, and give him the envelope. When the envelopes have been delivered you will be given a letter. The silence will be broken, a promise kept, and you can place a stone on my grave and on it engrave my name in the sun.

A happy 55th birthday to the great Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve today! Part of me is sad that we've lost at least half a decade of movies from Denis in exchange for the Dune films, but I did like Dune a lot so "lost" isn't exactly on point. I'd prefer more movies like Enemy from him -- dozens of weird little Enemys! But he might be the man making the most interesting blockbusters right now and the Dune world certainly allows him the opportunity to channel some of that Enemy weirdness into it. So we'll allow it!

Anyway I've still never seen Incendies -- it's been on my list for ges and ages. Well since Enemy I suppose. I love one part of the quoted passage a whole lot though -- "Childhood is a knife stuck in your throat. It can't be easily removed." Indeed.

Big Dune Energy, Take II

Alright well I'm off to see Dune a second time -- I saw it at NYFF and dug it and I haven't watched it on HBO Max since because I was hoping to see it on a big screen one more time, since it's so clearly a movie that demands (or at least rewards) that experience. And I also didn't want to see it at a public screening because I'm still wary of those (you know -- the pandemic or whatever). So I got me a guild screening! Even better I got me a guild screening tonight that's got Denis Villenueve & Oscar Isaac there for a Q&A! So maybe pay attention to my Twitter and my Instagram tonight, as I'm sure I'll post something about all that. And hey maybe Denis will whip out Oscar's cock-sock again...

The moment Denis revealed that he had Oscar’s final outfit from @dunemovie in his pocket (spoiler alert- It’s a cock sock)! pic.twitter.com/1V3BW1hyXz

— Rajendra Roy (@rajroynyc) November 16, 2021

The Father, The Son, and the Holy Gyllenhaal

These here are obviously ancient photos of Jake Gyllenhaal (from 2001 to be precise) but they'll have to do because we done used up every photo ever taken of him at this point, and also this news itself is ancient news, getting an update. In 2016 I first told you that Jake was going to star in an HBO miniseries adaptation of Jo Nesbø's book The Son for his Prisoners and Enemy director Denis Villenueve. And then in 2020 I updated that news, saying ta-dah, twas on the calendar again. Well perhaps this will be lucky post number three and it will actually happen this time, because it's being reported that Villenueve is planning on shooting the damned thing finally, really for real they say, this very fall (thx Mac).

Of course with Villenueve's sequel to Dune coming out in November I have to admit I have no idea where he'd find the time -- especially now that there's word that Dune 2 is a middle-chapter and there will be a third movie. But perhaps ol' Denis really needs to wedge in a Dune-break for himself, and for that I wouldn't blame him. I guess we'll see. I don't know how you shoot an entire miniseries in like, two weeks -- one imagines it would take some time, and it seems like he will have a lot of responsibility selling Part 2 globally and such over this fall. Whatever. I got to post these pictures of Jake. We all win. All that said it also feels like Jake might be too old for the lead role in this book, which is about "a promising wrestler" who tries to unravel a mystery surrounding his father's suicide. Maybe Jake will play the father now? Cue Daddy commentary.

Dune Dune Dune (To The Tune of Dun dun DUN)

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Hey look we've got a brand new picture of one Mister Timothee Chalamet in Mister Denis Villenueve's forthcoming motion picture Dune! It's the second one this week (see the other one here) and it's coming to us via the website Nerdist (click to embiggen; thanks Mac). This one has less Josh Brolin bulge but a closer view of Timmy's luscious locks, so it's a draw, probably. The bigger nerds among you will want to note the glowy-knuckled future-tech on Timmy's right hand where he's clutching the dagger -- it's called science! I hope he takes that thing off when he molests fruits, anyway. And, scene.

Quote of the Day

"Streaming can produce great content, but not movies of Dune’s scope and scale. Warner Bros. Pictures’ decision means ‘Dune’ won’t have the chance to perform financially in order to be viable and piracy will ultimately triumph. Warner Bros. might just have killed the ‘Dune’ franchise. This one is for the fans. AT&T’s John Stankey said that the streaming horse left the barn. In truth, the horse left the barn for the slaughterhouse.”

-- Somehow I missed this yesterday but in Variety Dune director Denis Villenueve wrote a scathing screed about Warner Brothers' decision to dump their entire 2021 slate, his sci-fi epic included, onto HBO Max next year; if you missed it too the entire thing's right here. This is business-end of the movie-business stuff which I'm never super into talking about, but I suppose "the medium's future" is somewhat important, haha. And Villenueve says things that were less doom-and-gloom than the above quote -- he does a much better job of not coming off like Christopher Nolan, who pushed his terrible movie out into theaters smack-dab in the middle of a pandemic, for instance, by saying he was totally cool with the film being delayed until next fall. And the quote below is one filled with hope, and something I also truly believe:

“Once the pandemic is over, theaters will be filled again with film lovers.

That is my strong belief. Not because the movie industry needs it, but because we humans need cinema, as a collective experience.” pic.twitter.com/s6HZ1vN8rS

— Matt Neglia (@NextBestPicture) December 11, 2020

Like Sandworms Through the Hourglass

If you're excited about the imminent release of Denis Villenueve's Dune sequel, smartly titled Dune 2, then perhaps you might get it inside yourself a whisper sooner with a pre-order of cinematographer Greig Fraser's resplendant photography book Dune: Exposures, which collects his set photos into a grand hardcover edition that hits stands on Valentine's Day aka Wednesday of next week. Stick it in your loved one's chocolate box! (Ewww, that sentence was too far, Jason.) That's two whole weeks before the movie hits theaters so you can just press your face against the pictures of Timmy's windswept hair and toss some sand in your face and it'll be like you're right there! Pre-order your book right here. Me, I'm seeing Dune 2 in six days! So stay tuned for my opinion... as if you wouldn't. You don't do anything unless I say so, dammit! 

Piping Hot Dune News

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One, Timmy was spotted by a fan a couple of days ago making a surgical mask look hella good in Budapest, where it's assumed he's filming some pick-up stuff for Denis Villenueve's Dune movie. Two...

trailer before sept. 🤐

— Timothée Chalamet (@RealChalamet) August 7, 2020

... Timmy says we'll be getting our very first trailer for the flick in the next three weeks! Most people assume it'll be attached to Tenet whenever Tenet drops -- now that Tenet is staggering its worldwide release staring on August 26th overseas I guess that timing makes sense. The US, and only some of the country -- nowhere near me, as far as I'm aware! -- isn't getting Nolan's movie until September 3rd. (And I say "as far as I'm aware" because the only thing that interests me about Tenet is the Dune trailer.)

Quote of the Day

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"It’s just a wholly, wholly different thing... I couldn’t imagine anyone more suited for the tone of the original Frank Herbert novels than Denis. There are some things that are — for lack of a better word — nightmarish about what you see… There’s just this kind of brutalist element to it. It’s shocking. It’s scary. It’s very visceral. And I know that definitely between Denis and myself and Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson as the family unit, we really searched for the emotion of it. I’m beyond myself with excitement. I think it’s good to feel cool, unique, and special.”

I'm like a sand-worm in search of sweet sweet spice out here, thirsty for any and all information we can get about Denis Villenueve's Dune film (or films, maybe), and so these little tidbit type nuggets that Oscar Issac threw at EW this week are keeping me alive for another few days. Release a photo already, dammit! Anyway as to the content of what Oscar had to say -- I think David Lynch's movie is a mess but it's not exactly a surprise, seeing what he did 35 years ago, that somebody would make this material look "nightmarish" right?

I also wonder if Oscar is misusing "brutalist" to mean "harsh" or if he's actually referring to the architectural design movement -- I hope it's the latter because I'm a huge fan of Brutalism and would love to see Villenueve shoot it... well, shoot it more since he already did some of that with how he visualized Toronto in his 2013 movie Enemy aka still my favorite movie of his.

Dune's Men Out In Force

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Filming is happening on Denis Villenueve's Dune in Budapest right now, and so naturally the gang of actors gathered there are being spotted out and about -- thankfully for us the ones that've been spotted together so far are Timothée Chalamet, Jason Momoa, and a spectacularly-bearded Oscar Isaac, enough of a "Bingo!" to give your grandma a grand mal seizure. For some reason Timmy's being kind of camera-shy but you get a quick glimpse of him in this video of Jason & Oscar, uhh, playing the guitar and murdering us:

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Három teltházas Al Di Meola koncert, három világsztár. A színpadon Al Di Meola. A nézőtéren Jason Momoa és Oscar Isaac, akik a koncert után gitártudásukat is csiszolták a legendás zenész segítségével! #aldimeola #jasonmomoa #oscarisaac #getcloserconcerts #budapest #aquaman #starwars #gameofthrones

A post shared by GetCloser Concerts (@getcloserconcerts) on May 12, 2019 at 12:40am PDT

I'm kind of hoping that the next person we get on video hanging with the boys is Javier Bardem, maybe giving Timmy a piggy-back-ride, but until then here after the jump are a few more photos of these three taking Budapest...

Dune First Peek

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Today Vanity Fair has shared this, our very first look at our twink wunderkind Timothee Chalamet in Denis Villenueve's adaptation of Dune. There will be lots more tomorrow they say, but appropriately perhaps on this very rainy morning here in NYC, they give us this somber gray image to hold us until then. 

The piece alongside this photo at VF explains this is Paul Atreides (Chalamet) still on his watery home planet of Caladan -- those things that look like newspapers blowing around in the breeze in the background are actually transportation spaceships that will carry him away from home and take him to Arrakis, the desert-world that we all think of when we think of Dune.

A closer look at Timmy's outfit -- I like the look, although I feel as if this image, set so early in the story, isn't giving us a full picture of what Villenueve & Co will have in store and we should not get too attached to what we are seeing. Tomorrow's second part of VF's preview of the movie will really set tone for our expectations on the tale. Anyway they say the movie is still coming out on December 18th, so that's good. But now we just wait for tomorrow, which we've gotten real good at over the past month...
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Like Sandworms Through the Hour Glass...

As foreseen by the desert-swept oracles of PR releases, and after some sort of lengthy Twitter chat introduction (of which I didn't watch a wink), the trailer for Dune was finally dropped this afternoon, and I've got it for you deep down below. If you haven't already watched it before coming here that is which, uhh, I doubt. So what do I, me personally, have to offer to the Dune conversation? Is it only butthole jokes? I think it's only butthole jokes.

I have seen some buttholes in my days and that, my friends, is a butthole

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 9, 2020

In all seriousness I don't know how David Lynch managed to not make me think of buttholes with his sandworm design but I admit I never once did -- this time around, notsomuch. It's fine! We all have buttholes, and they have more than earned their representation in our art and in this world. 

You probably won't believe me when I say this but I promise you -- I have never said the word "butthole" more times in such a short span of time then I just did. Really! Moving on (or are we)...

... the trailer is epic and gorgeous and everything we've been expecting a Denis Villenueve take with this epic and gorgeous cast to be, and I'm not even only talking about Oscar Isaac's beard. Now you watch it for your damn self and see! 

Oh and how I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments if you feel like sharing them. Dune is out in theaters on December 18th. And I grabbed a few more images and I made a couple more gifs just cuz and they're after the jump...

 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Prisoners (2013)

Keller: You know the most important thing your granddad ever taught me? Hmm? Be ready. Hurricane, flood, whatever it ends up being. No more food gets delivered to the grocery store, gas stations dry up. People just turn on each other, and uh, all of a sudden all that stands between you and being dead is you. 

A happy 51st birthday to director Denis Villeneuve today!  He's off preparing to shoot his big-budget adaptation of Dune and we really do wish him all the best - I would've been a little bit more optimistic before I fell asleep halfway through his Blade Runner 2049 movie but I'm hoping he took the lessons he learned making that and will apply them to Dune, especially since Dune could also fall quickly into ponderous territory if you let it. (Just ask David Lynch!) Anyway he's got Timmy so he'll be fine. And now, a query (and yes I'm skipping his early French-Canadian films because I wanted to limit this poll to five, but you may feel free to make your cases for Incendies or Polytechnique or Maelstrom in the comments):

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bike tracks

Good For The Gays Again

As you might know yours truly is a member of the film critics group called GALECA, which gathers up a bunch of us LGTBQ critics so we can be all queer over movies together, like we do. It's what we live for! Anyway our annual awards, called The Dorians, were announced this week, and you know what? Gay people got taste. I wouldn't say that in all circumstances -- we have seem to have wrought those awful Housewives programs, after all -- but here, in these circumstances, we have proven it this one way. We gave our big awards to Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog (also my personal favorite film of 2021), to Flee, to the fuck-yeah performances of Kristen Stewart in Spencer (and I am aware that that one's proven divisive...

... but I am way firm in the pro camp and I'm incredibly happy we recognized her for the work number one, but she's also queer herself so, you know, gays supporting gays yo!) and Ariana DeBose in West Side Story (also one of our queer compatriots!) -- we showed taste, baby. Add on to that we gave two count them TWO big awards to Pedro Almodovar and I have no notes. No notes. These weren't all my votes (I am a sad for Kodi Smit-McPhee and Jonny Greenwood and my baby Luca) but I am not angry at any of the winners. Not even House of Gucci winning for "Campiest Film" -- I hate that movie, truly, but that prize makes perfect sense. Hit the jump for the full press release...

Timmy's Got the Spice

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That right there look on Timmy's face is exactly the look I just had upon my own (minus the youthful adorability, obviously) as I read the news that Timothée Chalamet is right now in talks to star in Denis Villeneuve's forthcoming big-budget two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune. I guess I better prepare my fingertips to have to cut-and-paste the complicated keystrokes of "Villeneuve" and "Timothée" in tandem a lot, cuz shit's getting real. Real groovy!

Timmy will of course be playing the Kwisatz Haderach himself (that doesn't count as a spoiler really, right?) Paul Atreides - when David Lynch made his wonderfully wacko movie that role went to his muse Kyle Maclachlan. In related stuff our pal Sean wrote a glorious piece on Dune just this past week that you should check out - it's not just a defense of Lynch's film but it is that in part and I co-sign every word.

Muad'Dib We Call Instructor-of-Boys

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I was looking to illustrate this post with a real gratuitous shot of Dave Bautista and his gargantuan muscles - perhaps one of those speedo shots he's known so well for - but as soon as I stumbled upon the above, well, obviously I had to go with that. Beards and books and Bautista? I'm beside myself. Anyway we're here because Dave just got cast this week in Denis Villeneuve's reboot of Frank Herbert's Dune - yes the one that's going to star Timmy Chalamet as the Kwisatz Haderach himself Paul Atreides...
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I was really hoping Timmy would feel more House Harkonnen than Atreides tonight, but maybe he's saving that for the Oscars pic.twitter.com/EbH1PgAUVX

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 7, 2019

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Man I was proud of that nerd joke. Anyway there's no word on who Dave's playing but I imagine it's, you know, a character with muscles. Or perhaps he's going against type! He's already proven he can sit on a pile of books, so who knows? Also joining the cast this week, showing this thing's full-steam ahead at this point, is "Papa" Stellan Skarsgård as the greasy big bad Baron Harkonnen, so memorably rendered by Kenneth McMillan in David Lynch's original flop.

That's a big harness to fill but Stellan's a trooper, I have faith in him. And hell maybe they could reunite him on-screen with his real life son Alexander taking on the Sting role of the Baron's own bad boy Feyd-Rautha! I'd pay good money, great money, excellent money, to see Alex in that infamous metallic winged bikini...

I swear one of these days I will do a Dune post 

without mentioning that outfit, but today is not that day.

I Am Link

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--- Hero Worship - Now that he's Batman (try hearing that phrase in your head in anything but Christian Bale's rasp, I dare you) Robert Pattinson is abandoning the art-house movies that made us respect him, the sellout - he's dropped out of Joanna Hogg's sequel to The Souvenir, which is apparently a thing that's happening? (I'm just teasing Rob, by the way, save your hate mail.) On the Souvenir tip though I saw the film last week and thought it was fine but I don't really entirely get the rapturous responses it got earlier this year. It's certainly aware of its privilege (the main character expresses some guilt) but that didn't make the privilege of its world feel any less exhausting to maneuver as a viewer.

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--- My Commitment - This interview is a real long one so you'll have to set aside some time for it but if you haven't yet read Collider's long chat with our beloved character actress and saint Beth Grant then I recommend you do - give or take a couple of big star names its interesting folks from below the title like this who have quirks and are individuals that I'd much rather read pieces like this devoted to. Beth has stories and has lived and is a hoot.

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--- Jude Island - Jude Law is heading back to TV again, this time with nary a Popemobile in sight, to make The Third Way for HBO (alongside ITV in the UK) -- it's a six-part miniseries (produced by the guy who made the original Utopia) that sounds kind of like The Island of Dr. Moreau or maybe The Wicker Man, something like that, with an island and a bunch of isolated weirdos and hallucinations. Basically me on vacation. Speaking of vacations Jude was recently on his honeymoon (congrats!) in Sardinia and JJ got a bunch of pictures of him looking mighty fine a la that shot to the right, see them here. (Thx Mac)

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--- More Scary - When we listed our most anticipated movies of the remainder of 2019 one of the runners-up was the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark film that Trollhunter director André Øvredal has coming out in August -- well Rue Morgue sat down with Andre to chat about his next much anticipated by me flick, which is an adaptation of Stephen King's short story The Long Walk, read that chat here. TLW is kind of a teenaged They Shoot Horses Don't They, or maybe Forrest Gump meets Battle Royale. Okay I'm just saying movie titles now. You get the idea.

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--- Ears and Ears - I am a couple of episodes behind on Years and Years but Russell Tovey's already gone and signed on for another television miniseries in his homeland -- this one's called Flesh and Blood and it's another tale of a large sprawling family in which he's a sibling, this time about a trio whose old-age mum (played by Imelda Staunton) gets romanced by a dude (Stephen Rea) they don't trust. 

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--- Gesserit Who - Denis Villeneuve is currently shooting his Dune movie with Timothee Chalamet & Co -- see some pictures we shared a couple of weeks back right here if you missed 'em -- and that's probably going to be going on for awhile, and now an even longer while because he's also making a Dune TV series now too. It'll be about the Bene Gesserit, the female religious order of Frank Herbert's stories who predict all sorts of spicy shenanigans with their witchery. In the movie Rebecca Ferguson is playing Lady Jessica who's a part of the order, so perhaps she'll be a part of the television show too; Villenueve is only set to direct the pilot.

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--- Man o' Paradise - Josh Hartnett, so very good on Penny Dreadful, is returning to TV for a series called Paradise Lost, which apparently has nothing whatsoever to do with the Milton book -- it's about a married couple (Hartnett alongside Bridget Regan from Jane the Virgin) who return to the husband's Mississippi hometown only to "uncover shameful secrets that irrevocably change the lives of everyone involved." That is vague enough a description that I have absolutely no idea what this show might be, except they also call it a "Southern Gothic mystery" which helps a little. Barbara Hershey and Nick Nolte are also set to co-star. 

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--- Cue the Keymaster - It's become completely impossible to keep straight what's happening with the Ghostbusters franchise - I think where we stand is Jason Reitman is making a direct sequel to his father's films with all the original 'Busters in tow? Anyway Sigourney Weaver has let slip that she's returning for the movie as good ol' dog-lady Dana Barrett once more, so whatever it is I am there.

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Good Morning, World

Oscar Isaac's wife was kind enough to share that photo of her perfect husband napping yesterday, and what better way to greet Dune Day than by sharing that with y'all -- yup Denis Villenueve's forever-delayed part one of Frank Herbert's book is finally finally finally out in US theaters now! I saw it at NYFF a few weeks back and I didn't review it then and I am probably not going to review it now, but I did write the following tweet and I think it sums up my feelings fairly succinctly. (You should go see it, on a really big screen if that is a safe thing for you to do -- it's grand.)

DUNE is tremendous. Space Cenobites, Glitter Storms, Hairdos, Spit Fetish Parties, Oscar Isaac Side Butt, A Desert Smize Fashion Show, Lots of Loud BRAMMMM Sounds, Charlotte Rampling Torturing A Twink, and as promised more Vibrating Buttholes than you can shake a Timmy at #nyff59

— My New Dead Pants (@JAMNPP) October 7, 2021

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Enemy (2013)

Anthony: Control, it's all about control. Every dictatorship has one obsession and that's it. In ancient Rome they gave the people bread and circuses. They kept population busy with entertainment but other dictatorships used other strategies to control ideas, the knowledge... how do they do that? Lower education, they limit culture, censor information, they censor any means of individual expression and it is important to remember this, that this is a pattern, that repeats itself throughout history.

Now them's some timely words, eh? Anyway a happy 52nd birthday to the director Denis Villeneuve today -- not only did he give us Twin Jakes (in my favorite movie of his to date) but he's about to give us Timothée as the fair queen of Spice World with his big-budget Dune movie. Shouldn't we be getting some Dune shit soon, now that they've finished shooting? Maybe next week when Timmy's King drops in actual theaters (before hitting Netflix on November 1st) they'll ride the PR wave and give us a first look some place. Dare to dream! In related here's a shot of Timmy on today's red carpet for a King premiere looking mighty sparkly:

Spice Up Your Life

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Last night at MoMA I saw another screening of The Witch with the director Robert Eggers there (see a picture of the director on my Instagram) and he briefly mentioned the fact that his next project is a new version of Nosferatu - he called himself narcissistic for even trying it, but it's been his dream forever and a day. I thought of that reading today's news that Denis Villeneuve, whose excellent film Arrival is in theaters right now and whose sequel to Blade Runner is getting a big press push right now, is in talks to make a new movie out of Frank Herbert's Dune. Dune has been a dream project of Villeneuve's forever too, apparently. And I say go for it - nobody's been able to make a good movie out of it, not even David Lynch, and he put Sting in metal bikini briefs.

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