Third Actress' the Charm for Lisbeth Salander?

by Murtada

Claire Foy is confirmed to be the new Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo sequel, The Girl in the Spider’s Web. Rumours have been flying about Foy playing the part since the spring, but it has now become official. Foy will become the third actress to play the iconic part of the tattooed pierced hacker. The film will team Foy with director Fede Alvarez, who helmed 2016’s Don’t Breathe. The plan is to release in October of next year.

Of course one can’t process this news without thinking of Rooney Mara. When news of this reboot was first reported last November, she announced her interest...

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Mélanie Laurent, Nick Kroll Join Operation Finale

by Ilich Mejía

Back in March, Oscar Isaac first announced he would be producing and starring in Chris Weitz's Operation Finale. Weitz (Rogue One, The Golden Compass) will be directing a script written by newcomer Matthew Orton. Set in 1960's Argentina, the film is based on the true story of a number of Israeli spies on a mission to capture Nazi official Adolf Eichmann (history as spoilers if you've been meaning to get to those History Channel documentaries, but keep watching Barefoot Contessa instead). Actress turned director Mélanie Laurent and comedian Nick Kroll join the already announced cast of Isaac and Ben Kingsley as real estate brokers looking to buy major acreage in next year's Oscar race...

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Boy Erased Adds Xavier Dolan, Cherry Jones

by Ilich Mejía

Ilich here (I'm new! Say hi). Earlier this summer, Joel Edgerton signed on to write and direct Focus Features' Boy Erased, a timely drama based on Garrard Conley's namesake memoir. The story dives into Conley's experience with gay conversion therapy. Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, and Lucas Hedges were initially cast as the film's central, fundamentalist family. Now, the film has added the Red Hot Chilli Pepper's Michael Balzary, YouTube star Troye Sivan, Cherry Jones (!), and Xavier Dolan (!!) to the already astral cast...

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Beauty Break: Ed Skrein and "Hellboy" Replacement Suggestions

by Nathaniel R

Major Ben Daimio. The part will no longer be played by Ed Skrein

Well here's a delightful righteous first. The British actor Ed Skrein, whose best known to date for being the big bad of the first Deadpool movie, has taken a stand against the frequent white-washing of Asian characters on film. He has dropped out of the Hellboy reboot having learned (via the instant online backlash) that the role in the comics is a Japanese-American man. He wrote a heartfelt public letter about the decision...

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Race in Lady Macbeth and The Beguiled: Not so black or white?

by Lynn Lee

Florence Pugh in Lady Macbeth / Nicole Kidman in The Beguiled

In a summer filled with movies by or starring women of exceptional talent, The Beguiled and Lady Macbeth make an especially fascinating cinematic pairing.  Both films center on mid-19th century women who appear trapped by their societies’ constricting gender norms.  In both, the women are confined to an isolated, often claustrophobic space, yet nature is a constantly beckoning presence that at once shapes and reflects their desires.  (Both even have plots that turn on poisonous wild mushrooms!)  And in both, the women up-end the patriarchal structure of their circumscribed universe without liberating themselves.  If anything, they reinforce that power structure even as they seize momentary control of it, leaving not a feeling of triumph but a somber queasiness.

For all these thematic similarities, the differences between the two films are even more striking...

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