Cast This: Johnny Depp out of "Fantastic Beasts" franchise

by Patrick Gratton

Understandably lost during the fog created of election week, on Friday afternoon Johnny Depp took to his Instagram page, announcing that he was stepping down from the role of Grindlewald. The Warner Bros’ Harry Potter spin-off franchise, the Fantastic Beast series is no without a villain. Depp claims that the move comes at Warner Bros request following his failed libel suit against News Group Newspapers, the publisher of the tabloid magazine The Sun, over allegations that Depp abused ex-wife Amber Heard.  

The news comes after a tumultuous year for the Potterverse. Not just for Depp, whose years of litigation with ex-wife Amber Heard and whose substance abuse has made him tabloid fodder...

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Joel Schumacher (1939-2020)

by Nathaniel R

Joel Schumacher and the star he made, Colin FarrellI once walked across the street in the East Village with Joel Schumacher. I didn't say anything though I immediately recognized him; as directors go he was hard to miss -- very tall with long silver hair. Anything I might have wanted to say would surely have been too belabored in a street crossing. "I love your work," is rote and in this case untrue though I loved some of his work enthusiastically in a formative (St Elmo's Fire) or camp (Batman & Robin) or moment-in-time (Flatliners, Tigerland).

Sometimes I loved his work in all of those ways at once -- Love you, Lost Boys!

It's been curious to see so much appreciation spring up on the internet today, particularly because Schumacher was never a director to inspire reverence in the masses though he made several popular pictures...

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Almost There: Colin Farrell in "In Bruges"

 by Cláudio Alves

Colin Farrell is a fascinating actor. Early on in his career, he got good notices for his work in Joel Schumacher's Tigerland, but his following movies did little to build on that promise and make him a respected up and coming star. Instead, he became a mainstay of action movies of the early aughts, gaining popularity but not being much respected as an actor. On paper, 2004's Alexander looked like his big Oscar bid, but the Oliver Stone historical epic crashed and burned most spectacularly. Still, Farrell has always shown a keen eye when it comes to working with prestigious directors. He's collaborated with Stone, Terrence Malick, Woody Allen, Peter Weir, Liv Ullmann, Sofia Coppola, Steve McQueen, and Yorgos Lanthimos, among others. His work with Lanthimos has been particularly revelatory.

An actor so game to challenge himself and with such a résumé seems like someone who should have left a mark in the awards game. However, Farrell has very rarely been a contender for acting honors. Regarding the Oscars, he came closest in 2008…

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Twitter's Dark Fate: To forever speak of Marty vs Marvel

a curated batch of amusing or interesting tweets about the movies...

Seeing people complain that Dark Fate brought wokeness to the Terminator is pretty hilarious when you realize that the most beloved installment featured a robot, a buff woman, a kid played by a Latino actor & a black scientist vs. a villain with the appearance of an LAPD officer. pic.twitter.com/3PPFFOEXWU

— Zack Stentz (@MuseZack) November 5, 2019

The indignities we’ve put our ascending queens through... pic.twitter.com/rQ8CSeO9fW

— Patrick Sullivan (@PatchNavillus) November 4, 2019

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#TBT: The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus

by new contributor Maggy Torres-Rodriguez

 

Today’s special #TBT goes to the magnificently odd Terry Gilliam picture The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival 10 years ago this week. Lush with extravagant dreamscape sets, innovations in CGI, and an all-star cast, it still holds its own today.

Minus that one scene with Verne Troyer in blackface that was meant as a joke, but generated more of an uneasy murmuring of “oh no, baby what is u doin?” from the audience. But... problematic decisions in Hollywood are made on the daily, so everyone kind of just ignored that and focused on the fact that it was Heath Ledger’s last film... 

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