Vote on BAFTA's Rising Star Award

The BAFTA nominations (i.e. the UK version of the Oscars) will be announced this coming Wednesday. That's during the Oscar nomination voting period (which runs January 7th through the 14th) so it could be helpful to certain contenders (we're looking at you, especially, Mary Poppins Returns since you got stiffed at the PGA.)

But we already know the nominees in one category with BAFTA, their annual EE Rising Star Award, which is voted on by the public. This year's nominees and the 13 year history of that category after the jump...

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Podcast: Green Book, Widows, and the Best Supporting Actor Race

Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl talk new films and the Oscar race

Index (68 minutes)
00:01 We didn't see Fantastic Beasts 2
01:46 Steve McQueen's Widows is more than a heist movie. We dive into its themes, best scenes, and particularly its all star ensemble: Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Brian Tyree Henry, Cynthia Erivo, Robert Duvall, Michelle Rodriguez,and Olivia the dog!
25:44 Widow's Best Picture chances?
28:09 'Crowd-Pleaser' Green Book does not please Murtada. Thoughts on the movie, escapist laughter, road trip tropes, and Mahershala Ali's Oscar clip.
42:05 Best Supporting Actor discussion including Richard E Grant, Mahershala Ali, Michael B Jordan, Daniel Kaluuya, Sam Rockwell, Adam Driver, Steven Yeun, etc...
52:00 Spirit Nominations: Suspiria for ensemble? We the Animals, Blame and other micro-indies that did well. Who is going to win?
1:07:00 Byeeee

Further Reading / References
• Shadow & Act's pan of Green Book
• Vox's pan of Green Book
• Middleburg's Green Book audience win
• The Spirit Award nominations
• Murtada's We the Animals interview
• Supporting Actor Oscar Chart

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Green Book and Widows

Links: Color Purple, Yuba County, and Rebel Wilson

Playbill very cool news. The tony winning The Color Purple musical will be adapted to screen. Smart of Cynthia Erivo to immediately focus on the screen following her Tony win for that show. Perhaps she can transfer the role now that she has a larger profile in the film industry?
Pajiba first photos of Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly offer an uncanny resemblance
Tod Phillips Joaquin Phoenix taking a smoke break on the set of The Joker
/Film Deadwood just began production on a movie with the TV series cast returning to their acclaimed roles

IndieWire held a little ceremony to honor some of this year's top film people: Charlize Theron, Amandla Stenberg, Ryan Coogler, and Alfonso Cuarón among them.
Tribeca Film Disobedience deserves a place in awards season
Variety Rebel Wilson in hot water after proclaiming (incorrectly) that she's the first plus size woman to lead a rom-com (if she had just admitted she was wrong, this wouldn't have blown up but for some reason she doubled down)
Variety Fun! Allison Janney and Laura Dern will be co-starring in a comedy called Breaking News in Yuba County for director Tate Taylor (The Help)
Awards Daily Best Song Oscar-winner Annie Lennox wrote a new tune for A Private War
Into on the erasure of both polyamory and bisexuality in Bohemian Rhapsody
Humanizing the Vacuum perceptive review of Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Review: "Bad Times at the El Royale"

by Chris Feil

Drew Goddard has become a Hollywood go-to screenwriters for charging genres with new life, molding The Martian with equal parts brainy science and dopiness and both upholding and subverting the monster movie with Cloverfield. Bad Times at the El Royale is his first return to the director’s chair since the horror spoof-but-also-not-a-spoof The Cabin in The Woods, and again he has perhaps bitten off more than he can narratively chew.

This time Goddard is taking on pulpy pop noir, setting for a showdown at a highway hotel bisected by the California-Nevada border. Checking in are Cynthia Erivo’s quiet lounge singer Darlene, Jon Hamm’s chatterbox vacuum salesman Laramie Sullivan, Dakota Johnson as a mysterious woman named Emily, and Jeff Bridges giving the most Bridges as a suspicious priest named Father Flynn. The writer/director has Tarantino on the brain as Agatha Christie, chaptering the film by the various rooms hosting each guest and slowing revealing the night’s dirty deeds from each of their perspectives. Think of it like a heterosexual Clue mixed with a bisexual Reservoir Dogs, but not as fun.

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Cynthia Erivo will play Harriet Tubman

by Murtada Elfadl

Cynthia Erivo who made waves this week at TIFF as one quarter of Widows has announced her next project. She will play iconic freedom fighter Harriet Tubman in Harriet. The film will follow Tubman on her escape from slavery and subsequent missions to free many slaves through the Underground Railroad in pre-Civil War America. More exciting is that Harriet will be directed by Kasi Lemmons of Eve’s Bayou (1997), a film we adore. This will be Lemmons' first film since Black Nativity (2013), in the past few years she’s been directing episodes of TV shows like Luke Cage and Shots Fired.

Joining Erivo in the cast are Leslie Odom Jr.,  Joe Alwyn ( who’s very busy this fall with parts in Boy Erased, The Favourite and Mary Queen of Scots), Clarke Peters (Detective Freamon in The Wire) and surprisingly country music singer Jennifer Nettles.

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