Links: Nutcracker and the Two Directors, Schrader on Selfishness

Gr8ter Days Terence Stamp makes rare US appearance to talk about this career and push his new memoir. The great actor is about to turn 80...
TFE ...so he's still too young for this 100 Oldest Living Oscar Nominees list.
THR Movie attendance has been steadily rising in Russia but the UK and France remain the top European movie markets
/Film Hmmm, The upcoming Disney spectacle Nutcracker and the Four Realms will now have two directors credited after reshoots. Joe Johnston (Captain America: The First Avenger) will be credited after the original director Lasse Hallström
Vulture Director Susan Seidelman on her 80s NYC classics Smithereens and Desperately Seeking Susan 

MNPP Luca Guadagnino has shown Suspiria to Quentin Tarantino who loved it
Moviemaker Paul Schrader on our selfish legacy and environmental disaster (DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T YET SEEN FIRST REFORMED)
Playbill if you're in NYC in the second half of July there's a lot of 15th anniversary happenings for Avenue Q including an original cast concert
Pajiba Sofia Vergara's ex is making an anti-abortion movie about Roe v Wade and the news about it gets worse and worse
i09 The legal system in The Incredibles 2 is confounding
Pandemonium this video is 90 minutes long but if you're studying to be a screenwriter it's worth a look since Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3) maps out what makes for a great third act of a story
Coming Soon Keri Russell joins Star Wars: Episode IX. Her role is unknown but will involve fight scenes so I'll guess she'll have more to do than Laura Dern did.
Awards Daily the Limited Series race at the Emmys is wide open this year (with 44 programs eligible)  since no single series has been especially dominant with critics or the public this time around 
Film School Rejects the best movies of 2018 thus far
Nick Davis Nick does his beloved "fifties" to detail the best of the movie year thus far 

C O N S I D E R - Actors of 2018, First Half of Year

With the year half over, it's time to look back on the first six months of the year and what treasures they brought us. Here are the 18 performances by male actors that we liked the most thus far this year. It should probably suffice to say that this list was much easier to come up with then the forthcoming female list since the competition wasn't as fierce. (Four key films I missed that might have played into these categories were The Rider, Lean on Pete, You Were Never Really Here, and Paddington 2)

5 LEADING ACTORS
(Jan 1st through June 30th releases)

Daniel Giménez Cacho as "Don Diego de Zama" in Zama
Though I didn't much care for this film, Giménez Cacho, the talented Mexican/Spanish star (of Blancanieves and Cronos fame... and the unseen narrator of all time Mexican classic Y Tu Mama Tambien) delivers as the frustrated sickly officer of the Spanish crown longing for a transfer that may never come.

Alden Ehrenreich as "Han Solo" in Solo
Mimicry is overrated. It's better to get the spirit of a thing than to duplicate the tics. He manages the former though the script fights against it, refashioning Han as a hero at the beginning. 

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Ethan Hawke in "First Reformed"

by Chris Feil

Paul Schrader’s First Reformed is a bit like running a psychological and spiritual marathon, an unflinching look at despair in the modern era but told with the style of Tarkovsky and Bresson to lend its concerns a punishing timelessness. All the critical hosannas it has received are spot on, but rest assured that this is one tough, bruising sit. What keeps us from running away from the trauma is the absorbing honesty of Ethan Hawke’s showcase performance.

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Box Office: RBG, Book Club, Saoirse x 2 and More...

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office Estimates (June 1-3)
W I D E 800+ screens	L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide
Adrift	First Reformed
1. Solo $29.2 (cum. $148.8)  REVIEW, BEHIND THE SCENES	1. 🔺 RBG $1.1 on 432 screens (cum. $7.8)  REVIEW
2. Deadpool 2 $23.3 (cum. $254.6)	2. 🔺 First Reformed $455k on 91 screens (cum. $1) REVIEW
3.🔺Adrift $11.5 *NEW* REVIEW	3. 🔺 The Rider $243k on 224 screens (cum. $1.7)  REVIEW
4. Avengers: Infinity War  $10.3 (cum. $642.8) REVIEW	4. Disobedience $211k on 158 screens (cum. $3k) REVIEW
5. Book Club $6.8 (cum. $47.3) REVIEW	5. How Long Will I Love U $170k on 32 screens (cum. $501k)

More bad news for Solo as it fell a terrible 65% in its second week and its also underperforming overseas where would be blockbuster "disappointments" often make up for their tepid reception at home. None of the new pictures got audiences revved up though Adrift did decent business and might eventually be profitable. But the studios were clearly scared of Solo's second weekend when they did their original summer scheduling. Little did they know!

The best hold in the top ten is Book Club which will hit $50 million domestic with ease...

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NYFF: "First Reformed" and "Let the Sunshine In"

by Murtada

First Reformed
A middle aged priest in crisis sits down with a young man suffering from his own disillusionment with the status of our current world. Once the pleasantries are done with and the futility of existence and our doomed world become the topic of conversation, the alarm sirens start going off. It took the audience at the New York Film Festival screening a few moments to realize that the sirens are not part of the movie unfolding, but an actual false fire alarm asking us to vacate the cinema.

That’s how deeply engrossing Paul Schrader’s First Reformed is...

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