Saturday, August 6, 2016 at 10:30AM Charlize Theron isn't the only Oscar-winning lady cashing in on the Fast and Furious franchise - Helen Mirren is also revving up to join the cast. Here she is in some kind of hushed exchange with Vin Diesel in our first look at her overbloused character.
Whatever could he be whispering into Dame Helen's ear? Let us know in the comments!
Tuesday, June 7, 2016 at 8:00AM On this day in movie related history...
1893 Mahatma Gandhi committed his first act of civil disobedience refusing to move from a whites only first class section of a train. He had a valid ticket, after all. He was forcibly ejected in South Africa's Pietermaritzburg Railway Station. This event and many others from his nonviolent revolution were reenacted by Ben Kingsley in Gandhi, Oscar's Best Picture of 1982. (You can cover a lot with a running time of 191 minutes.)
1909 Jessica Tandy is born. Steals Michelle Pfeiffer's Oscar 80 years, 9 months, and 19 days later.
1917 Rat Pack royalty Dean Martin is born. Centennial next year.
1928 Perpetually underappreciated and totally awesome director James Ivory is born. Later makes masterpieces like A Room With a View and Howards End. Where's his Honorary Oscar, AMPAS? He's 87 people get on that immediately.
1937 The original Bombshell, Jean Harlow dies suddenly at the peak of her fame at the age of 26. Where's her biopic?
1952 Liam Neeson is born.
1958 Prince is born. *sniffle*
1966 Tom McCarthy, the director of last year's Best Picture Spotlight (2015) is born
1972 One of the world's most handsome actors, Karl Urban, is born in New Zealand. Later goes to both Middle Earth and Space, the final frontier. Next up: Pete's Dragon and Thor: Ragnarok. Meanwhile in New York Grease opens on Broadway. It becomes a movie phenomenon six years later. It is never leaving us.
1985 Goonies and Perfect both open. "What's so wrong with wanting to be perfect?"
1974 Bear Grylls is born so we might one day see pampered A list actors try to look tough in survival mode in the wild... albeit with a film crew around them so how Wild are they really Running?
1976 ”The Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night,” by journalist Nik Cohn is published in New York magazine. It becomes a movie very quickly, a classic too, Saturday Night Fever (1977)
1990 Universal Studios Florida opens. Original rides based on Jaws, Earthquake, and King Kong all experience technical problems.
Baby Gyllenhaal
1991 City Slickers opens, turning into a surprise hit. Jack Palance wins the Oscar and little boy Jake Gyllenhaal makes his film debut
1998 The Lion King, the Broadway sensation based on Disney's mega-hit movie, wins six Tony Awards
2015 Helen Mirren wins her Tony for playing Queen Elizabeth on Broadway, a role that also won her an Oscar (The Queen). She also won an Emmy for playing a different Queen Elizabeth. She's just an audiobook about royalty away from her EGOT.
Sunday, April 10, 2016 at 6:27PM To keep ourselves entertained, we like to spin the box office charts so it's not just "copy/paste" from week to week. So let's look at the box office top ten through the lens of current movies with female leads. Melissa McCarthy (in a photo finish for #1 with superheroes) and Helen Mirren keep proving their box office consistency over and over again, don't they? We're also happy to see Sally Field doing so well in what could have been a blink and you'll miss it VOD movie. Field's already outperformed last year's senior female sleeper indie hits Grandma and I'll See You In My Dreams.
But the 10 female names below make up such an odd odd sorority you must admit...
TOP TEN FEMALE LEAD MOVIES THIS WEEKEND
01 The Boss (Melissa McCarthy) $23.4 NEW Melissa McCarthy
03 Zootopia (Ginnifer Goodwin) $14.3 (cum. $296)
04 My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (Nia Vardalos) $6.4 (cum. $46.7)
06 Miracles From Heaven (Jennifer Garner) $4.8 (cum. $53.8)
07 Gods Not Dead 2 (Melissa Joan Hart) $ 4.3(cum. $14.1)
08 Divergent: Allegiant (Shailene Woodley) $3.6 (cum. $61.8)
09 10 Cloverfield Lane (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) $3 (cum. $67.9)
10 Eye in the Sky (Helen Mirren) $2.8 (cum. $10.4)
13 Hello My Name is Doris (Sally Field) $1.6 (cum. $9.3)
21 Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (Tina Fey) $.2 (cum. $22.7)
As for the films we aren't including in this spun chart, Batman v Superman: Birth of Manic Depressive Anti-Heroes at #2 is still a ginormous money-devourer even if with $296.6 domestically and $780 globally it's underperforming given it's behemoth budget and its launch pad to dozens of other proposed movies (there's already a huge crack in the foundation? Yikes). Meanwhile the latest stop on Jake Gyllenhaal's 'look what i can do on screen -- anything!' tour flopped coming in 15th for the weekend atnearly 900 screens. While it's true that Jake runs circles around his movie Demolition the fact that his starpower alone couldn't wallop what looks like the most unpleasant movie-watching experience of all time (Hardcore Henry took $5 million finishing at #5 for the week) is just f***in' depressing.
This is why we can't have nice things.
tfw you won the internet pic.twitter.com/BuOykvPiyB
— JASON (metalmeatwad) (@MichaelNotCera) April 7, 2016
Anyway -- What did you see this weekend?
I mean, other than WITNESS (1985) on Netflix which you surely watched for Tuesday Night's Best Shot. (Can't wait for this one since that movie is such a beauty.) I personally couldn't take in any movies people have heard of because I'm cramming for my upcoming "New Directors" jury duty at the Nashville International Film Festival which kicks off this weekend.
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 at 11:30PM Salon Why Rooney Mara can't win for Carol. Interesting piece on what really matters in Supporting Actress (Hint: Best Actor)
MCN David Poland looks at the writers branch and how the new Academy rules might affect them
Gurus of Gold interesting to see where the volatility is in the new charts: Best Picture and Best Director contain all the (seeming) drama
Towleroad Jonathan Groff interviewed by Kevin Sessums talks sex scenes in the Looking movie, filming wrapped, and his Sutton Foster obsession
AV Club The Flash will officially crossover with Supergirl despite different networks
Variety on the new warp speed market for television shows
The Film Stage first clips and new images from Jeff Nichols's Midnight Special. I'm not watching them because I want to be surprised
Variety Jessica Chastain still looking for her Oscar movie, in talks for Woman Walks Ahead, about a 19th century woman who advised Sioux chieftain Sitting Bull
The Hairpin a listical "best friends of rom com heroines" from Judy Greer through Joan Cusack and back to Carrie Fisher
Pajiba praises Helen Mirren's beer commercial
Today's Watch
Secret Talents of leading ladies and more links after the jump
Monday, January 4, 2016 at 1:33PM 
Jose here with great news. Apparently Cate Blanchett decided to listen to my prayers (yes, I pray to her) and - after a good, but slightly underwhelming fashion run - finally went back to wowing us. She is the epitome of Kate Hepburn-effortless-glamour in a sky-hued Marc Jacobs gown, with a stunning gold applique-Rorschach-test that screams "Awards season Queen is here, biatches" (And screams it right in other celebrities ears. See tweets from Carol's genius screenwriter Phyllis Nagy, Cate's Best Actress competition Brie Larson and images of Rooney Mara, too.)
Cate was benevolent enough to also let Alicia Vikander out of her leathery/earthy Louis Vuitton curse, and allow her to wear a delicious Erdem gown that's the most playful we've seen her yet. My usual quandary with Vikander comes in her usually meh choice of footwear, which always seem to be inspired by Charlotte York. Ooh, interesting game here, which of these ladies whould be which Sex and the City character? Dame Helen is of course the Samantha, in yet another elegantly sexy design by Alberta Ferreti. The lovely Saoirse Ronan in a multicolored/multipattern Duro Olowu is all kinds of perfect and age appropriate.
Less impressive, yawn inducing even, are potential Oscar winners Rooney Mara and Brie Larson, both of whom exist only within the confinements of an "if it ain't broken" universe. They're both beautiful, but I bet I could have found any picture of any other ceremony they've attended, inserted it here, and fooled everyone. Mara is in Lanvin, Larson in Jason Wu. Just a thought, would their styles become slightly more exciting if we Freaky Friday-ed them? It's about time Rooney did some more color, and Larson put her hair in a bun, or anything other than her usual pulled back, wet look
How would you improve these two soon-to-be awards season fixtures?
