The 2017 Actress Roundtable Lineup

Chris here. There may already Gotham noms and film festivals, but Oscar season doesn't really start until The Hollywood Reporter's Actress Roundtable - at least in our hearts. This year's lineup includes returning folks Jennifer Lawrence (mother!), Emma Stone (Battle of the Sexes), and Jessica Chastain (Molly's Game), while the newbies are Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird), Mary J. Blige (Mudbound - finally arriving on Netflix today!), and Allison Janney (I, Tonya).

The reliance on returning guests is still irksome, and that is particularly felt this year with a smaller lineup. The ongoing reckoning with sexual predators in the industry looms large over the conversation, but we also get the usual soundbites on creative risk, career advice, and dream collaborators. Who who you like to add to this lineup? Or what film would you recast with these ladies? (I'll offer Tiffany Haddish, and a Steel Magnolias where Lawrence plays Ouiser) Tell us your thoughts in the comments!

The Martyr Mothers of Darren Aronofsky

by Jorge Molina

With his latest film mother!, Darren Aronosfky immerses us in a hellish landscape of biblical allegories, nightmarish house parties, and scenery-chewing performances. It's his most polarizing film so far, and he takes the audience to emotional and visceral places he hasn’t before (hello, newborn baby).

And yet, something remains hauntingly familiar about it. Aronofsky has mommy issues. Throughout his filmography, mothers are figures of unflinching and painful devotion. Women who lose themselves in the love they have to give, a trait which ultimately becomes their doom. They are designed to bestow upon...

 

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Some love mother! Some don't.

by Murtada

The studio behind mother! has pivoted their second week marketing towards the bad word of mouth that the film has been receiving from moviegoers. They stopped selling it as a home invasion horror thriller and instead decided to embrace how polarizing it is.

Some people love it......some people don’t

It’s a bold move and we like it. What they don’t do though, is mention the F cinemascore that the film recieved. CinemaScore is a company that exit polls moviegoers’ opinions on opening night. They have been storing data since 1986, and in that time only 11 other films received the infamous F. Those so honored include Steven Soderbergh's Solaris (2002) and Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly (2012). And make no mistake Darren Aronofsky thinks it's an honor, he told The Frame:

What's interesting about that is, like, how if you walk out of this movie are you not going to give it an F? It's a punch. It's a total punch. And I realize that we were excited by that. We wanted to make a punk movie and come at you.

Did you enjoy Aronofsky punk move? Where do you stand on the mother! conversation?

Review: Darren Aronofsky's "mother!"

This review contains mild spoilers from the first half of the film since everything is essentially a spoiler given the cryptic promotions. The review was previously published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad. 

“Baby?” is the first line spoken in Darren Aronofsky’s new film mother!  but not its first image. The film begins with a defiant girl burning in a house consumed by fire. Javier Bardem collects a gem from the ashes. He places it on a shelf with other less brilliant but similar gems and we watch as the house restores itself from blackened ash. What to make of this rebirth… or is it a timelapse reversal of the destruction? Are we seeing the future or the past?

Cut to Jennifer Lawrence, waking up suddenly in bed. Where is her husband?

Baby?

While Lawrence is the star she’s a cypher-like presence in this particular film (new for her) a mostly passive figure to whom the action happens... We learn very little about her marriage besides the fact that he is a writer and she spends her time restoring their massive home.

Then a knock on the door…

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Tilt Your Head, Pfeiffer!

by Murtada

Mother! is my most anticipated film of the fall. And it’s so good that we don’t have to wait that long for it. Just 14 days from today it will be everywhere. The obsession is real, and for the last few days it has become very specific.

Of course it has to do with Michelle Pfeiffer. There’s a new clip making the rounds where Pfeiffer intimidates Jennifer lawrence about having kids...

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