Links: Hollywood covers, Superbowl ads, Liam Neeson troubles

A big collection of provocative links for you since we haven't had a hot second to look around the web lately...

I had this cover on my wall for at least a couple of years.

This Week's Must Read
• Vanity Fair an oral history of the very first "Hollywood Cover." Love love love this. Especially that you get a full spectrum of non-prudish feeling about the lingerie. Yes, yes, it was sexist and a double standard that the women were like this and the next year the men were fully clothed. On the other hand, can we stop being so sex-negative about people looking sexy or showing skin? It seems we're over correcting of late and everyone is always shaming people for enjoying the sight of human bodies. There is nothing inherently demeaning about being naked or dressing in sexy clothing... unless you don't want to be doing it ! There would be nothing wrong with having a group of men on a magazine cover like this if they were also willing. Linda Fiorentino reveals she volunteered to go topless and Sarah Jessica Parker considered the shoot empowering. Of course not everyone was as comfortable. Sandra Bullock says...

I knew I did not want to be in my underwear. I was like ‘Dear God, give me the longest thing that’s left.’ My little outfit was really tight, it was like one long Spanx. I was a rebel from the ankles down.

Haha. I had forgotten that she was the only one who was barefoot. But even she recalls the day with some fondness, adding... 

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Months of Meryl: Before and After (1996)

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep. 

 

 #23 —Dr. Carolyn Ryan, a suburban pediatrician attempting to keep her family together after her son becomes a prime suspect in his girlfriend’s murder.

MATTHEW: In a 2000 Entertainment Weekly profile that took stock of her screen efforts to-date, Meryl Streep amusingly and very appropriately described Before and After, Barbet Schroeder’s 1996 small-town crime drama, as “an airless thing.” Truer words, etc.

Before and After is one of those forgettable Streep misfires that appear with a bit more frequency in the latter half of her vaunted career. The tell-tale signs are all here: an appealing but hardly virtuosic director seemingly working on autopilot, bestselling literary source material that maybe didn’t cry out for cinematic treatment after all, and a Northeastern setting in close enough proximity to her Connecticut domicile...

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New Images: "Widows" and "Boy Erased"

by Nathaniel R

Liam Neeson and Viola Davis in "Widows"

Given the samey-sameness of summer movie season when 75% of everything is BIG FRANCHISE, little morsels about fall movie season taste especially delicious. The gay conversion camp drama Boy Erased starring Lucas Hedges released images that we forgot to share last week and now Steve McQueen's crime drama Widows with Viola Davis as the widow of a gangster (we assume Liam Neeson given the photo) has released a few of its own. They're all after the jump...

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Liam Neeson is Deep Throat

Add another title to increasingly busy September true life drama release schedule. Joining Battle of the Sexes, Victoria and Abdul and Stronger is The Silent Man. The film is based on the life of Mark Felt, the secret high-ranking FBI informant during the Watergate scandal who is famously known as “Deep Throat.”  That was of course the pseudonym given to the notorious whistleblower of that scandal. His true identity remained a mystery until, in 2005, Mark Felt revealed himself as the tipster.

Liam Neeson is playing Felt while Diane lane takes on the hopefully not thankless role of his wife. The writer and director is Peter Landesman who has shown an avid interest in these true life investigative stories with Concussion (2015) and Parkland (2013). This first released clip gets an added relevance because of the recent revelations of certain memos written by a certain FBI agent.

Do you document your important meetings in secret memos to use when the need arises?

Yes No Maybe So: "Silence"

Each and every year I pray that we will have ample time to CONSIDER each Oscar nominee. But one film always wants to emerge so late in the game that the world (i.e. Oscar fanatics, critics, list-makers, and awards voters) will be rushed to judgment.

I pray but I'm lost. Am I just praying to silence?"

It worked out well for the late arrivals last year (The Force Awakens and The Revenant which between them nabbed 17 Oscar nominations and 3 wins) so will it be as successful for Rogue One and Silence this year which we believe will be the last two movies to screen and which will dutifully fill the exact same slots of Star Wars Movie and Brutal All Male Historical Epic.

The Silence trailer is here so we may now finally judge for ourselves based on 2 minutes and 13 seconds instead of all of the rumors. The Trailer and our Yes No Maybe So™ breakdown after the jump...

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