Tribeca Review: Under a Microscope in “The Knife”

By Abe Friedtanzer 

It’s always intriguing to see what projects actors choose when they step behind the camera to direct for the first time. Nnamdi Asomugha has been working behind-the-scenes as an executive producer and producer since Beasts of No Nation, helping bring to life films he’s starring in like Crown Heights and Sylvie’s Love, the latter of which earned him an Emmy nomination for Outstanding TV Movie in 2021. For his debut venture as director, Asomugha has chosen a tense story of crime and policing in America, written by him in conjunction with Mark Duplass…

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Would you rather?

Time for another round of our silly hangin' with celebrities game, brought to you via the aspirational pleasures of Instagram.

Would you rather... 

• smell the flowers with Missi Pyle?
• steal a Myrtle Snow painting with Sarah Paulson?
• Read Thelma Adams' new book with the LEOgend?
• enjoy a mud treatment with Michelle Monaghan on the Dead Sea?
• attend a tennis match with Mads Mikkelsen?
• do charity with Liv Tyler & Goldie Hawn?
• dine with Julianne Moore & Kyle Maclachlan?
• see Vox Lux with Carrie Preston & Emily Berg?
• visit an ADR session with Lena Olin?
• have a cup with Henry Golding & Michelle Yeoh?

pictures after the jump to help you decide... 

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Links

Village Voice Bilge Elbiri on a film review that changed his live (J Hoberman's 1992 piece on Orson Welles' Othello) - lovely personal piece
Nick Davis Chicago film festival jury picks and his own precise takes on the movies screened including high profile gems like Call Me By Your Name, and several foreign film Oscar submissions
Esquire Bryan Cranston must be seeking to sabotage his Oscar hopes this year with this admission that he's rooting for Trump to succeed
Huffington Post talks to Melissa Leo about Novitiate and becoming a gay icon with those "Consider..." ads

Another Mag amazing photos of the well decorated sets of Call Me By Your Name
EW Moulin Rouge!'s stage musical adaptation sets its debut for next summer in Boston. Which means we're probably looking at a Broadway transfer and contention for the June 2019 Tonys.
SBS an amazing interview with Katya and Trixie whose new series The Trixie & Katya Show starts real soon
Vanity Fair sits down with still-rising Tessa Thompson about her stereotype defying career
Esquire jumps on the "give I, Tonya Oscars" bandwagon. I tell you what dear readers, the ease with which this movie is getting people excited when I though it was genuinely not good (mockumentary stale, politically problematic, and cheap-looking) is going to make this Oscar season a loooong one for me (sigh). Ah well. You can't love everything... or every Oscar season. 

Middleburg: Maggie Betts' "Novitiate"

Continuing our Middleburg Film Festival adventures. Here's Lynn Lee

Middleburg is the kind of idyllic Virginia town that makes me wish I had enough independent means to spend regular fall weekends there lodging at a cushy spa, riding horses, visiting local wineries, and binging once a year on Oscar-baity films before they get released in theaters.  As it is, I was happy to get a taste of the latter on a press pass to this year’s festival.  On Day 3, I joined Nathaniel in town (albeit at different events) and took in Maggie Betts’ Novitiate, Todd Haynes’ Wonderstruck, and Dee Rees’ Mudbound.

Of the three, the one I knew the least about beforehand turned out to be the one I liked best.  Set at a convent in the 1960s around the time of Vatican II, Novitiate centers on the struggles and yearnings of young postulant Cathleen (Margaret Qualley of “The Leftovers” and The Nice Guys) and the fellow nun-aspirants and nuns around her.  That may sound like niche fare at best, but I hope Sony Pictures figures out how to market it because it’s an astoundingly assured, riveting debut feature...

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Best Supporting Actress - April Foolish Oscar Predix

With so many of our favorite working actresses in key potential Oscar roles this year this season is either going to be tremendously exciting or crushing disappointing. 

Can Woody Harrelson & Naomi Watts get his & hers nominations as the "deeply dysfunctional" parents of THE GLASS CASTLE?

THE SUPPORTING ACTRESS CHART IS UP

Answer me these questions three:

• Who you think we're underestimating?
• Which performance on the chart are you most anxious to see?
• Do you think any of the 4 time nominees (Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, and Michelle Williams) move to 5 nominee status this year? 5 is actually such a major threshold that's really hard for people to break into. Only 29 women, if I'm counting correctly, have done it with Julianne Moore and Amy Adams being the most recent inductees to that exclusive club). With maybe 2 exceptions (Geraldine Page and Thelma Ritter)  everyone who's ever managed 5 has been a rather huge movie star of their day, certainly bigger than Michelle Williams is now for example. Not that she couldn't do it with The Greatest Showman if the part is good enough. Some working giants that are, like Kidman and Roberts, currently at four (acting) nods include: Bening, Lawrence, McDormand, Mirren, and Emma Thompson.