YNMS: Magnificent Seven, Girl on the Train, Cafe Society

It's a triple trailer mini breakdown. Are you a Yes, No or Maybe So on these three pictures?

Girl on the Train Trailer

YES. Emily Blunt deserves a big hit and she's always so watchable. Also: How is Allison Janney always so perfect? It's one of the great mysteries of the universe. The supporting cast is filled with solid players: Justin Theroux, Rebecca Ferguson, Luke Evans, Lisa Kudrow.
NO. Seems like the kind of picture that will be ruined before it opens with spoilers
MAYBE SO. Tate Taylor directed The Help which is better than people give it credit for being. Can he handle the thriller genre? That's quite a different skill set.

Magnificent Seven Trailer

YES. Chris Pratt being adorable again. He really sells it in this trailer. Denzel is reliable... even when he isn't trying (though we always wish he would try). The other cast members get no time in this trailer but Peter Sarsgaard is the villain and he deserves a showy role again. Also we welcome more Byung-hun Lee in our lives.
NO. Guns. guns. guns. Hollywood is like its own gun lobby really. All guns all the time. I bet like 40% of all movie posters have guns on them or something.
MAYBE SO. Is it is good as the film its remaking The Magnificent Seven (1960) which was itself a remake of The Seven Samurai (1954)

Cafe Society Trailer

YES. Jeannie Berlin looks fun as Jesse Eisenberg's mom and the premise has so much potential. Also Parker Posey as a platinum blonde sarcastic writer? Yes please. 
NO. Mobsters and showbiz? Good luck living up to Bullets Over Broadway. Dangerous film to reference cuz it's so damn funny and Woody movies haven't been that funny since. 
MAYBE SO.  Jesse Eisenberg says he's "half bored half fascinated"... even if that's true of the movie that's a win for modern day Woody pictures. We'll take half fascination. I don't know what any actor can bring to the stock hooker part anymore but if there's anyone that can maybe Anna Camp?

April Foolish Predictions: Visual Categories

Hello Dear Reader! Your host Nathaniel checking in from a screening and chart-making frenzy. I'm heading off to my jury meeting at the Nashville International Film Festival (New Directors competition) to bestow prizes. But I wanted to point you to chart updates (the remainder will premiere this week to complete our April Foolish tradition). So let's talk costume design and cinematography and such. (lots more after the jump)

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April Foolish Predictions. What will be up for Best Picture?

It's that time of year when we Sally Streep forth to venture into brand new Oscar charts. Before I get in TOO deep into the 20+ charts, I trust that you'll let me know which imminently forthcoming pictures you heartily believe in I have totally forgotten about.

some best picture possibilities

Currently I am feel cautiously bullish on the following traditional Oscar efforst (i.e. those that with big themes / pedigree / period trappings: Fences, Birth of a Nation and Silence (though I bet the latter is all in or nothing).  I'm far more riskily "let's do this!" optimistic about a non-traditional hopefull La La Land (contemporary musical). And under the banner of 'directors Oscar hasn't yet noticed but could at some point' let's put our eggs in the baskets of Jeff Nichols (Loving), Denis Vllieneuve (Story of Your Life), and Garth Davis (Lion). Davis has never made a feature but he did co-direct the TV mini Top of the Lake and that was a-ma-zing. 

Titles that confuse me for various reasons are Story of Your Life (i'm opting to guess well received) and Passengers (i'm opting to guess close but no cigar) because they're sci-fi dramas for adults. Sci-fi is such a tricky drama to pull off well and Oscar can be so "ewww" about it. On the other hand sometimes they sit up all "ooooooh" as with Gravity. I kept both World War II pictures (Five Seconds of Silence, and The Zookeeper's Wife) outside the predicted 10 primarily because I couldn't decide between them without any real footage yet.

THE CHART

Viggo Mortensen in Captain Fantastic

P.S. Titles I'm personally obsessed with seeing that I'm not really thinking about in terms of Best Picture because I don't want to make myself crazy from wishful thinking including Captain Fantastic (Viggo Mortensen forever... and he deserves a great comeback movie), Mike Mills 20th Century Women (The Bening), Beat-Up Little Seagull (the return of La Pfeiffer), and United Kingdom because I so want Rosamund Pike's to really capitalize on the Gone Girl breakthrough.

You?

April Foolish Predix: Best Animated Features

It's past time to begin our annual tradition of predicting the future Oscar nominees way before anyone should (yes, I'm aware that nowadays every clickbait site does it the day after the Oscars but we're not into that. Jesus, ppl, let each film year settle!). Let's start with the easiest category in that it's its own world entirely, The Animated Feature. Last year was a relatively thin year for the medium, in that the number of eligible films just barely triggered a 5 wide field. We shouldn't expect a similar dearth this year.

After all 2016's already delivered a possible frontrunner (the delightful Zootopia), a hit that people have already forgotten about (Kung Fu Panda 3... currently #4 of 2016 but have you ever heard anyone talk about it?), trailers to roughly a billion would be cartoon blockbusters scheduled for 2016, and the very tantalizing prospects of an original Disney musical (Moana) and a new Laika feature (Kubo and the Two Strings).

So who do we think will win the nominations this year? I'm not falling into the trap of assuming Pixar is locked up each year (we saw The Good Dinosaur go nowhere, really, in terms of critics and awards enthusiasm) so my big no guts no glory call is that Finding Dory will miss a nomination. Yes, everyone loves Dory and Finding Nemo (2003) but I'm suspicious of a mere fanservice treading of water outing, pun intended, while we wait for a cool original again a la Inside Out. It's a strange reversal that Disney has suddenly taken up the "original" baton and Pixar is wasting its time with sequelitis.

What's below the US radar? Generally speaking online punditry seems to forget that the Academy's animation branch rightly takes foreign cartoons seriously when they're making their calls so something smallish and non American always shows up in the final shortlist. This early -- again, way too early -- I'm guessing that's The Red Turtle. It's due in September from Wild Bunch and Studio Ghibli and given those two companies it will surely be beautiful. Plus it's wordless which should be interesting. The other film I'd ink in if I was sure it would be released in time is Loving Vincent, an entirely oil painted (!!!) animated biopic of Vincent Van Gogh. 

There's a lot to consider out there: martial artist pandas, red turtles, amnesian fish, little princes, secretive pets, pissed off birds, delicious trolls, singing pigs, genius artists, island girls and demigods, police bunnies and more. Check out the chart and do speak up in the comments. 

First Bite. Will "The Founder" Serve Tasty Drama?

As iconic logos go, it's impossible to beat those golden arches. Smart teaser work, then, to instantly brand your movie. On the other hand...

Does McDonalds really scream "Major Motion Picture" or will it have people thinking i saw a doc about that once. 

The presence of the newly dazzling Michael Keaton (quite a comeback these past two years!) should help win the film attention. Keaton is the businessman who wrestled away control of McDonalds in the 1950s and made it into an empire... but not without a lot of behind the scenes drama apparently. The supporting cast includes John Carrol Lynch and Nick Offerman as the actual McDonald brothers, and Laura Dern as Keaton's wife. Patrick Wilson and Linda Cardellini play another couple though we're not sure how they fit into the story. The film opens on August 5th from the Weinstein Co who keep claiming they're determined to make the summer work for Oscar launches (after having helped making the last quarter mandatory over the last 20+ years).

The screenplay is by Robert Seigel (who wrote The Wrestler and Big Fan). Director John Lee Hancock has directed one Best Picture nominee to date (The Blind Side) and one intended Oscar player that didn't get invited to the playground (Saving Mr Banks) but his best film remains The Rookie (2002) don't you think? Part of the one-two punch (with Far From Heaven -- odd bedfellows!) that should have been the great sticky comeback for Dennis Quaid a dozen plus years back. (We're distracted by comeback stories of late thanks to Kyle's Easter post.)

Do you have high hopes for The Founder, Oscar-related or otherwise?