Rachel, Rachel. Link, Link.

Rachel Rachel! No not the 1968 Oscar nominated Paul Newman / Joanne Woodward movie. But Weiz and McAdams. They're set to co-star in a Jewish lesbian romantic drama Disobedience. Good luck to whichever lesbian romantic drama with A list actresses has to follow Carol. Is this the next one that'll see release?

Other Clickables
NPR in the wake of Ben Affleck's stupidly titled The Batman, 27 better titles
Theater Mania Mulan will be the next Disney toon to get a live action remake. In 2018
The Guardian Leonardo DiCaprio states the obvious that is weirdly not obvious to many people on earth: climate change deniers should not hold public office 
Variety Laverne Cox, Ava DuVernay, Helen Mirren, and Scarlett Johansson will all be honored at Variety's Power of Women event on Oct 14th
In Contention a look back at The Departed's "non campaign campaign" for Oscar glory
Comics Alliance Iron Fist has a first teaser just as we're reaching oversaturation with Marvel's Universe
The New Yorker an amazing piece on the Nat Turner story and The Birth of a Nation
/Film FX's great animated series Archer will end with Season 10
AV Club Mahershala Ali, having a great year with Luke Cage and Moonlight, may get the prime villain gig in Alita: Battle Angel
MNPP Armie Hammer photos from an army thriller called Mine
Variety Westworld gives HBO great opening numbers
Coming Soon in honor of Westworld, 13 weird westerns
Towleroad another famous gay proves to be a right-winger blinded by his own privilege and idiotically thickheaded about what causes hate crimes. Lucian Piane of RuPaul's Drag Race --oy!
Playbill Wicked stars Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth both released new albums last week. Both hit the Billboard top 40 albums 

Finally...
Interview Magazine talks to the incomparable Parker Posey on her improvisatory work with Christopher Guest (including the new Netflix film Mascots premiering October 13th)

Parker Posey photographed by Craig Mcdean for Interview

Some of these scenes last, like, 15 minutes. And it's so disappointing when you see the final cut. You bring so much of your life and your story, and then it's just whittled away, you know? Chris likes his movies to really fly, to leave the audience wanting more—which is the rule of comedy. So his movies are kind of short. I like a three-and-a-half-hour documentary. I like Frederick Wiseman, Grey Gardens[1976] ... I'd love these movies to be so much longer than they are. You should see what Jane Lynch and Ed Begley Jr., and Michael Hitchcock and Don Lake come up with, by the minute. 

Cannes Review: Woody Allen's "Café Society"

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad. It's reprinted here in a slightly expanded version...

Few things in life are as regular as Woody Allen movies. For the past 40 years or so they arrive exactly once a year. In recent years they generally premiere out of competition at Cannes and predictably reignite the endless cycle of media wars about Woody Allen.

The only thing irregular about the experience is the reviews, box office, and Oscars. For the past 10 years or so it’s been especially hard to predict. In that time he’s delivered critical and commercial Oscar winning hits that the media fawned over (Blue Jasmine, Midnight in Paris), well received films that didn’t quite crossover to that same extent (Match Point, Vicky Cristina Barcelona), critical flops that did surprisingly okay at the box office (To Rome With Love), trifles that people tolerated (Scoop), reanimated abandoned projects that everyone wished had stayed dead (Whatever Works), as well as a critical and commercial flop (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger) and one that didn't actually seem to exist at all (Cassandra’s Dream).

In short (too late!) his films come with a lot of history and even more baggage.

His latest, Café Society, begins with very little literal baggage as a young optimistic man named Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) leaves New York for Hollywood for reasons that don’t extend much beyond “trying something new.” [More...]

Click to read more ...

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?

Thoughts I Had... The "Cafe Society" Poster

Look at this amazing poster for Woody Allen's Cafe Society (2016). The film will open the Cannes Film Festival and also, a little closer to home, the Seattle Film Festival this May. It will play near you this August as counterprogramming to Suicide Squad and Pete's Dragon.

After the jump, thoughts I had as they came to me unedited. Share yours, too, why don'cha...

Click to read more ...

Misc: Silly Villains, Prequel Genies, Naughty Droids, Creepy Dolls

AV Club Parker Posey cast in Woody Allen's next film. Here's hoping she can graduate to lead muse
Variety Miramax and its 700 film library (all of which were Oscar nominated in the 1990s*) are for sale. Potential buyers balking at the $1 billion price tag.
Guardian Emma Stone on being "the butt of jokes" and learning about whitewashing in Hollywood through that Aloha fiasco of hers

 

Empire Aladdin added to Disney's growing 'let's make live-action movies based on our animated library' list
Joanna Robinson ...offered my favorite response to this 
Variety Julianne Moore leaves Nicole Holofcener's Can You Ever Forgive Me? - replacement seeking commence (10 bucks on Catherine Keener cuz that's how Holofcener do)
Coming Soon David Gordon Green will direct a Boston Marathon bombing related film with the extremely generic title of Stronger
Harpy annoys me with this article asking us to excuse bad character design in X-Men movies if the movie turns out OK. Let's not lower our standards shall we? 
The Wrap Star Wars unhappy with Amy Schumer's risqué GQ photoshoot 
Screencrush realizes that every Marvel villain is essentially the same guy 
Salon has Hollywood reached a tipping point with sexism? More and more A listers speaking out

Long Read
This piece from The Telegraph won a lot of online attention. It looks back at the then unique Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) and how the filmmakers (Kerry Conran and Kevin Conran) were immediately forgotten by Hollywood despite their process becoming enormously influential.

...and ICYMI Tim's Toons also revisited this Visual FX landmark last year for its 10th anniversary

Off Screen
The Cut "what open marriage taught one man about feminism" - I would argue that this is not about feminism at all BUT it is about one couple's complicated relationship and it's interesting to hear intimate things about people's private lives that you're not usually privvy to. What's even more fascinating (if depressing / expected) is how defensive and hateful the comments are. People just can't handle anything that challenges the norm without excessive judgement - it terrifies them, they lash out. We've seen this over and over with every social battle... and also with every argument about what "marriage" means. Marriage has such a fraught complicated evolving history in legal, political, sexual, religious terms that it's hilarious that conservatives are always claiming that it's this great unchanging sacred monolith since the days of Adam & Eve. 
Smithsonian has a history of creepy dolls
The Verge 'the trolls are winning the internet' - you don't know how often I'm grateful to most of you in our comparatively pleasant comments here at TFE
Pajiba asks that you stop writing, reading, publishing thinkpieces if the people writing them have not seen the thing they are writing about (it's an epidemic, really in this clickbait era) 

*I'm kidding but it feels true.