Oceans 8. Links 16

• Variety we now have seven of the names for the Oceans Eight gender flipped movie: Blanchett, Bullock, Hathaway, Bonham Carter, Kaling, and two musicians who moonlight as actors Rihanna and Awkwafina 
• NYFF the 54th annual festival has released the main slate titles - Opening Night: The 13th (Ava Duvernay); Centerpiece: 20th Century Women (Mike Mills); Closing Night: The Lost City of Z (James Gray); plus their usual array of buzzy titles from other festivals only this time there are a lot of female leads (which is a huge change) including Aquarius, Toni Erdmann, Personal Shopper, and an Isabelle Huppert double in L'Avenir and Elle.
• Pajiba debates Suicide Squad's interpretation of Harley Quinn
• Variety a new lawsuit about Out of Africa's profits. That's timely! (People forget that it was a giant hit at the time)
• Deadline David O. Russell pitching a TV series with Robert De Niro & Julianne Moore. What the what now?

 

• Variety FX executive on Peak TV, Netflix and when the "Peak TV" bubble will burst
• Vulture Matt Zoller Seitz on the problems with serial-dramas on TV right now -- the model is shifting yet again
• Pride Source Meryl Streep talks her discomfort being imitated (!), Florence Foster Jenkins, sequels, and her connections to the LGBT community 
• IndieWire Greta Gerwig writing another screen version of Little Women - we get one every generation it seems
• /Film a Ghostbusters sequel with the ladies seems unlikely as the film will record a theatrical loss due to that ginormous budget
• Comics Alliance breaks down the Luke Cage trailer
• i09 Black Manta will be the villain in Aquaman 

Off Screen
• Playbill Tony Danza names his favorite stage performances. Somewhat surprising but cool list featuring Mare Winningham, Mark Rylance, Faith Prince and more...
• GQ "Stop trying to get perfect abs." Love this -  Define your personality instead.  
• The Adequate Man "Steve Martin is My Body Icon" on looking like the same exact person for ages 

Today's Must Read
Todd VanDerWerff has a gorgeous personal essay up on Vox called "Hamilton isn't perfect. But it's *perfect." I couldn't write for a month after I saw it". That's a mouthful but cozy up and be moved. It's on seeing Hamilton, the power of who is telling your story, and Todd's birth parents. 

Method Linking

The Matinee on the trouble with "classics" and drawing timelines in the sand
Kenneth in the (212) the Mommie Dearest mansion is on the market
The Stake on why blockbuster franchises are all boring now. Even the good ones
National Post pop culture power rankings best and worst in method acting from Daniel Day Lewis to Jared Leto
Uproxx movies have sucked this summer - well, the big ones have. Lots of goodies in limited release 

MNPP * NSFW* Orlando Bloom made the internet all sweaty with his nude paddleboarding adventure 
MNPP I love the "Siri Says" series Jason does. She picks a number, he delivers his favorite films from that year. 
Variety Maya Rudolph to co-star in Melissa McCarthy's Life of the Party (2018)
The Tracking Board Hollywood is planning to remake Mexico's Miss Bala (sigh). Good luck finding a lead to match Stephanie Sigman in the 2011 original
Coming Soon Angelina Jolie has opted not to take the lead role in Murder on the Orient Express. Charlize Theron is the new possibility. And ICYMI...
TFE... we held a Cast This about the other roles in that remake recently.
Film Stage new Antonio Banderas movie is coming called Finding Altamira. I hadn't heard of this but it's directed by Hugh Hudson who I've suddenly realized is still alive. He hasn't made a movie in 16 years. I was just watching his Greystoke movie the other day
AV Club Antonio Sabato Jr hilarious thinks his career is over because of his support of Trump. Oh babe, it's been over for a long time. That's like blaming Obama for the death of Captain Khan who died four years before he was in offic-- oh wait.
Esquire In case you had forgotten that Clint Eastwood is an old guard conservative/misogynist, they have a new interview he does in tandem with his son Scott in which he uses "pussy" as a pejorative, disses Hillary and Obama, and tries that old chestnust "both sides" argument about Trump's behavior. Nope. Sorry Clint. Only one party tries to motivate voters with bigotry. (He also talks movies and at least he loves Sunset Blvd so he's not 100% a terrible person.)
Women and Hollywood Ava Duvernay to become the first black woman to helm a $100 million budgeted film with A Wrinkle in Time - this is news because she's quite successful already and men with a lot less success have been handed blockbuster budgets often. Crossing our fingers that it's a financial and artistic success! 

Dunkirk Teaser
Here's the very quick new tease for Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk which seems certain to net him that Best Director nomination that's eluded him so long if it's any good at all, it being a WW II movie and him being "overdue" and such. And he knows how to direct spectacle films after all.

Off Cinema
Buzz Feed "every time President Obama lost his chill around kids" if you need something adorable to look at
The Guardian Leonardo DiCaprio is "with her". He's hosting a $33,400 a plate fundraiser
The Daily Good Yes the media does play favorites in politics, but as this study shows, it isn't the people complaining about it who are getting the unfavorable treatment 

Pete's Dragon - 1977 and Now

Our year of the month is 1977! Here's Chris looking back on Pete's Dragon...

As Disney has been increasingly revisiting their classics in live action, big budget form, the resulting films have revealed the evolution of family storytelling over the decades. Cinderella showed an increased emphasis on character, while this year's The Jungle Book was an example of the shift towards realism even in fantastical, unrealistic settings. While these rehashings are becoming old hat already, one of the most exciting films still to come this summer is the remake of 1977's Pete's Dragon.

The recent Disney revamps have extrapolated upon or directly lifted from their original source films, but the first glimpses of Pete's Dragon have already revealed a sharp turn in tone. Again, they are trading in a more modestly minded lark for larger spectacle. If nothing else, the creation of the dragon Elliott embodies the shift from traditional animation to digital imagery.

Rewatching the original is almost a shock as an adult - it's far more absurd and loose than you might remember...

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Review: Ghostbusters (2016)

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

Remember when Sony rebooted Sam Raimi’s take on Spider-Man (2002) with The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)? Their whole conceit at the time appeared to be “What if you didn’t know the story?” so they just told it again. Only everyone actually did know the story. The result was an instantly forgettable retread, useless but for the printing of money. While that may have been the whole point, it left a lousy corporate aftertaste. It took the world gargling with some Marvel Studios mouthwash (aka Captain America: Civil War) to make people excited about Spidey again.

The good news is that the mega corporation appears to have learned from their mistakes. Ghostbusters NOW does not moronically assume you don’t know Ghostbusters THEN. Sure, it’s the same story again — the Ghostbusters set up shop, refine technobabble gadgets, fight against a supernatural invasion of New York and the bureaucrats that get in their way — but writer/director Paul Feig and his cowriter Katie Dippold (who wrote The Heat together) have correctly guessed that the fun of the movie will be in the makeover. 

the ladies fighting the (undead) patriarchy

The story gets a new look, freshened up details, and most famously, four female Ghostbusters and a male receptionist in place of the original’s four men and a female receptionist; that gender inversion proved more revolutionary that any rational human might have expected because a lot of manbabies have been freaking out on the internet ever since...

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Who should join Angelina Jolie in the Murder Cast?

Murtada here. Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is being remade by Kenneth Branagh. He will direct and play the lead part of Belgian detective Hercule Poirot who’s investigating a murder that happens on the famous train as it is making its way across Europe. The novel has been adapted several times, most famously into an Oscar winning film in 1974 by Sidney Lumet and an all star cast, led by Albert Finney as Poirot. Angelina Jolie was announced as Mrs Hubbard, an American loquacious socialite, played in 1974 version by Lauren Bacall. It’s good casting as the part calls a star with lots of presence.

Even though I haven’t read the Christie novel, I have seen the movie version and a 2010 British TV version with Jessica Chastain right before she hit it big. The story lends itself to an all star cast as basically every character gets an intro, one big scene and gets to participate in the finale. And everyone has a secret of course so the parts are juicy and fun and not too taxing on the actors. Hopefully lots of entertaining actors will sign up.

Who would you cast? Our suggestions for some of the characters after the jump...

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