Homecoming: Season 1

By Spencer Coile 

With the recent wave of bona fide movie stars making their way to television, it should come as no surprise that someone as prolific as Julia Roberts would do the same. Her extensive career has proven time and again that she can master multiple genres, complex characters, and still be the best part of any ensemble (looking at you, August: Osage County).

That is what makes her performance in Homecoming, the latest Amazon Prime series from Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, all the more exciting. Based on the popular podcast that came before it, Roberts takes on the role of Heidi Bergman, previously played by Catherine Keener. Working for the Homecoming Transitional Support Center, Heidi’s job is to assimilate soldiers back into civilian life. However, unease and intrigue begins to set in, as Heidi soon realizes that her role is more sinister than she had initially thought...

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Ladies Love Cool De Palma

by Jason Adams

It's the 78th birthday of the director slash living legend Brian De Palma today. Did everybody watch Noah Baumbach & Jake Paltrow's 2015 documentary aka an excuse to listen to Brian De Palma tell movie stories for two hours? I've watched it four times now and I'm still nowhere near sick of it - I wish they'd just release the hundreds of hours of raw footage they took so I can just wade in there and never come back again.

Anyway I decided that the best way to celebrate one of my favorite movie-makers today (as he prepares to maybe make a Harvey Weinstein movie next, a real tighrope of a proposition there) is to celebrate a few of the great roles he's given actresses over the years. Here are five favorites (well technically six but you can't make me choose between the first two) -- feel free to add your own in the comments!

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TIFF Review: "The Old Man and The Gun"

by Chris Feil

David Lowery has already proven a difficult director to pin down easily, giving us film’s as divergent as Aint The Bodies Saints, Pete’s Dragon, and A Ghost Story. His newest film, The Old Man and the Gun, fills some of the spaces between those, and a clearer directorial voice is beginning to take shape. Lowery’s films want to immerse us in a feeling, to mire over circumstances that have inevitable ends we fight against. And this time, his film also pointedly faces its own metafictional end by showcasing what is to be the final performance of Robert Redford as a con man refusing to give up the habitual ghost of robbing banks.

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What did you see over the weekend?

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office Estimates (August 24-26)
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide
1. CRAZY RICH ASIANS  $25 (cum. $76.8)  Review, Michelle Yeoh	1. 🔺 PAPILLON $1.1 on 544 screens *NEW*

2. THE MEG $13 (cum. $105.3)  Review	2. 🔺  PUZZLE $372k on 265 screens (cum. $1.2)

3. 🔺 HAPPYTIME MURDERS $10 *NEW*	3. 🔺 SEARCHING $360k on 9 screens *NEW*

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All Sissy, All the Time

by Eric Blume

From now until the end of the year, we will very surprisingly (and pleasantly!) get several doses of the great Sissy Spacek.  She's currently part of the cast of Hulu's Castle Rock, which brings her back to Stephen King territory three decades after her virtuoso performance in Carrie.  You can also find her in the trailer for the upcoming fall release The Old Man & The Gun opposite Robert Redford, and she'll play Julia Roberts' mom (!) in the November 2nd debut of the new Amazon series Homecoming.  That's a lot of work for the 68-year-old Oscar-winning actress, and it's marvelous to see her still getting roles in such large-scale projects...

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