Vintage '91

The Supporting Actress Smackdown of 1991 is just a week away so get your votes in! Before we get there it's time for more context of that year in showbiz history. Ready? 

 

Great Big Box Office Hits:
The year's biggest hit by an enormous margin was James Cameron's Terminator 2 Judgment Day (which has aged spectacularly well). The other major blockbusters were Kevin Costner's hit Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and Steven Spielberg's Hook. The big sleeper hit of the year was The Silence of the Lambs. Other hits that year included City Slickers, Backdraft, Sleeping With the Enemy, The Addams Family and the remakes of Father of the Bride and Cape Fear.

Oscar's Best Picture Nominees: 
Most people remember 1991 as the year of Silence of the Lambs (7 noms / 5 wins) but many Oscar fanatics remember it just as clearly for another milestone...

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Yes No Maybe So: Terminator Dark Fate

by Jason Adams

The longest time to pass between Terminator movies was twelve years, from James Cameron's action masterpiece T2 in 1991 to Jonathan Mostow's shoddy Rise of the Machines in 2003. Since then, even though they continually struggle to find and resituate their stories and main characters, it's been five to six years from film to film, taking us from Salvation to Genisys and to now, as of this fall, we'll have Dark Fate. Which, it must be said, finally brings the great Linda Hamilton and her iconic Sarah Connor character back for the first time since 1991.

Today they've just released the first fairly loaded teaser trailer for the film -- so let's take a look...

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Netflix December: Mowgli, Dumplin', and The Lobster

A belated Streaming Roulette. We forgot to share Netflix's new offerings so here we are a week late, surveying new titles by freeze framing films at random places with the scroll bar and whatever comes up first, that's what we share. No cheating.  Whats new on Netflix? Let's see...

I killed your brother.

The Lobster (2015/2016)
"Heartless Woman" absolutely upset me in this movie... but I love the rest of the movie (including that nobody has a name except the main character) which made my top ten list in its year. The Favourite is my new favorite Yorgos Lanthimos now, though. Which is your favorite of his merciless and haunting but sometimes indelibly funny movies: Dogtooth, Alps, The Lobster, Killing of a Sacred Deer, or The Favourite?

Related: Remember that great piece Daniel Walber wrote about The Lobster's phony flowers and production design.

[whispering in foreign languages]

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I'll link you again in 25 years...

Cartoon Brew utterly savage (but 100% correct) on the Emoji Movie trailer
LA Review of Books on Netflix's Sense8 as metaphor for Netflix is. (I have no idea
why a book site is  reviewing this but the piece is absolutely terrific)
LA Times talks to Robin Swicord, only now with a second feature (Wakefield) long after the success of The Jane Austen Book Club. Her debut was profitable (always Hollywood's end goal) but Hollywood wouldn't hire her to direct? We've heard this story all too often!

Screen Daily in terrible terrible news they're still not going to let the once genius but totally played out Terminator franchise die and Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron plan to be involved in the next one. Doesn't anyone in Hollywood want to do something original even more? It's not like Cameron couldn't get funding for literally ANYTHING he wanted to do. (sigh)
Film School Rejects on Disney's self cannabilization and the particular folly of trying it with Fantasia
Variety TV is invading Cannes with many auteurs now doing both
Vulture Tilda Swinton and Steven Yeun on making art in the new impossible-to-avoid-politics era
AV Club Janelle Monáe and Leslie Mann are joining Steve Carell in Robert Zemeckis's next film
MNPP Tom Hardy to play Spider-Man villain Venom in a standalone film
Jezebel the only reporting on the Roseanne revival which includes Luis Buñuel asides
Cinematic Corner visual parallels between Logan and Mad Max: Fury Road
Hugh Jackman 'see you soon Japan' - he's still on his Logan promo tour!
Out people are still shook about that shocking Drag Race elimination. (I rewatched it and it's astonishing how furious you can tell RuPaul is at Valentina for making her job so difficult)

Just For Fun
My Giant Nerd Boyfriend "Horror Movies" (I'm absolutely in love with this webcomic about this Asian girl with a super tall boyfriend)
Cards Against Humanity - cool story from the Emerald City comic con floor

Sage Advice
Daily Actor "18 Ways to Self-Tape Like a Pro" - smart ideas here about self-taped auditions (which are increasingly popular

Twin Peaks is here!
Twin Peaks Season 3 begins today so it's probably a good idea to reacquaint yourself with the previous two seasons and Fire Walk With Me. If you don't have time to rewatch them (*raises own hand in solidarity*) there are articles around to jog your memory. Unicorn Booty recaps where several storylines left off at the end of Season 2, and K Austin Allen of The Ringer takes a deep dive into the movie prequel that was honestly kind of reviled back in 1992 but has since grown rather beloved amongst Lynch fans and cinephiles. Perfect anecdotal evidence from my own life: my best friend who was an absolute Twin Peaks nut in the 90s and then hated Fire Walk With Me which we saw together in 1992. I saw him yesterday -- he had just rewatched it was like 'Have you ever watched Fire Walk With Me again? I remember hating it, somehow, but it's incredible!'

There Will Be Link

Storify okay, this woman Nancy Wake needs a biopic. Amazing WW II story
Coming Soon production has started on Can You Ever Forgive Me, which sounds like an interesting vehicle for Melissa McCarthy to show her range. She'll play a celebrity biographer who made her name in the 70s and 80s but resorts to deception when her career tanks. It's directed by Marielle Heller who was behind Diary of a Teenage Girl
Vulture Which Sundance debuts will be Oscar contenders this time next year? 
Comics Alliance Aubrey Joseph and Olivia Holt have been cast in the TV adaptation of the superhero comic Cloak & Dagger

 

Cigarettes & Red Vines photos from the set of Paul Thomas Anderson's new movie which stars Daniel Day Lewis but has no title as of yet
Variety Remember when Viola Davis played best friend to Julia Roberts in a thankless part in Eat Pray Love? They'll co-star again in Small Great Things, a racially charged drama about a nurse who is sued by a white supremacist couple.
/Film James Cameron gets the rights to Terminator back soon and the franchise will be revived. AGAIN.
EW The Schuyler Sisters from Hamilton will perform at the Superbowl! 
Slate A tribute to Mary Tyler Moore's feminist influence
Vice So as it turns out the Kevin Costner character in Hidden Figures was made into more of a 'white savior' in the narrative then he was in the real life story. 
Playbill Clive Owen will return to Broadway in a revival of M. Butterfly - no word yet on who'll play the Chinese opera singer he doesn't realize is a man despite a long affair. B.D. Wong who works frequently on television these days instead of the stage won the Tony as the opera singer in the original production with John Lithgow originating the lead role that Clive Owen will now play
Jezebel on Ryan Gosling's cooking in La La Land
Interview has a gallery of the rising stars from Sundance 2017 
Towleroad new clip from Call Me By Your Name in which Armie Hammer tries to massage the tension out of Timothee Chalamet