Podcast: My Cousin Wonder Woman, The Beguiled

Well, that was quite a hiatus. The podcast is back though we might be a bit slow to rev up to weekly again and please excuse all our airconditioners and fans running in the background. We're melting here in NYC.

In this episode Nathaniel reunites with Joe and Nick to catch up and talk five newish movies.

Index (40 minutes)
00:01 "What's this lady for?" (Part 1)
02:20 The Beguiled
08:25 My Cousin Rachel
13:50 Wonder Woman
29:30 Beatriz at Dinner
33:30 It Comes at Night (*spoilers*)
37:45 "What's this lady for?" (Part 2)

Best Question I've ever been asked by a 3 1/2 year-old: "What's this lady for?" Where to even begin? #nicolekidman #babysitting #guncle

A post shared by Nathaniel R (@nathaniel_tfe) on Jun 24, 2017 at 9:14pm PDT

 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. 

Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

My Cousin Wonder Woman

The Linkage

IndieWire takes the Verge to task for publishing a pro-torrent essay on Expendables 3
Nicks Flick Picks Nick & Joe Reid are doing Nick's trademark halfway'ish "Fifties" thing (which starts as soon as Nick has hit 50 movies in any given year. Delicious smart writeups on editing, screenplays, supporting actors and more
Comics Alliance the internet is all excited about this old test footage for that Deadpool movie that's not going to happen for some reason. Starring Ryan Reynolds.

Lincoln Center standby only for the John Waters and Isabelle Huppert event tonight. I'm sure the Q&A will be great but I didn't like that movie Abuse of Weakness much (my review)
CNN Money spends a day with a working Broadway actress
Newsweek explains the recent Buzzfeed scandal in the only way anyone should... through gifs of Shattered Glass
The Daily Beast has a great Susan Sarandon interview icymi where she talks David Bowie, drugs, politics and age discrepancies on film 
Variety Jessica Lange to be honored at the Santa Barbara Fest this year
MNPP who wore it best: Tom Hardy face masks
The Guardian the changing demographic of the movie audience that Hollywood is still ignoring in their quest for young white male dollars
AJ Bowen declares Melanie Lynskey the best actor of his generation 
Slate has an interesting review of two new sitcoms, one starring Judy Greer called Married 

Post Script
Remember The Village (2004)? It turns 10 years old today.

I remember so little about it but ten years turns out to be a long time. Back then people were still excited by the phrase "an M Night Shyamalan film," Joaquin Phoenix wasn't yet a Hallowed Serious Thespian (despite already being an Oscar nominee) and everyone thought Bryce Dallas Howard was THE FUTURE. How foolish we all were in 2004! Okay I remember a smidge more: people loved the score;  the colors red and yellow meant Something Significant (I enjoy my colorology); Sigourney Weaver and William Hurt were in it playing vaguely sinister intimidating stern "elders" - you know how they do for paychecks.

Do you have less vague memories of this one?

The Decline and Fall of M. Night Shyamalan

Hi, Tim here. This weekend sees the release of After Earth, the latest of 2013’s surprisingly well-stocked slate of post-apocalyptic sci-fi thrillers, starring Will and Jaden Smith. These are all things that are proudly trumpeted by the ad campaign. What is conspicuously not trumpeted, proudly or otherwise, is the identity of the film’s director M. Night Shyamalan, who for the first time since his gigantic 1999 breakthrough The Sixth Sense is not mentioned by name in the ad campaign for his latest feature.

This is, undoubtedly, because Shyamalan been steadily pissing away audience goodwill almost since the moment he started earning it, with each new film he’s made being widely regarded as worse than the one preceding it (a steady downward trend on Metacritic, down with just a single blip up on Rotten Tomatoes). With After Earth appearing to flatten or slightly reverse this trend, it’s as good a time as any to explore the exact shape of Shyamalan’s fall in such a relatively short time, trying to figure out exactly how the man anointed as “The Next Spielberg” at a tender age ended up becoming one of modern cinephilia’s greatest punchlines.

THE SIXTH SENSE (1999): Wunderkind

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