One Link at a Time

The Pool the shelf life of 'the cool girl' is getting shorter. Which actresses will we be told to hate in 2017?
Variety a depressing report about which future movies are being talked about the most on social media. Cars 3 is number 2? Gross
Screencrush here's to the behind the scenes administrators and shooting schedule people. This is hard work. Consider that Doctor Strange is absent for ALL scenes which involve Doctor Strange in Avengers Infinity War (now filming)
The Guardian... is disturbed by this as we all should be. Especially with "ghosting" happening via Rogue One

Variety yet another award for Isabelle Huppert -- this time in Paris. (Speaking of -- I'm so excited to see how Elle and Things to Come fare at the Césars. Those nominations are Jan 25th)
Page Six Are Kiki Dunst and Jesse Plemons engaged now? Fargo brings people together
MNPP Which is hotter "The Rock" or "The Slab" in Baywatch
The Retro Set looks back at Russia House (1990)
Vulture Ben Affleck was embarassed by his love scene in Live by Night so he cut it. He has been so depressed lately, people. What is up with the glum face. It's been since, what, Gone Girl? (Or was it before that?) 
Awards Daily Sasha's favorites of the year 
MCN David Poland's 15 most underrated films of the year from Deadpool (wha--- that seems overrated which is the opposite) to The BFG and Pete's Dragon 

Long Reads
The Hairpin Hitchcock's legacy of possession in Marnie, Vertigo... It affects even our language
Bright Wall Dark Room is Robert Eggers the next great filmmaker? (The Witch which has been mistreated this awards season.)
The Tracking Board examines what went wrong with The Founder's release 

Stage
Guardian La La Land considering stage version
Playbill We knew they were remaking the Murder on the Orient Express movie to be released this year. It's also coming to the stage.
Playbill Nicole Kidman nixes plan to take Photograph 51 to Broadway 

Best of Year: Nathaniel's Top Ten

We've reached the end of our Year in Review List Making if not the end of the year in review list making -- wait wha?!. Which is to say that we still have our own awards nominations (both Oscar and fun extras) in some 40 categories to come. That's right. It's time for the annual Film Bitch Award Nominations -- our 17th annual prizes (gulp) -- which begin with the age-old tradition of the top ten list.

But first...

HONORABLE MENTION

If The Salesman borrows too liberally from Asghar Farhadi's masterpiece A Separation so be it (let's face it -- all the great auteurs steal from themselves. This is how we recognize their films). It's a riveting drama exposed by destabilizing cracks in the foundations.

Sing Street was the year's most rewarding nostalgia piece causing flashbacks of teenage identity experiments and that usually short lived  'i could be a pop star!' phase. And what a fantastically fresh cast.

Viggo Mortensen's uniquely out of place and time persona (think about it: he could be from any country or era) is a huge boon to the thought-provoking Captain Fantastic. Writer/director Matt Ross harnesses Viggo's energy for a head-first sprint into the woods of non-conformity but those idealogical woods thin out and soon enough we're face-to-face with reality.

The Fits' unique character as something of a mystical movement film had us levitating. Its hard-to-pin-down allegory wasn't so much tentative and amorphous as thrillingly ambiguous...

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Going Crazy and Coping With 2016 Films

Year in Review. Every afternoon, a new wrap-up. Today Chris on films that represented the tumultuous year...

It's a comfort to know that even in no-good-horrible-very-bad years such as this that the movies will always be there to sustain us. However this year the movies seemed to reflect our troubled times right back at us - from racial divides in Zootopia to global communication breakdowns in Arrival. But these very films that embodied the awful also provided us with ways to cope with the ceaseless catastrophe that was 2016.

It should come as no surprise to have more than one horror film on such a list, but let's look at some examples...

The Witch
The Crazy: Look what nightmares can be wrought from living in a bubble, even a self-induced one. Is this even our reality or just perception?
How to Cope: Go join that coven! You go. You got this, girl!

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Toronto Critics Prizes

Toronto Film Critics Association, our friends to the North established back in 1997, stuck with their Southern neighbors in embracing Moonlight and Manchester (2 prizes each) and the folks cross the ocean in loving all over Toni Erdmann (3 prizes). Their full list is after the jump and we're so glad The VVitch was finally honored. It took the home team (O Canada!) to finally get that done...

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Halfway Mark: Best Actressing of 2016 (Thus Far)

Previously at the Halfway Mark: 
• 5 Favorite Pictures and imaginary Oscar scenario
• 11 Costume Design Honors from couture to the puritanical with swimwear on the side
• Cinematography & Production Design Sunset Song, etc...
• Heroes & Villains from Deadpool to Shere Khan
• 23 Male Actor Honorees in 5 categories

Cue fireworks. It's the grand finale. Our brief Halfway Mark Review honoring the best of the 50+ movies we've seen that have been released between January 1st and June 30th, is now at its end. But don't worry. The listing impulse fully never goes away and there's more excitement soon as we'll start updating the Oscar charts tomorrow. Naturally we're ending with BEST ACTRESS if five categories -- the same categories we previously did for the men.

If I had a ballot (hey, I do... albeit not an AMPAS ballot) here's what I'd honor from the year thus far -- January through June releases only though I've seen some July & August titles. [Disclaimer: The most noticeably actress-led film I haven't yet seen this year is The Meddler so please dont read anything into the absence of Susan Sarandon.]

Best Actress in a Leading Role

• Sally Field as "Doris" in Hello My Name is Doris
  Doris is a CHARACTER but Sally never fails to humanize her written eccentricities making sure that she's the endearing source of the laughter rather than its target.  
• Tilda Swinton as "Marianne Lane" in A Bigger Splash
  The "vocal rest" was her idea -- imagine an actor purposefully losing all their lines! -- and the result is you see Tilda's face and body alone capturing and reflecting the drama and auteurist impulses
• Anya Taylor-Joy as "Thomasin" in The VVitch
  That angelic face is sensually attentive and her behavior innocent but mischievious. So many possible Masters (God, Lucifer, Herself, General Teen Hormones, and Restlessness)
• Rachel Weisz as "Short Sighted Woman" The Lobster
  What a tricky tone to master, but she's in control. Her voiceover is beautifully at odds with her meekly submissive than overtly romantic screen self
• Mary Elizabeth Winstead as "Michelle" in 10 Cloverfield Lane
  Sells shifting (dis)belief in this strange new reality while doing right by primal horror. Nails the only real in-script details about this character -- whip-smart instincts and a "Flight or Flight" response

Choices in 4 more categories after the jump...

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