Newsletter Friday, August 26, 2016

[LaineyGossip.com - Calling all smuthounds!] Friday, August 26, 2016 [Intro for August 26, 2016] [Beyonce performs onstage at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on August 28, 2011 in Los Angeles, CA] Dear Gossips, You excited for the VMAs? I am. According to The New York Times, the VMAs might be extra special this year because [Music Videos Matter Again]. For me though, this year, I’m excited about the women. More often than not, if it’s a good VMAs, Beyoncé is involved. When she went solo with her first album? Dangerously In Love dropped in June 2003. Two months later she came out upside down and gave us Baby Boy and Crazy In Love at the VMAs. Remember when she mic-dropped her pregnancy? VMAs. When “Imma let you finish”? VMAs. And Beyoncé’s Vanguard acceptance performance? VMAs, obviously. The Vanguard Award this year is going to Rihanna who first performed at the VMAs in 2008 with Disturbia and that iconic short haircut. More on Rihanna later today. Britney Spears’s career is also all tied up in the VMAs. And Britney will return to the VMAs on Sunday to hype the release of her new album Glory. Of course, Adele will be there too, as Hello is nominated for Video of the Year. So. Question: is it the women who make the VMAs? Not just lately but since Janet Jackson and Madonna, it’s the women who take the VMAs to the next level, non? Enjoy the VMAs. I’ll be live-tweeting and we’ll have full coverage starting early, early, early Monday morning. Have a great weekend! Yours in gossip, Lainey [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 2:02 PM [Pete’s Dragon: a reason to go to the movies] So far, it’s been kind of a sh*t year for film. The highlights have been incredibly high (Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Green Room, Swiss Army Man, Captain America: Civil War), but they’re vastly outnumbered by a slew of utter dreck, and more than once this year, I’ve had to force myself to go see a movie while feeling like I simply couldn’t sit through two more hours of garbage when I could be doing something else with my time, like punching myself in the face repeatedly. One area of film that hasn’t had its lips fastened to Satan’s asshole, though, is children’s cinema, which has produced a number of above-average movies so far this year. Even so, I wasn’t super enthusiastic about going to see Pete’s Dragon. But I sucked it up and went, and by the time it was over it was like I was emerging from a healing spring of magic water. Pete’s Dragon is the latest of Disney’s modern reboots to its animated film catalogue, and here is a movie that is ripe for such an undertaking. The 1977 movie is indefensibly bad, a blatant Jungle Book knock-off for the acid era, with its pink-haired hippie dragon. The modern version, ushered to screen by David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints), gets rid of pretty much everything from the original, except the idea of a boy and his dragon. The boy is the eponymous Pete, left stranded in the primeval forest of the Pacific Northwest after his parents die in a car accident. That sequence is equal parts beautiful and devastating, and will probably stick with kids who see it the same way Bambi’s mom does. Pete names his dragon friend Elliot, and the film revels in their relationship, showing Pete and Elliot going about their business in the forest, and flying, so much wonderful flying. This film owes a lot to another dragon movie, How to Train Your Dragon, but another great touchstone is The Black Stallion, the gold standard of “kid and animal pal” movies. And like The Black Stallion, Pete’s Dragon is so gorgeously made that the cinema-curious child can spend hours re-watching, pulling apart shots and music choices and learning how visuals can tell a story. There’s not a whole lot going on, story-wise, and compared to the current trend of busy and overstuffed kids’ movies—looking at you, Dory—Dragon can feel like a bit of a lightweight. But Lowery’s choice to keep it simple means we have time to really appreciate each moment as it comes, and to study the world of Pete and Elliot, which, barring Elliot’s presence, is just a beautiful old forest. Pete’s Dragon works as a conservation allegory, showing the forest as a place of worthy of preservation for all the magic and wonder it holds. It works ten times better than Avatar because we actually care about Elliot, who is a fully functional character and not a blue hole where a character was supposed to be. Elliot is an unbelievable piece of special effects—rendered by Weta Digital—who is as photo-real as any of the animals from The Jungle Book. For some reason he’s furry, not scaly, but that fur is so textured and dynamic it’s tangible, and his face is incredibly expressive. Young actor Oakes Fegley—that NAME—is working the “Jacob Tremblay Precocious Long-Haired Child” thing pretty well, and [Bryce Dallas Howard], [Robert Redford], and [Wes Bentley] get it done playing sympathetic adults. [Karl Urban] is a little out of place as the “bad guy”, Gavin, who swings between torch-bearing Gaston and just like, a dude who wants to run his business effectively. He’s just a little too intense—there’s a chase sequence that might be a bit much for smaller kids—and the film can’t decide if Gavin is an actual, money-grubbing villain, or just an enthusiastic lumberjack. Though it doesn’t define its era, based on the fashion and lack of certain technology, Pete’s Dragon seems to be set sometime in the 1970s/80s. Earlier this summer Stranger Things went to the same time period, and it bashed us over our heads with homages and references, and leaned too hard on nostalgia to replicate emotion. (Be honest, did you actually care about Will in the Upside Down? Or did you just care that the show reminded you of It?) While Dragon certainly has a Spielbergian flavor, Lowery doesn’t bother much with direct references or homages, so it stands completely on its own, a compliment and not a copycat. This is gentle film about kindness and friendship, with gorgeous visuals and warm, likeable characters. Pete’s Dragon is wonderful, and is every reason we go to the movies in the first place. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 7:54 PM [Smutty Social Media, August 26, 2016] Shawn Mendes gave an interview to Billboard and is claiming he was misquoted about his fans not knowing him. I want to shake these young popstars and tell them not to pander to their fandoms. It’s OK if they don’t “know” you. You can love and appreciate your fans without giving them your soul. Because they will eat it. Just ask Bieber. I explained how im growing up and so are you guys and how it takes time for you all to fully understand me and me to understand you — Shawn Mendes (@ShawnMendes) [August 25, 2016] Ryan Reynolds put some effort into this joke and googled other celebs with the same birthday. Just want to wish Billy Ray Cyrus the most special, magical birthday ever. I love you with all my heart. Also, Happy Birthday to my wife. — Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) [August 25, 2016] If I don’t get a food order in before a second round of drinks I can’t focus. “Yes of course I want to talk about your Tinder dates for two hours but can we order some appetizers first?” It probably seems like I'm listening to your story, but I'm really thinking, "close your fucking menu or the waiter will never come over." — Alex Baze (@bazecraze) [August 26, 2016] “Margot Robbie Holds a Hedgehog” is going to be the title of her new [Vanity Fair profile]. And then it will be 1500 words on the light catching her eyelashes or the curve of her top lip, or whatever the writer gets obsessed about. [Hedgehog cafe in #tokyo 🇯🇵] A photo posted by @margotrobbie on Aug 26, 2016 at 4:57am PDT Goddamn Patrick Dempsey has great hair. [On set hair touch up by Talula] A photo posted by Patrick Dempsey (@patrickdempsey) on Aug 25, 2016 at 4:47pm PDT Nick Kroll has designed a shoe. If he writes a blog post about packing lunches in mason jars he could get a celebrity lifestyle expert feature on PEOPLE. [I designed a signature shoe for @epaulet as I continue my journey in becoming a hip hop mogul. More info here: A photo posted by Nick Kroll (@nickkroll) on Aug 25, 2016 at 12:58pm PDT Alex Pettyfer is on vacation and being real subtle about it. [Postcard #piratesofthecaribbean #atlantisbahamas #bahamas @atlantisresort #thecoveatlantis] A photo posted by Alex Pettyfer (@alexpettyfer) on Aug 25, 2016 at 10:20am PDT The green jacket is amazing, the white shoes are great, but Solange’s wide leg leather pants are next level. Part of what makes them so special is that so few can pull them off. She, obviously, is one of the few. One of the reasons I so enjoy her styling choices is because they are inimitable – if I wore this I would look like a clown. [💚 #sidewalkspotted w @michaelkors and @tommyton 💚] A photo posted by Solange (@saintrecords) on Aug 25, 2016 at 1:12pm PDT It’s been a sh-t week for women on the internet, but you know who hasn’t had a sh-t week? Wendi Deng. She is sitting up in a penthouse somewhere – or maybe she’s on a yacht –toying with her rich and powerful friends like she’s making moves on a chess board. What a f-cking boss. To take you into the weekend: an ode to Wendi. Wendi you absolute legend. You mythical beast. [ [pic.twitter.com/O7ombqkxEE] — The Hairpin (@thehairpin) [August 25, 2016] [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 7:38 PM [Britney’s Glory weekend] [Britney Spears and James Corden] Britney’s new album, Glory, dropped today. Last night she was on Carpool Karaoke with James Corden. Those hits, they stand up, don’t they? I will never not love the line, “that is just so typically me”. Ever. A few years ago, as you know, this would not have been possible. Over the last year or so, many have observed that Britney has been coming back to herself, that she has seemed more confident than she has in a long time. That the spark has been reignited. Is it the same though, or does the flame have a different shape? In the car with James Corden, you can definitely see more glimpses of that energy, of that “it” quality that made her an undeniable force in pop culture. It’s there when she makes a joke about her fake names when she checks into hotels. It’s there when she speaks candidly about wanting more children without the men, that she doesn’t believe in marriage anymore, it’s there when she tells James about the new trend in “tickling” – especially this part because when she’s speaking, it actually sounds like she’s relaxed, with friends, engaging in a casual, very natural, conversation. I had to watch that brief section several times. Because it amazed me to hear her converse so…normally. Even her tone of voice and her speech pattern changed. But these are flashes and they don’t last. Instead she alternates between those moments and that generic personality she puts on like a mask, as she’s learned, for self-preservation. This is the balance of being Britney. Britney is now 34 years old. Her life in fame has now matched her time pre-fame. And we’ve all seen her live in fame. Vox posted a piece yesterday positing that to understand Britney, [you need to understand her hair]. It’s a very thorough analysis. Britney’s hair, right now, well, it’s never been the best, but it’s not bad. It is, actually, maybe the most OK it’s been in years. And I’m expecting it to hold up well on Sunday, at the VMAs. Ahead of her highly anticipated performance, marking 15 years since Slave 4 U and the snake, Karen Kwak, the executive producer of Glory spoke to the [NY Post] about Britney’s commitment to this album and what I love about this quote is she’s all hard facts about Pretty Girls, Britney’s collaboration with Iggy Azalea – it was sh-t: Karen Kwak, the executive producer of “Glory,” came onboard after “Pretty Girls.” “[‘Pretty Girls’] wasn’t original,” she says. “Britney wanted to do things that were fresh and unexpected this time.” It shows in the album, with sexually themed songs, such as “Do You Wanna Come Over?” and “Clumsy,” and a variety of styles — dance-pop, R&B and even a track sung in French. “There was never a moment where she was given a song, and anybody said, ‘This is a hit. You have to sing it,’ ” adds Kwak. “Britney pursued the songs she wanted to do for herself. She came up with concepts and melodies. It’s her baby.” The regular Las Vegas shows have given Britney structure and helped put the mess behind her. “It’s like being an athlete. If you’re doing it that much, you’re getting yourself into shape,” says Kwak. “She was always ready to work during the album sessions, and it was very important to her to be done by a certain time so she could pick up her boys [Sean and Jayden] from school.” Karen Kwak seems to be a very positive influence on Britney’s life. She’s apparently one of the most talented music executives in the business. She [is credited] with putting Rihanna and Umbrella together, an Asian woman in a position of power in the industry. And perhaps she’ll have the magic with Britney. (Thanks Erin!) [I know, what's with the flowers? I think it's just summer and I'm absolutely obsessed with picking them out of my garden every year. This one is very special because my amazing A&R Karen played me my favorite song I wrote maybe 7 months ago and it reminded me of why I do what I do. It's art. It doesn't come easy but when it does it's pure magic!] A photo posted by Britney Spears (@britneyspears) on May 21, 2016 at 6:01pm PDT [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 5:41 PM [Amy Schumer, Again] [Amy Schumer out in New York, August 23, 2016] It’s been a rough couple of weeks for [Amy Schumer]. Just as her first book, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, was being released, a writer on Inside Amy Schumer, Kurt Metzger, went off on social media about rape survivors and rape culture. Schumer, as Metzger’s high-profile employer—or one of them—was bombarded with demands that she “do something” about Metzger. Her response has not been as strong or definitive as many would like. Indeed, it doesn’t seem anything at all has changed. Except, maybe, our perception of Amy Schumer. There’s a lot going on, though, so let’s break it down. It all started with the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York, and a comedian named Aaron Glaser. He was [accused] by several women of sexual assault and harassment, and UCB, after looking into it on their own—there was no formal criminal investigation, which will be a point dragged up later—decided to ban Glaser. UCB handled the matter internally, prioritized their community and the safety of its members, and that should have been the end of it. Enter Kurt Metzger. To the general public, he’s most visible as a writer and occasional performer on Inside Amy Schumer, but he also had a recurring role on Horace & Pete earlier this year (where I [singled him out] as the worst part of the worst part of the show). His Facebook is an absolute sh*tshow, but the gist of it is that if you don’t go to the police, your allegations of assault [don’t count], and he spent a lot of time mansplaining how women should react in the wake of an assault. He also added the good ole “some women lie about rape” jingle. He deleted a lot of his posts—to promote his podcast—but [Nikki Black] caught one of the real gems before it was gone: So that’s a mess. People started tweeting at Schumer pretty much immediately. (No one called out Louis CK, another high profile comedian who employs Metzger.) And Schumer, in return, started [blocking people] tweeting at her, including [Roxane Gay]. That’s when things started getting REALLY crazy, and Schumer’s feminist credentials were suddenly being audited. When she finally did respond, it didn’t help much. I am so saddened and disappointed in Kurt Metzger. He is my friend and a great writer and I couldn't be more against his recent actions. — Amy Schumer (@amyschumer) [August 17, 2016] I didn't fire Kurt. He isn't a writer for my show because we aren't making the show anymore. There are no writers for it. — Amy Schumer (@amyschumer) [August 18, 2016] And then she had to clarify that Inside Amy Schumer wasn’t cancelled, just on hiatus as she pursues other projects. (Inside head writer Jessi Klein is also promoting a [book] right now.) Then she talked about Metzger on Charlie Rose, and I’m not sure these comments really help all that much either. She continues to defend employing Metzger—remember, all this started when a comedy theater banned someone in order to create a safer community. Amy Schumer doesn’t “[check all the boxes]" as Lainey says, but she checks some of them. She checks more of them than a lot of comedians. And she shouldn’t have to be perfect, because demanding perfection is the first step to undermining. But women are still so underrepresented that someone with a profile like Schumer’s has to be all things to all women, because there’s no other comparable female voice to act as an alternative. That’s an untenable position to hold forever—eventually, you disappoint people because you CAN’T be all those things. But I wish that the safety of women and respect for their stories and experiences compelled her to action, and not just complacency. Because nothing has changed. She didn’t fire Metzger, and it’s not clear whether or not he’ll still be part of her writing staff whenever Inside returns. She basically just said, “Oh well, I told him to knock it off.” But telling a friend to knock it off is not the same thing as holding someone accountable for reprehensible language aimed at a vulnerable population. With position comes power, and with power comes responsibility. At a certain point, that responsibility becomes paramount. No one is saying Schumer has to stop being friends with Metzger. But her audience, who has given her the position and power, doesn’t want to support him, even by proxy of supporting her. We shouldn’t demand perfectionism, but we should demand that she should use her position and power responsibly. And the question is, then, how responsible is it to defend Metzger’s voice while silencing the women criticizing him? Things just keep coming up with Amy Schumer. Last year it was [plagiarism], this year it’s bad feminism, and the [weirdness] with Tig Notaro. The thing that sticks with me, time and again, is that Schumer’s problems are with other women. She’ll defend Kurt Metzger as a “great writer” whose voice is indispensable in her writer’s room, but she won’t defend the women he’s denigrating and demeaning. “I do believe feminists are in good hands with me,” she says. Are we, though? Attached - Schumer promoting her book in New York this week. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 5:28 PM [Kubo and the Two Strings: Who is watching this?] [Matthew McConaughey out in New York, August 16, 2016] The animation house Laika makes beautiful jewel-box movies, all done in distinctively macabre stop-motion animation, and even when their aesthetic leans into “ugly on purpose” territory—as in their two previous films, ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls—their films are visually stunning. Their latest is Kubo and the Two Strings, a fairy tale set in fantasy ancient Japan about a one-eyed boy, his two-stringed instrument, and a mythic quest for magic armor. The story is very hard to explain without spoiling everything, but it’s kind of like The Wizard of Oz, with a displaced kid and his unlikely sidekicks traveling through a fantastical land on a quest of discovery. There is no question that Laika knows how to make a gorgeous film, and that is certainly the case with Kubo, their most colorful film since their first, Coraline. This is the feature film debut of Laika CEO Travis Knight, who previously served as a lead animator, and is also the son of company owner—and Nike co-founder—Phil Knight. I have questions about Laika’s viability as a production company and not just a billlionaire’s toy for his son, but they’re mostly silenced by the consistently high quality of Laika’s output. I guess I won’t think too hard on whether or not Laika could survive the loss of the Knights, since it turns out Travis Knight is a good director, and Laika has made yet another beautiful and resonant film. The question I can’t stop asking, though, is if children actually like these movies. I’m sure SOME kids do, but the audience I saw this movie with was overwhelmingly adult, and the two ten-ish kids sitting near me both checked out halfway through—I found them after the movie in the theater’s arcade with their mom while dad remained to watch the whole movie. I can’t shake the feeling that despite specializing in fractured fairy tales, Laika is primarily catering to an adult audience. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I do wonder what is keeping Laika from being embraced by children the way that Pixar is. Maybe they’re TOO dark? I mean literally dark, as in color schemes. Kids are indoctrinated by the bright, cartoon colors of Pixar and their myriad knock-offs, but Laika doesn’t look anything like that—they’re The Last Unicorn to Pixar’s Little Mermaid. And some of Laika’s visuals can be truly unsettling, like Coraline’s Other Mother, or Kubo’s ghoulish, freaky Sisters. There are bolder, more blatantly frightening monsters in Kubo, but I bet The Sisters linger as the scariest, just like the twins from The Shining. It’s certainly not that Laika in general, or Kubo in particular, is doing anything wrong. Kubo is great, a genuinely exciting and moving film about the power of imagination and stories, and it’s not afraid to face the ugly realities of life and death even amidst its fantastic, mythic landscape. This is storytelling of the first order, drawing from Kurosawa, Miyazaki, and Spielberg in equal parts. And did I mention how OUTRAGEOUS this film is to look at? Because it is outrageously stunning. The one thing that sticks out about Kubo as a weak spot is the vocal casting. The vocal performances are all excellent, but the principal characters, despite being Japanese, are all voiced by white actors. [Charlize Theron] voices Kubo’s mother and monkey-protector, [Matthew McConaughey] is the beetle-man comic relief character, Ralph Fiennes voices the villainous Moon King, and Rooney Mara is The Sisters. Kubo himself is voiced by Art Parkinson of Rickon “ZIG-ZAG MOTHERF*CKER” Stark fame. Does it matter if the voices aren’t authentically Asian if the characters on screen are? It’s the sort of seven-ten split also represented by Doctor Strange: Inclusion on one end of the spectrum but not the other. Still, Kubo and the Two Strings is a stellar work, both as a fantasy film and as a piece of animation. It’s breathtaking to look at, and has a vivid if somewhat overcomplicated story. I have a lot of questions about who it’s really appealing to, besides grown-up film nerds, but there’s no denying the quality of artistry or storytelling involved. Maybe the trick is to accept that Laika films aren’t movies for kids that adults can watch, too; they’re movies for adults that a kid might also like. Attached – Matthew McConaughey out in New York and at the Kubo premiere last week, and Charlize Theron running errands with her children in Los Angeles. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 4:06 PM [Rihanna’s “holy crap”] [Rihanna steps out of her NYC apartment, August 25, 2016] [Rihanna] will receive the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award on Sunday at the VMAs, held for the first time at Madison Square Garden. And she will be performing in celebration of the honour. It’s expected to be one of the most memorable moments of the show, perhaps what we’ll be talking most about on Monday, according to the executive producer, Jesse Ignjatovic, who tells [Entertainment Weekly that]: “I’m really excited because she’s taken this opportunity to inject her own creativity into it,” Ignjatovic says. “If we’re talking on Monday the 29th or after the show Sunday, everyone will be surprised with what she’s done to make this honor her own and something that’s extremely impactful.” Rihanna’s medley will touch on “the biggest tracks of her career” as well as music from her latest album, Anti. “I can tell you it’s going to be one of those holy crap VMA moments,” he says. “She’s not playing. She’s bringing it.” Here’s Rihanna in New York yesterday leaving her apartment in sweats, and I’m presuming she’s heading out to rehearse. Two years ago, when Beyonce received her Vanguard, her performance was left to the very end, because they knew that was what everyone was waiting for. Am wondering now what the placement of Rihanna’s performance will be. Do you close on Rihanna? Or do you close the way they typically close, with the presentation of the Video of the Year? [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 3:33 PM [Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, and Ben Foster in Hell or High Water] [Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Gil Birmingham, David Mackenzie, Jeff Bridges at the Los Angeles premiere of Hell or High Water, August 11, 2016] Sometimes you try to get to a movie to review it, but it keeps not working out, and you start to think that maybe you should just let this one go. I had just about reached that point with Hell or High Water when my schedule finally lined up and I made it to a showing of the movie, and man am I glad I stuck with this one, because Hell or High Water is GREAT. It’s expanding wide this weekend, which means it’s a lot more accessible—don’t miss it. This is one of the year’s best films. Hell or High Water is a genre hybrid, straddling the line between Western and heist movie that spends more time pondering life in dying rural communities than it does in car chases or explosions, although there is a good car chase and a good explosion, too. Written by Taylor Sheridan (Sicario), Water doesn’t indulge in speeches or proselytizing. Instead, the culture of the film is steeped in the deep, abiding resentment cattlemen have for banks. Billboards for debt relief and payday loans dot the landscape, and bankers talk about reverse mortgages and all the other predatory practices that f*cked up our economy nearly a decade ago. But no one rails against it, it’s just treated as yet another obstacle to be dealt with, like drought, and everyone has a healthy disdain for their local bank. I was just in rural Texas a couple weeks ago and every second of Water rang true, not only to Texan culture but also what it’s like to make your living off the land, subject to its whims and vagaries. [Chris Pine] stars as Toby, a rancher about to lose everything after a series of crises put him tens of thousands of dollars into debt. The bank is set to foreclose on his ranch, which would be bad enough, but oil has just been discovered on his land, which means he’s not only losing his house, he’s losing the kind of money that can lift a family out of poverty. Determined to keep the oil proceeds for his kids, Toby enlists his ex-con brother, Tanner ([Ben Foster]), to help him rob banks to raise the cash to pay off the loan note. Pine and Foster are fantastic together, and totally believable as brothers. And they both nail the West Texas accent, with Foster, particularly, sounding totally genuine. People unfamiliar with that heavy of a twang might actually struggle to understand him, just like you would in actual West Texas. I prefer Pine in comedy mode, but he is very good as Toby, looking every inch the worn down rancher just about ready to drop from exhaustion. Ostensibly they’re playing the bad guys, but Toby is so sympathetic that’s easy to forget. On the other side of the law are two Texas Rangers, Marcus ([Jeff Bridges]) and Alberto (Gil Birmingham, Twilight). Bridges is at his grizzled best, and Birmingham is stellar as the minority cop stuck with the loudmouthed white guy as a partner. There are moments when he seems to legitimately loathe Marcus, who constantly denigrates his mixed Native and Mexican heritage, and one of the film’s best elements is how Marcus and Alberto view their relationship, and the emotional gulf between them. Their relationship is far more poignant than the brothers’, which makes the ending that much more loaded. The film spans just a few days as Toby and Tanner go on their robbery spree and Marcus and Alberto try to catch up to them. Tension mounts steadily throughout, but there are moments of humor and humanity that leaven it. Everybody from the main characters to the “sassy” waitress to the sleazy bank manager feel wholly authentic. A table of old timers gawking at the Texas Rangers killed me, and the constant drone of katydids in the background is a nice touch. Also, the way that Texas being an open carry state is woven into the plot pays off beautifully. Water has all the hallmarks of a good Western—good men in compromising situations, landscapes so open they become oppressive, and a great shootout—but it also has tense, nervy bank heists and getaways. And in between that is some of the best drama yet seen this year, delivered by four stellar performances. Director David Mackenzie (Starred Up) doesn’t miss a beat, letting scenes unfold slowly so that each moment layers on the tension and emotion, and the score from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis is outstanding. There’s still several months of this year left, but Hell or High Water is a top-tenner for sure. (More reviews coming later today if you’re planning to go to the movies.) Attached - The cast of Hell or High Water at the Los Angeles premiere earlier this month. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 3:02 PM [Sarah Paulson is the 8th?] [Sarah Paulson] [Deadline reported yesterday] that [Sarah Paulson] is in early talks to join the cast of Oceans 8. They’ve confirmed 7 so far. Production is scheduled to begin in October. Most of Sarah’s acclaimed work the last few years has been on television. But she was f-cking devastating in 12 Years A Slave. This is her time. She’s the favourite to win the Emmy for her performance as Marcia Clark in The People vs OJ Simpson. She’ll be in Ryan Murphy’s Feud [playing Geraldine Page] and now she could be rounding out the list of female crooks. Sarah is 41 years old. And, again, this is her time. Which is encouraging. Because the narrative used to be that a woman’s career slowed down in her 30s. So here’s what Oceans 8 will look like, if Sarah does get the part: Sandra Bullock, 52 Helena Bonham Carter 50 Cate Blanchett, 47 Sarah Paulson, 41 Mindy Kaling, 37 Anne Hathaway, 33 Rihanna, 28 Awkwafina, 28 Two women in their 50s, two in their 40s, two in their 30s, two in their 20s. Three of them are women of colour. Some are mothers, some are single, some are sexually fluid. No, none of the women are in their 60s and beyond. But if we’re checking boxes, this film is checking a lot more boxes than most. Most movies don’t even think to check the boxes. I can see the effort being made here and the consideration involved. I hope it’s OK to say I appreciate it. [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 2:38 PM [August 26, 2016 – Smutty Shout-Outs] [Bette Davis for Heather] Heather! To celebrate your NUMBER THREE shout-out, here are Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland (who, yes, just turned 100!!!), and Katharine Hepburn. This means you’re going to watch Feud, right? [Click here for the rest of the photos.] Posted at 2:20 PM [Privacy Policy] - [Unsubscribe]