Movie News After Dark
The day’s top headlines in bite-size portions.
Toy empire Mattel has been trying to get a live-action Barbie movie off the ground for a while now, but the problem has been in casting the iconic and polarizing doll. Well, in a move that’s sure to cheese off some folks and elate others, they’ve finally found their woman in writer-producer-actress Amy Schumer, and not only is she going to star, she’s going to tweak the existing script with her sister, Kim Caramele, with whom she wrote the upcoming and still-untitled mother-daughter action-comedy starring Schumer and Academy Award Winner Goldie Hawn.
Given that the main problems folks cite with Barbie are the unhealthy beauty standards she promotes and how her various dolls tend to promote women as less intelligent than their male counterparts, I for one can’t think of anyone better to bring the doll to life than Amy Schumer, being both an adamant feminist who injects her ideals into her work, and an undisputed self-made uber-success. And the news she’s getting her hands on the script as well should move this even higher up on your Most Anticipated list.
No director is attached to the film as of yet, but technically there is a release date on the books – May 12, 2018. However, you should expect that to shift back at least a few months once a director is announced. In the meantime, prepare now for the Amy Schumer Barbie Movie Tie-In Doll to be the must-have toy of next Christmas.
THR had the scoop.
It’s going to be a contentious awards season, that’s for sure. Not 24 hours after the National Board of Review named Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea the best film of 2016, the New York Film Critics Circle announced their selection: Damien Chazelle’s La La Land.
Other big winners include Casey Affleck, who won Best Actor for Manchester – as he did with the NBR; so far the controversy surrounding him doesn’t seem to be affecting voters all that much— and Isabelle Huppert took home Best Actress for her work in both Elle and Things to Come. Barry Jenkins was awarded Best Director – another NBR repeat, putting him firmly in the frontrunner’s spot – and Toni Erdmann was named Best Foreign Film. Check out the complete list of winners below.
Best film: La La Land
Best actor: Casey Affleck for Manchester by the Sea
Best actress: Isabelle Huppert for both Elle and Things to Come
Best director: Barry Jenkins for Moonlight
Best screenplay: Kenneth Lonergan for Manchester by the Sea
Best supporting actor: Mahershala Ali for Moonlight
Best supporting actress: Michelle Williams for both Manchester by the Sea and Certain Women
Best animated film: Zootopia
Best cinematography: James Laxton for Moonlight
Best first film (tie): The Edge of Seventeen and Krisha
Best foreign-language film: Toni Erdmann
Best documentary: O.J.: Made in America
Special awards: One for editor Thelma Schoonmaker, the other for Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust 25th anniversary restoration
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences today announced the 20 films vying for nomination slots in the category of best Visual Effects. From this list, 10 noms will be selected by The Academy’s Visual Effects Branch Executive Committee and then announced on January 24, 2017. A month after that, on Sunday, February 26th, one will go home with Oscar gold. Check out the contenders and weigh-in on Twitter and in the comments about which flick you think should win. My vote? Kubo and the Two Strings, but of course I haven’t seen Rogue One yet, and that’s sure to be a contender.
Alice through the Looking Glass
Arrival
The BFG
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Captain America: Civil War
Deadpool
Deepwater Horizon
Doctor Strange
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Independence Day: Resurgence
The Jungle Book
Kubo and the Two Strings
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Passengers
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Star Trek Beyond
Suicide Squad
Sully
Warcraft
X-Men: Apocalypse
The Rolling Stones will likely outlive us all, except maybe Kristen Stewart, who is the sole star of the immortal rock ’n’ rollers latest music video, “Ride ’Em On Down.” Stewart stars as the last person on Earth and uses all her newfound free time to cavort around a desert in a bitchin’ Mustang. The song is off the new Stones album Blue & Lonesome, and the video is from director Francois Rousselet, who’s also worked on projects with Diplo and motherf’n Snoop Dogg. The song is pure Stones, the dancing is pure K-Stew, and the video is pretty cool, too. Check them all out below.
That’s all for this week, happy viewing over the next couple of days and we’ll see you back here Monday night.
Related Topics: Awards
