I went into Rocketman with an attitude, but I felt pleasantly turned around soon enough. I was more delighted with the first 30 to 40 minutes (Elton John‘s childhood, taking piano lessons as a teen, teaming with young Bernie Taupin) and less delighted with the remainder, which is basically about Elton becoming more and more of a booze-swigging, coke-sniffing party animal and his life downswirling into addiction and self-destruction.

I respect Dexter Fletcher‘s decision to not tell Elton’s saga Bohemian Rhapsody-style, using a linear “this happened and then that happened” scheme. Instead he chose a more creative and dynamic (not to mention more cinematic) approach by making it into a punched up, inventively choreographed, mad-brush Ken Russell musical.

The framing device is Elton confessing all during an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Out of this comes a looking-back-at-my-life, All That Jazz-type deal that uses several John-Taupin songs as emotional backdrops or undercurrents for various biographical moments. The film isn’t biographically accurate in some respects (i.e., certain songs are played at the wrong time) and there’s a lot more interest in a glitter-and-glam aesthetic than any kind of semi-realistic presentation of how things really went down, but this is the film they chose to make.

It’s “cinematic”, yes, but I’m betting that down the road an ambitious director and a gifted choreographer will transform Rocketman into a Broadway stage musical.

My dissatisfaction with Egerton’s singing voice, which sounds only vaguely like John’s, remains. Now that I’ve seen the whole magillah, I can say definitively that Egerton’s singing moments are only mildly sufficient (they don’t stop the film in its tracks but they don’t quite knock you out either), and that I would have felt a lot more satisfied or soothed if he was capable of delivering a more Elton-like sound.

Egerton seems a little taller and more muscular that the Real McCoy (he’s 5′ 9″ compared to John’s 5′ 7″) but I wouldn’t call that an actual quibble.

(More…)
May 17, 2019 4:58 amby Jeffrey Wells

Variety‘s Justin Kroll is reporting that Robert Pattinson is in negotiations to play The Batman in Matt Reeves’ forthcoming superhero film, which will open on 6.25.21.

Kroll explains that the RPatz thing isn’t a done deal, but that the former Twilight star is “the top choice and [the deal] is expected to close shortly.” Reeves and Pattinson will start shooting this summer.

RPatz will presumably be visiting Cannes this weekend to take bows for his performance in Robert Eggers‘ The Lighthouse, which costars Willem Dafoe.

Is Pattinson brawny and muscular enough to play Batman? He’s tall with moderately wide shoulders, but isn’t he a bit on the wirey and willowy side?

It’s ironic that just as Pattinson has solidified his rep as the Intrepid Indie King (Cosmopolis, The Rover, Maps to the Stars, The Lost City of Z, Good Time), he’s been sucked right back into a big-studio franchise. He’s only in it for the money, of course, and who wouldn’t be?

May 16, 2019 6:50 pmby Jeffrey Wells

Several top-tier critics attended Thursday night’s gala premiere of Dexter Fletcher‘s Rocketman, the Elton John musical biopic, and their reviews began to pop just before 2 am Cannes time. I’ve read four or five so far, and the general verdict seems to be that it’s less interested in rock biopic realism (i.e., who John actually was and how he found his voice) and more interested in selling the flamboyant glam aspects of John’s early career.

In short, Rocketman sounds (and please stop me if you think I’m overdoing it here) like an Elton John flick for simpletons — for superficial minds, the easily impressed and your none-too-hip iTunes purchasers of one of John’s greatest hits albums.

I’m alluding to people who associate Elton more with his having sung the Lady Diana version of “Candle in the Wind” or perhaps for his Ceasar’s Palace gigs in Las Vegas than, say, his first serious industry gig at West Hollywood’s Troubadour in August ’70, or for his legendary, self-named 1970 debut album or the equally great “Honky Chateau” (’72).

Before I post a couple of review excerpts, I want HE regular Bobby Peru to consider the following line from Peter Debruge’s Variety review, to wit: “It’s Taron Egerton’s voice doing most of the singing here. He’s solid, but he’s no match for Elton’s pipes.”

HE to Debruge: No shit?

Another Debruge line: “Rocketman isn’t really about Elton as a musician.”

TheWrap‘s Steve Pond: “Bohemian Rhapsody acted like a standard biopic with concert and recording scenes thrown in, [but] Rocketman takes a wilder, bolder approach: It’s a full-fledged musical, using dozens of Elton John songs to tell his life story in a way that freely mixes reality and fantasy.

“This is a jukebox musical for the big screen, Mamma Mia! forced into a vaguely biographical form or one of the Broadway shows that use an artist’s music to tell their story, among them Jersey Boys and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.”

“But it’s about Elton John, so that means it’s bigger, wilder, more extravagant and more excessive than those works. Sometimes that means it’s more fun, too, but it can also be a melodramatic slog when it’s not embracing the craziness of its musical numbers. And some of those numbers, to be honest, are far more diverting than others.

“As someone who hated Bohemian Rhapsody‘s factual errors, I can respect a biopic that announces from the start that it’s not to be taken seriously as an account of what actually happened. So while I struggled with a narrative that uses songs years before they were written, I know the rules of this particular game == and if what we see onscreen has a little crazy poetry in it, and it captures a bit of how things might have felt to Elton way back when, that’s all that matters.”

(More…)
May 16, 2019 6:16 pmby Jeffrey Wells

The big gala screening for Rocketman began a half-hour ago, but the first press screening doesn’t happen until 11 am tomorrow, followed by a 1:30 pm press conference. The tweets will start flying around the same time (roughly 4:15 am Pacific, 7:15 am Eastern).

(More…)
May 16, 2019 10:38 amby Jeffrey Wells

Six or seven years ago Thomas Vinterberg‘s handsomely produced The Command (aka Kursk) would have warranted a stand-alone theatrical opening followed by a Bluray/DVD release three or four months later. Now it’s launching on DirecTV on 5.23 before simultaneously hitting theaters and VOD on 6.21. Screenplay by Robert Rodat; costarring Matthias Schoenaerts, Léa Seydoux as his wife, Artemiy Spiridonov as his son, and Colin Firth as Royal Naval Officer David Russell. 127 minutes.

May 16, 2019 10:22 amby Jeffrey Wells

I arose at 7 am (after crashing three and a half hours earlier) to catch this morning’s Beanpole screening at 8:30 am. I went home to write but nothing would come — too whipped. So I hit the local Carrefour for a couple of things. I finally got down to the Beanpole review around 2 pm, but finishing meant blowing off the 4 pm screening of Mati Diop‘s Atlantique (aka Atlantics), which was probably a bad idea considering the rave reviews. (The French-Senegalese Diop is the first black woman to have a film in competition here.) Now it’s pushing seven, and I’m determined to catch a 90-minute nap before seeing Ken Loach‘s Sorry We Missed You at 10 pm.

(More…)
May 16, 2019 9:53 amby Jeffrey Wells

A week before leaving for Cannes I streamed Kantemir Balagov‘s Closeness (’17), a dark kidnapping drama set in a sodden Russian backwater. The idea was to prepare for Balagov’s Beanpole, a psychological survival tale set in Leningrad just after the ravages of World War II. I saw it early this morning. It’s just as grim if not grimmer than Closeness, but it’s also more ambitious in an atmospheric, large-canvas sense. And a whole lot sadder.

Balagov is only 27, but he’s already delivering the studied chops and immaculate directorial control that are par for the course among accomplished directors twice his age. Beanpole is basically about two shell-shocked women, scarred by the horrific siege of Leningrad and trying to re-assemble their shattered lives and emotions and somehow move on.

I respected the hell out of Beanpole but I honestly couldn’t derive much levitation or transcendence. To me it felt slow and trying and dirge-like. As much as I adore the idea of a 27 year-old creating a film as jarringly realistic and well assembled as this, it still left me feeling drained and dispirited. Plus it runs 134 minutes, which struck me as needlessly prolonged.

Balagov is quite the portraitist (and, to go by a just-posted Variety interview, quite the cultured film scholar), but he’s too much of a gloom-head, at least from my perspective. For this haunting portrait of post-war devastation is counter-balanced by glacial pacing and a strange reluctance or aversion to dealing with the death of a young boy…my God.

I felt sorrow and pity for each and every character, of course, but it feels too sludgy and oppressive, even for a story like this one.

Viktoria Miroshnichenko‘s titular character, Iya, is an all-but-catatonic, seven-foot-tall giraffe from whom verbal expression does not easily emanate. Why must she take 30 to 45 seconds to collect her thoughts before answering the simplest questions? Because that’s Balagov’s intention — to convey her destroyed inner state with traumatized expressions, gut feelings and minimal dialogue. I quickly ran out of patience with Iya’s blank stares, which is a way of saying that Miroshnichenko is not, in my judgment, a riveting actress.

Vasilisa Perelygina‘s Masha, Iya’s best friend, is far more interesting — more expressive and generally more alluring. If Perelygina had played the lead (which is to say if Iya had been eliminated), I would feel very differently about Beanpole. In my estimation she’s a natural movie star. But not Viktoria. Iya is impenetrable and burdensome and, as far as the afore-mentioned death of the child is concerned, inexplicable and even hateful.

The ghastly murder of Masha’s young son is “addressed” but not really dealt with, and I was simply unable to get past this. Balagov’s idea, I gather, is that if a character is profoundly devastated by war trauma, it’s within her realm to accidentally smother an innocent. In basic emotional movie-watching terms that’s simply not acceptable.

Does Masha react with shock and rage? No, she barely raises an eyebrow. Her attitude seems to be “that was horrendous what you did, of course, but the German army’s siege of Leningrad was equally awful if not more so, so I understand.” All she does, really, is insist that Iya lives up to a quid pro quo arrangement — you killed my child so get pregnant so I can raise another one.

Would any mother in the history of civilization react this way?

The principal characters (excepting a 50-year-old doctor and the rich, chilly parents of Masha’s amorous suitor, a dorky kid who has a nose like Vladmir Putin) are all numb and haunted-looking, which of course is fitting and necessary. This is not a film about steady keels and bright futures. If nothing else Beanpole is quite the sweeping statement on post-war devastation.

A late-arriving lesbian attraction element kicks in and allows for a semi-hopeful ending, but it arrives too late. If the romantic attraction aspect had been a factor early on (at least starting in the second act), I would have bought into it.

The best scene is a dinner-table conversation between Masha and the mother of Putin-nose, and as mentioned the general aura of post-war devastation throughout is certainly throttling from a general mise-en-scene perspective (camera lighting, art direction, rusty atmosphere), one that I can’t help but admire and respect from a certain distance.

If the story had been all about Masha, Beanpole would have been a much more absorbing film. I was mesmerized by Perelygina’s performance. She’s really got it.

But Beanpole is finally a movie for film festival and arthouse dweebs and not for guys like myself.

May 16, 2019 9:05 amby Jeffrey Wells

This is what many of us can’t stand about Joe Biden. He seemingly believes that a significant amount of Republicans will suddenly revert to “classic” conservatism (i.e., opposed to liberal policies but with a semi-practical, semi-constructive attitude) if and when Trump leaves the White House.

It’s accepted doctrine that 25 years ago (starting with Gingrich in ’94, doubling down with Obama in ’09) Republicans became the crazy party. Their electoral survival will always depend upon whipping up the bumblefucks and old-school Fox watchers, and that’s certainly not going to change if Biden succeeds Trump. Embracing a notion that they’ll suddenly modify their basic nature is woefully naive.

Money quote from a 2012 Washington Post op-ed piece by Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann: “The Republican party has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme, scornful of compromise, unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

(More…)
May 16, 2019 4:54 amby Jeffrey Wells

It’s 2:10 am and chilly as hell outside. All the years I’ve been coming to Cannes the weather has always been mild and balmy, usually in the mid to high 60s and sometimes 70-plus. Not once do I recall wearing a jacket and a scarf to an evening screening, but I sure as hell did this a few hours ago on my way to see Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dernelles‘ Bacurau (which I hated by the way).

On top of which Friday and Saturday are expected to to be half-rainy, according to Weatherbug.

Right now it’s 46 degrees here. I thought climate change was supposed to be making things warmer as a rule. I don’t know which is worse, the nippy weather or the sight of 20somethings walking around in shorts and T-shirts and mini-dresses.

May 15, 2019 5:23 pmby Jeffrey Wells

In that recently-posted Deadline interview between Mike Fleming and Francis Coppola, the 80-year-old director briefly tears into author and former Premiere editor Peter Biskind, claiming unfairness on Biskind’s part in a 1990 piece about The Godfather, Part III, especially regarding Sofia Coppola‘s performance as Michael Corleone’s daughter.

I asked Biskind this morning if there’s anything he wants to dispute or clarify. His statement follows an excerpt from the Deadline interview:

Fleming: “You took some heat casting your daughter Sofia, who has become a fine filmmaker in her own right. Was it right to put so much pressure on her, when she was untested?”

Coppola: “Well, I felt betrayed by a journalist by the name of Peter Biskind. And Tina Brown. I was asked if a journalist could come to the set and report on the movie, but Peter came in with a story all ready to write because he knew that there was a controversy about the fact that I had cast Sofia. He’s the one [who] came out with the article first that sort of greatly criticized her performance and started that whole trend, that I had cast my daughter when Paramount didn’t want me to.

“I felt that the plot of Godfather III was that they were coming for Michael but they got her. And [in the press] they were coming for me but they chose Sofia. I don’t have malice against anyone at this point in my life, but, to this day, it upsets me that Peter Biskind was the one who was given access to the set and he used it to damn my daughter. I believe that in a new [forthcoming] version of the film (to be titled The Death of Michael Corleone), Sofia’s performance will vindicate her.”

Biskind replies: “Francis would be better served resting on his considerable laurels than nursing old grudges. So far as Sofia is concerned, it’s nice to see the Lion King spring to the defense of his cubs, but generally I like her films, and don’t recall maligning her. Besides [Francis and I] were supposed to have kissed and made up 20 years ago when he publicly forgave me for my sins. This reminds me of Godfather II, when Michael forgives Fredo and then has him killed.”

May 15, 2019 5:10 pmby Jeffrey Wells

Evidence of Donald Trump‘s racism has been so abundant over the last three and a half to four years (not to mention the Central Park Five statements that he made 30 years ago) that there doesn’t seem to be anything to say except “what else is new?” But every so often a quote will come along that renews the revulsion. Not among the Trump faithful, of course. Semi-normal people, I mean.

In a day-old Atlantic article titled “An Oral History of Trump’s Bigotry,” white nationalist figurehead Richard Spencer says that August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville “would not have occurred without Trump” becoming president.

Spencer, the rally’s organizer and the guy who coined the term “alt-right,” said it “really was because of [Trump’s] campaign and this new potential for a nationalist candidate who was resonating with the public in a very intense way. [The] alt-right found something in Trump. He changed the paradigm and made this kind of public presence of the alt-right possible.”

The Charlottesville rally led to the murder of Heather Heyer, caused by a white racist who plowed through a crowd of liberal counter-protestors with his car. The same day Trump deplored the “egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides.” A few days later he re-stated there were “very fine people on both sides.”

May 15, 2019 4:40 pmby Jeffrey Wells

The first truly exciting film of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival screened this afternoon — Ladj Ly‘s Les Miserables. Set in the Parisian suburb of Montfermeil, a poor but tightly knit Muslim community, it offers a jolting contemporary echo of the cruelty, harassment and oppression that ignited Victor Hugo’s classic 1862 novel, this time rooted in police brutality and racial animus.

Start to finish Les Miserables is rough, riveting, incendiary — written by Giordano Gederlini and Alexis Manenti and brilliantly shot by Julien Poupard. It generally feels like a rough-and-tumble Antoine Fuqua film, using the basic dynamic of Training Day (but with three cops instead of two) plus a Little Do The Right Thing plus a dash of the anxious urban energy of William Freidkin‘s The French Connection.

But it’s about more than just urban action beats. It’s a racially charged tragedy, injected with sharp social detail and several strong (if somewhat sketchy) characters on both sides of the tale. It’s a bit splotchy and slapdash at times, but is quite the ride.

Part policier and part social-canvas suspenser, Les Miserables is basically about conflicted cops (including one bad apple) under pressure vs. a crew of scrappy, rambunctious, vaguely criminal kids in the ‘hood. It takes the side of Montfermeil natives (Ly was raised there) but also portrays the cops in reasonably fair and humanistic terms.

Closing motto: “There are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.”

The story is about a mischievous Muslim kid named Issa (Issa Perica) who gets himself into hot water by stealing a lion cub from a small local circus. The circus guys angrily threaten some Montfermeil community leaders (not the suit-wearing kind), and soon after the film’s three plainclothes protagonists — the racist and brutish Chris (Alexis Manenti), a casually brusque but decent-hearted Montfermeil native named Gwada (Djibril Zonga) and Stephane (Damien Bonnard), a new transfer with a curtly liberal, mildly compassionate approach to police work — are on the hunt.

They eventually chase down and capture Issa, but then comes the triggering incident: an agitated Gwada fires a flashbang (a non-lethal stun grenade) into the kid’s face. Luckily Issa recovers, but Chris and Gwada go into panic mode when they quickly realize that the incident has been captured by a drone-mounted video camera. Despite Stephane’s objections, the priority becomes finding and destroying the visual evidence.

Things get increasingly hairy and desperate, ultimately leading to a climax…okay, I’ve said enough.

I won’t reveal the finish but it reminded me of the last two or three minutes of Asghar Farhadi‘s A Separation. I for one found it satisfying.

May 15, 2019 12:16 pmby Jeffrey Wells

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Latest HE rundown of 2019 films of a certain preferred quality. 88 as we speak. Leaing off with the likeliest 2019 Best Picture contenders:

1. Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman (Netflix, sometime in October) — A mob hitman recalls his possible involvement with the slaying of Jimmy Hoffa. (Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Jesse Plemons).

2. Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (Sony, 7.26) — A faded TV actor and his stunt double embark on an odyssey to make a name for themselves in the film industry during the Helter Skelter reign of terror in 1969 Los Angeles. (Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Al Pacino).

3. Marielle Heller‘s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood — The story of Fred Rogers, the honored host and creator of the popular children’s television program, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. (Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys, Susan Kelechi Watson, Tammy Blanchard)

4. Greta Gerwig‘s Little Women (Sony, 12.25) — Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War. (Florence Pugh, Timothée Chalamet, Emma Watson, Saoirse Ronan)

5. Jay Roach‘s Fair and Balanced (Lionsgate) — Fox honcho Roger Ailes and sexual harassment allegations that resulted in his resignation. (Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, John Lithgow, Allison Janney, Kate McKinnon, Malcolm McDowell, Mark Duplass)

6. Kasi Lemmons‘ Harriet (Focus Features) — A feminist 12 Years A Slave, based on the story of freedom fighter Harriet Tubman (Cynthia Erivo), her escape from slavery and subsequent missions to free dozens of slaves through the Underground Railroad in the face of growing pre-Civil War adversity. Cynthia Erivo, Janelle Monae, Joe Alwyn, Deborah Ayorinde, Clarke Peters, Leslie Odom Jr., Tory Kittles, Vondie Curtis-Hall.

7. Dee Rees‘ The Last Thing He Wanted (Netflix) — (boilerplate) A journalist stops her coverage of the 1984 U.S. Presidential election to care for her dying father / Anne Hathaway, Willem Dafoe, Ben Affleck, Toby Jones, Rosie Perez, Edi Gathegi, Mel Rodriguez, Brian Rechkemmer.

8. Steven Soderbergh‘s The Laundromat (Netflix) — Saga of journalists unearthing the Panama Papers scandal — a massive tax-evasion scheme involving 11.5 million files, secret banking accounts, powerful political figures. Melissa Rauch, Gary Oldman, Meryl Streep, Alex Pettyfer, David Schwimmer, James Cromwell, Matthias Schoenaerts, Antonio Banderas, Robert Patrick, Jeffrey Wright.

9. John Crowley‘s The Goldfinch (10.11, Warner Bros.) — Boilerplate: As a child, Theodore Decker survives a terrorist bombing at an art museum — an attack that kills his mother. From there, he tumbles through a series of adventures that finds him living in Las Vegas with his deadbeat father and, later, involved in art forgeries. / Ansel Elgort, Aneurin Barnard, Ashleigh Cummings, Willa Fitzgerald, Sarah Paulson, Luke Wilson, Jeffrey Wright, Nicole Kidman.

10. Gavin O’Connor‘s Torrance — Struggling with addiction, a former basketball star attempts becomes the coach of a disparate, ethnically mixed high school basketball team at his alma mater. (Ben Affleck, Janina Gavankar, Al Madrigal, Yeniffer Behrens) (Warner Bros.)

11. Roger Michell‘s Blackbird — A terminally ill mother arranges to bring her family together one last time before she dies. (Kate Winslet, Lindsay Duncan, Rainn Wilson, Susan Sarandon).

GENERAL APPEAL, BIGGER NAMES, BIGGER BUDGETS. etc. (30)

1. Ang Lee‘s Gemini Man — An over-the-hill hitman faces off against a younger clone of himself. (Will Smith, Clive Owen, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Benedict Wong).

2. Jon Favreau‘s The Lion King — CGI and live-action re-imagining of the 1994 Disney classic. (Voice-acting by Donald Glover, Alfre Woodard, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Seth Rogen).

3. Todd Phillips’ Joker — Joker origin story, you know the drill. (Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Shea Whigham, Zazie Beetz)

4. J.J. Abrams‘ Star Wars: Episode IX — The conclusion of the new ‘Star Wars’ trilogy. (Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, et.al.)

5. Joe Wright‘s The Woman in the Window — An agoraphobic woman living alone in New York begins spying on her new neighbors only to witness a disturbing act of violence. (Amy Adams, Wyatt Russell, Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore)

6. All You Need Is Love (aka “Untitled Danny Boyle/Richard Curtis Film”) — Set to the music of the Beatles, it’s about a musician who thinks he’s the only one who can hear the Beatles’ music. (Lily James, Ed Sheeran, Ana de Armas, Kate McKinnon, Lamorne Morris) Sheeran plays himself discovering a rising young musician. Mckinnon plays a talent agent. Hamesh Patel costars.

7. James Mangold‘s Ford v. Ferrari — The true story of the battle between Ford and Ferrari to win Le Mans in 1966. (Christian Bale, Matt Damon, Jon Bernthal).

8. Jordan Peele‘s Us — A “social thriller” set between two couples — one white, one black. Starring Winston Duke (Black Panther) and Lupita Nyongo’o — L.A. Daily News critic Bob Strauss champing at the very bit. (Anna Diop, Elisabeth Moss, Kara Hayward)

9. Gavin Hood‘s Official Secrets — The true story of a British whistleblower who leaked information to the press about an illegal NSA spy operation designed to push the UN Security Council into sanctioning the 2003 invasion of Iraq. (Matthew Goode, Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes)

10. David Michod‘s The King — (Timothée Chalamet, Joel Edgerton, Ben Mendelsohn, Robert Pattinson, Lily-Rose Depp) Adaptation of William Shakespeare‘s Henry IV, Parts I and II and Henry V. Chronicles the early 1400’s medieval struggle between England and France, both in succession as well as on the battlefield. Timothee Chalamet as Henry V rises to the English throne after beating the French in the Battle of Agincourt. (Froench king is played by Robert Pattinson.) Oscar bait. Brad Pitt produces. Netflix.

11. David Gordon Green‘s Newsflash — On November 22, 1963 CBS newsman Walter Cronkite grapples with reporting on live television about President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Texas. Not starring Seth Rogen as Cronkite (and thank God!), but possibly costarring Mark Ruffalo, Logan Lerman.

12. John Lee Hancock‘s The Highwaymen — Based on the true story of how two retired Texas Rangers put together the posse that killed Bonnie and Clyde — not as depicted in the ’67 Arthur Penn film. Paul Newman and Robert Redford were originally set to play the two leads before Newman’s health failed. (Kevin Costner, Woody Harrelson, Kathy Bates, Kim Dickens)

13. Rupert Goold‘s Judy — Biopic of Judy Garland‘s battle with drug addiction and divorce in London in 1968, one year before her death. Liza Minnelli has come out publicly against the film and against Rene Zellweger playing her mother. (Rufus Sewell, Michael Gambon, Jessie Buckley)

14. Deston Daniel Cretton‘s Just Mercy — Attorney Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) defends Walter McMillan (Jamie Foxx), a man unjustly imprisoned for murder. Based on Stephenson’s memoir. (Jordan, Foxx, Brie Larson, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Tim Blake Nelson, Rob Morgan)

15. Terrence Malick‘s Radegund — Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian conscientious objector, refuses to fight for the Third Reich in World War II and is executed in 1943. Shot in late summer of 2016. (August Diehl, Valerie Pachner, Michael Nyqvist, Jürgen Prochnow, Matthias Schoenaerts, Bruno Ganz)

16. Rian Johnson‘s Knives Out — A modern murder mystery in a classic whodunit style. (Jamie Lee Curtis, Ana de Armas, Michael Shannon, Chris Evans)

17. James Gray‘s Ad Astra — Astronaut Roy McBride travels to the outer edges of the solar system to find his missing father and unravel a mystery that threatens the survival of our planet. (Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, Ruth Negga)

18. Bobby Moresco‘s Lamborghini — The life story of Ferruccio Lamborghini, the founder of Lamborghini. (Antonio Banderas, Alec Baldwin, Maria Grazia Cucinotta, Leonardo Salerni)

19. Dexter Fletcher‘s Rocketman — Elton John biopic, from his years as a prodigy at the Royal Academy of Music through his influential and enduring musical partnership with Bernie Taupin. (Richard Madden, Taron Egerton, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jamie Bell)

20. Dan Gilroy‘s Velvet Buzzsaw — American horror thriller film, written and directed by Gilroy. (Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Zawe Ashton, Natalia Dyer, Tom Sturridge, Daveed Diggs, Toni Collette, John Malkovich and Billy Magnussen) Set in LA’s contemporary art world, wealthy celebrity artists collide with billionaire collectors in an unusually twisted comedy horror thriller. (Netflix)

21. Tom Harper‘s The Aeronauts — Pilot Amelia Wren and scientist James Glaisher find themselves in an epic fight for survival while attempting to make discoveries in a hot air balloon. (Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Tim McInnerny)

PARTICULAR CONGREGATIONS / SMARTHOUSE / UPMARKET / INDIE SPIRITS GOTHAMS (58)

22. Sebastián Lelio‘s Gloria Bell — Remake of Lelio’s Chilean original. A middle-aged Los Angeles woman looking for love. (Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Alanna Ubach, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Sean Astin)

23. Steven Soderbergh‘s High Flying Bird — A sports agent pitches a rookie basketball client on an intriguing and controversial business opportunity during a lockout. (Zachary Quinto, Zazie Beetz, Kyle MacLachlan, Bill Duke)

24. Julie Taymor‘s The Glorias: A Life on the Road — Gloria Steinem‘s itinerant childhood and its influence upon her life as a writer, activist and organizer for women’s rights worldwide. (Alicia Vikander, Lulu Wilson, Julianne Moore, Bette Midler)

25. Craig Brewer‘s Dolemite Is My Name — The story of performer Rudy Ray Moore, who assumed the role of an iconic pimp named Dolemite during the 1970s. (Eddie Murphy, Wesley Snipes, Keegan-Michael Key, Craig Robinson)

26. Steven Soderbergh‘s The Laundromat — A group of journalists unearth the Panama Papers — 11.5 million files linking the world’s most powerful political figures to secret banking accounts to avoid taxes. (Gary Oldman, Melissa Rauch, Meryl Streep, Robert Patrick)

27. Kasi Lemmons‘ Harriet — The story of Harriet Tubman, who helped free hundreds of slaves from the South after escaping from slavery herself in 1849. (Janelle Monáe, Deborah Ayorinde, Cynthia Erivo, Joe Alwyn).

28. Noah Hawley‘s Pale Blue Dot — A female astronaut who, after returning to Earth from a life-changing mission in space, begins to slowly unravel and lose touch with reality. (Natalie Portman, Dan Stevens, Jon Hamm, Zazie Beetz)

29. Xavier Dolan‘s Matthias & Maxime — (Harris Dickinson, Dolan, Anne Dorval, Catherine Brunet)

39. Untitled Noah Baumbach Project — An unfolding divorce that spans from New York City to Los Angeles. (Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Ray Liotta, Laura Dern)

31. Joe Berlinger‘s Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile — A chronicle of the crimes of Ted Bundy, from the perspective of his longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, who refused to believe the truth about him for years. (Zac Efron, Lily Collins, Haley Joel Osment, Kaya Scodelario)

32. Justin Kurzel‘s The True History of the Kelly Gang — The story of Australian bush-ranger Ned Kelly and his gang as they flee from authorities during the 1870s, based on Peter Carey’s novel. (Charlie Hunnam, Russell Crowe, Nicholas Hoult)

33. Rod Lurie‘s The Outpost — Abut the 2013 Battle of Kamdesh in which Taliban forces attacked a U.S. outpost. The result of the battle was a pyrrhic victory as most the the outpost was destroyed (8 Americans killed, 27 wounded) but Taliban forces retreated due to losses of over 150 Taliban fighter killed during the battle. Staff Sergeant Clinton Romesha (Scott Eastwood) and Staff Sergeant Ty Carter (Caleb Landry Jones) were both awarded the Medal of Honor in 2013 for courageous actions. Orlando Bloom also stars.

34. Darius Marder‘s Sound of Metal — (Olivia Cooke, Riz Ahmed, Mathieu Amalric, Arthur Hiou)

35. Fernando Meirelles‘ The Pope — Opposing visions between two of the most powerful leaders in the Catholic Church, both of whom must address their own pasts and the demands of the modern world in order to move the church forward. (Juan Minujín, Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce, Matthew T. Reynolds)

36. Casey Affleck‘s Light of My Life — Father and daughter escape to the woods trying to outrun a deadly pandemic that has ravaged and destroyed the world. Also written by Affleck. (Casey Affleck, Elisabeth Moss, Tom Bower, Timothy Webber)

37. Robin Bissell‘s The Best of Enemies — Civil rights activist Ann Atwater faces off against C.P. Ellis, Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan, in 1971 Durham, North Carolina over the issue of school integration. (Sam Rockwell, Tarahji O. Henson, Wes Bentley, Anne Heche)

38. Max Winkler‘s Jungleland — A reluctant bare-knuckle boxer and his manager must travel across the country for one last fight, but an unexpected travel companion exposes the cracks in their bond along the way. (Charlie Hunnam, Jessica Barden, Jack O’Connell, John Cullum)

39. Mia Hansen-Løve‘s Bergman Island — An American filmmaking couple who retreat to Faro for the summer to each write screenplays for their upcoming films in an act of pilgrimage to the place. (Mia Wasikowska, Vicky Krieps, Anders Danielsen Lie, Joel Spira.)

40. John Crowley‘s The Goldfinch — A boy in New York is taken in by a wealthy Upper East Side family after his mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Nicole Kidman, Sarah Paulson, Finn Wolfhard, Ansel Elgort)

41. Adrian Noble‘s Mrs. Lowry and Son — (Vanessa Redgrave, Timothy Spall, Stephen Lord) L.S. Lowry becomes a widely celebrated 20th century UK painter for his dark brooding landscapes and emaciated stick figures, but spends most of his life under the influence of his autocratic mother and dies a reclusive virgin.

42. Jim Jarmusch‘s The Dead Don’t Die — Deadpan comic zombie film (Tilda Swinton, Adam Driver, Caleb Landry Jones, Chloë Sevigny, Bill Murray, Steve Buscemi — possibly Daniel Craig.

51. Casey Affleck‘s Far Bright Star — Set in 1916, an aging cavalryman leads a team of men to hunt down the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. However, after an ambush in which most of the men are killed, the cavalryman must struggle to survive in the desert. (Joaquin Phoenix)

52. Scott Z. Burns‘ The Torture Report — In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, CIA agents begin using extreme interrogation tactics on those they think were behind it. (Adam Driver, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Morrison, Maura Tierney).

53. William Nicholson‘s Hope Gap — A family deals in the aftermath of the shock revelation that a husband plans to end his 29 year marriage to his wife. (Annette Bening, Bill Nighy, Josh O’Connor, Aiysha Hart)

54. Benh Zeitlin‘s Wendy — Set on a mysterious island where aging and time have come unglued, Zeitlin’s mythological story tells the tale of two children from different worlds fighting to maintain their grip on freedom and joy. (Tommie Lynn Milazzo, Shay Walker)

55. Bart Freundlich‘s After the Wedding — A manager of an orphanage in Kolkata travels to New York to meet a benefactor. (Michelle Williams, Julianne Moore, Billy Crudup, Will Chase)

56. James DeMonaco‘s Once Upon a Time in Staten Island — Allegedly a coming of age family drama set in the summer of 1982 on Staten Island. (Bobby Cannavale, Naomi Watts, Frank Grillo, Isabella Pisacane)

57. Dee Rees‘ The Last Thing He Wanted — A journalist quits her newspaper job and becomes an arms dealer for a covert government agency. (Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, Willem Dafoe, Toby Jones)

58. Robert Eggers‘ The Lighthouse — The story of an aging lighthouse keeper named Old who lives in early 20th-century Maine. (Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe)

59. Lone Scherfig‘s The Kindness of Strangers — Six characters cross paths one night in a Russian restaurant in Manhattan and change/save each other’s lives. (Andrea Riseborough, Zoe Kazan, Bill Nighy, Caleb Landry Jones, Jay Baruchel)

60. Chiwetel Ejiofor‘s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind — A boy in Malawi helps his village by building a wind turbine after reading about them in a library book. (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Aïssa Maïga, Joseph Marcell, Noma Dumezweni)

61.Christoph Waltz‘s Georgetown — Ulrich Mott, an ambitious social climber, marries a wealthy widow in Washington D.C. in order to mix with powerful political players. (Christoph Waltz, Annette Bening, Corey Hawkins, Vanessa Redgrave)

62. Richard Linklater‘s Where’d You Go, Bernadette? — After her anxiety-ridden mother disappears, 15-year-old Bee does everything she can to track her down, discovering her troubled past in the process. (Cate Blanchett, Judy Greer, Kristen Wiig, Laurence Fishburne)

63. Benedict Andrews‘ Against All Enemies — An ambitious young F.B.I. Agent is assigned to investigate iconic actress Jean Seberg when she becomes embroiled in the tumultuous civil rights movement in late 1960s Los Angeles, California. (Kristen Stewart, Zazie Beetz, Vince Vaughn, Jack O’Connell)

64. Armando Iannucci‘s The Personal History of David Copperfield (Tilda Swinton, Ben Whishaw, Gwendoline Christie, Hugh Laurie)

65. Pablo Larraín‘s The True American — A Bangladeshi Air Force officer looking to make his way in the United States is shot by an American terrorist out to kill Muslims in the aftermath of September 11th.

66. Josephine Decker‘s Shirley — A famous Horror writer finds inspiration for her next book after she and her husband take in a young couple. (Elisabeth Moss, Michael Stuhlbarg, Logan Lerman, Odessa Young)

67. Lisa Barros D’Sa & Glenn Leyburn‘s Normal People — Adaptation of the Irish novel by Sally Mooney. Two opposites meet in high school, then again at university and fall in love while struggling with the meaning of their relationship as they share devastating setbacks in their lives. (Liam Neeson, Lesley Manville, Amit Shah, David Wilmot)

68. Wash Westmoreland‘s Earthquake Bird — A young expat living in Tokyo is suspected of murder, which uncovers a mysterious love triangle. (Alicia Vikander, Riley Keough, Jack Huston, Kiki Sukezane)

69. Josh Trank‘s Fonzo — The 47-year old Al Capone, after 10 years in prison, starts suffering from dementia, and comes to be haunted by his violent past. (Tom Hardy, Linda Cardellini, Noel Fisher, Matt Dillon)

70. Sia‘s Music — the story of a sober drug dealer and their disabled sister. (Kate Hudson, Hector Elizondo, Maddie Ziegler)

71. Julie Delpy‘s My Zoe — A divorced mother looks to protect her daughter after an unexpected tragedy. (Richard Armitage, Gemma Arterton, Lindsay Duncan, Daniel Brühl)

72. Paul Verhoeven‘s Benedetta — A 17th-century nun in Italy suffers from disturbing religious and erotic visions. She is assisted by a companion, and the relationship between the two women develops into a romantic love affair. (Virginie Efira, Charlotte Rampling, Lambert Wilson, Olivier Rabourdin)

73. Untitled Miranda July Project — A woman’s life is turned upside down when her criminal parents invite an outsider to join them on a major heist they’re planning. (Evan Rachel Wood, Gina Rodriguez, Debra Winger, Richard Jenkins)

74. Ciro Guerra‘s Waiting for the Barbarians — An honest magistrate in a small outpost of a large empire has a crisis of conscience and tries to lead a resistance when a military commander shows up to torture and murder the natives who pose no threat. The revered author J.M. Coetze won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Literary acolytes a little upset with Depp casting. (Johnny Depp, Robert Pattinson, Mark Rylance, Harry Melling)

75. Trey Edward Shults‘ Waves — Two young couples navigate through the emotional minefield of growing up and falling in love. (Lucas Hedges, Sterling K. Brown, Alexa Demie, Taylor Russell)

76. Yuval Adler‘s The Operative — A woman recruited by the Mossad to work undercover in Tehran. (Diane Kruger, Martin Freeman, Cas Anvar, Werner Daehn)

77. Jennifer Kent‘s The Nightingale — Set in 1825, Clare, a young Irish convict woman, chases a British officer through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. (Aisling Franciosi, Sam Claflin, Damon Herriman)

78. Dome Karukoski‘s Tolkien –The formative years of the orphaned author as he finds friendship, love and artistic inspiration among a group of fellow outcasts at school. (Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Pam Ferris, Laura Donnelly)

79. Marjane Satrapi‘s Radioactive — A story of the scientific and romantic passions of Marie and Pierre Curie, and the reverberation of their discoveries throughout the 20th century. (Rosamund Pike, Anya Taylor-Joy, Aneurin Barnard, Sam Riley)

80. James Kent‘s The Aftermath — Post World War II, a British colonel and his wife are assigned to live in Hamburg during the post-war reconstruction, but tensions arise with the German who previously owned the house. (Alexander Skarsgård, Keira Knightley, Jason Clarke, Kate Phillips)

81. Julius Onah‘s Luce — (Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Tim Roth, Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) Adaptation of the hit play. Watts and Roth play the parents of an adopted African teenager who may harbor aspirations of terrorism.

82. Gideon Raff‘s The Red Sea Diving Resort — The rescue of Ethiopian Jewish immigrants to Israel in 1981. (Michiel Huisman, Haley Bennett, Chris Evans, Greg Kinnear)

83. Todd Robinson‘s The Last Full Measure — 34 years after his death, Airman William H. Pitsenbarger, Jr. (“Pits”) is awarded the nation’s highest military honor, for his actions on the battlefield. (Alison Sudol, Sebastian Stan, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Irvine)

84. Alice Winocour‘s Proxima — An astronaut prepares for a one-year mission aboard an international space station. (Eva Green, Matt Dillon, Lars Eidinger, Aleksey Fateev)

85. Liz Garbus‘s Lost Girls — A mother searching for her missing daughter in Long Island makes a horrifying discovery in the woods where the murdered bodies of four girls have been dumped. (Amy Ryan, Gabriel Byrne, Lola Kirke, Dean Winters)

86. Andy Goddard‘s Six Minutes to Midnight — Influential families in Nazi Germany have sent their daughters to a finishing school in an English sea side town to learn the language and be ambassadors. (Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent, James D’Arcy, Eddie Izzard)

87. Zeresenay Mehari‘s Sweetness in the Belly — Orphaned as a child, Lily experiences her parents homeland of England, escaping civil war. She becomes the heart of a disenfranchised community in London. (Dakota Fanning, Kunal Nayyar, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Wunmi Mosaku)

UNCERTAIN

Woody Allen‘s A Rainy Day in New York [in limbo at Amazon, allegedly streaming sometime in ’19)

22. Aaron Sorkin‘s Lucy and Desi — The lives and careers of television pioneers Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Probably not shooting yet — as of mid October 2018 they had not started. Producer friend says they’re still casting Desi. (Cate Blanchett) Possible 2020 release.

Untitled Harriet Tubman Project (HBO) — The life of Civil War-era activist Harriet Tubman, who worked to liberate slaves in the American South by developing an a secretive system that allowed them to escape to freedom. Screenplay by Kirk Ellis. (Viola Davis, Mike Gassaway)