Hollywood Elsewhere will be picking up an Outfest press pass in a couple of hours, and then early this evening I’ll be attending the opening-night gala screening of Matt Tyrnauer‘s Studio 54, which I fell for during last January’s Sundance Film Festival. Two motives: I want to see how it plays with an enthusiastic gay crowd and whether or not a second viewing will still give me the tingles. Zeitgeist Films and Kino Lorber have picked up U.S. rights and will presumably open it sometime in the fall. Outfest runs from tonight through Sunday, July 22nd.

“Many of the viewpoints Maher ridicules seem outrageous only because mainstream society is not yet accustomed to hearing them and having to ponder their validity. In this regard and many others, Maher’s material is reactionary in the dictionary sense of the word: opposing political or social liberalization or reform, or at least dramatically signaling his annoyance with the idea that there might be another way to live and think beyond whatever he’s comfortable with.

“That’s unfortunate, considering that a big part of his routine is based on self-identifying as a liberal. It’s as if he just wants things to go back to the way they were in the ’90s, when he could plausibly sit on the left-hand side of the set on his old ABC talk show Politically Incorrect. The Overton window shifted while he was ensconced at Real Time on HBO, and he’s mad that he can’t move it back.” — from Matt Zoller Seitz’s 7.12 Vulture piece, “Bill Maher Is Stand-up Comedy’s Past — Hannah Gadsby Represents Its Future.”

The thing that bothered me about Alden Ehrenreich playing Han Solo in Solo (i.e., zero resemblance between himself and Harrison Ford) is the same thing bothering me about 81-year-old Billy Dee Williams returning to plan Lando Calrissian in J.J. Abrams‘ Star Wars Episode IX flick — i.e., zero resemblance to Solo‘s Donald Glover.

I realize that prequels like Solo can’t hope to fully blend with the sequel trio — they’re parallel universes with their own biological compositions– but all these films have been produced by Disney and Kathy Kennedy, and after watching Solo I feel as if I’ve made an investment in Glover-as-Calrissian. But when Episode IX comes out I’ll be back with the old Lando again. And I don’t like it. Glover is 21st Century cool but Williams is the original cool so who’s da man?

From Ben Childs’ 7.11 Guardian piece: “The fear is that Disney-owned Lucasfilm is only wheeling out the 81-year-old [Williams] because it desperately needs original-trilogy cachet, and has exhausted the potential to cast Ford, Hamill or Fisher in yet another episode.

“Cynics will also complain that Williams ought to have been front and center in Abrams’ earlier effort, The Force Awakens, when he might have been paired successfully with his old buddy Han. But Lucasfilm has made a habit of keeping its classic cast apart in the new era, as if too much of a good thing might overwhelm us. Perhaps the idea is to retain the focus on fresher faces such as Daisy Ridley’s Rey and John Boyega’s Finn, so it is probably fair to say that the ploy has proved successful.
more or less.”

By the way: I’m not entirely sure if Luke Skywalker really and truly died at the end of The Last Jedi. He did, I know, but did he? I so hated the fact that Luke never left Ahch-To throughout the whole film, and that he died on Ach-To after the final confrontation with Kylo Ren even though he wasn’t actually fighting anyone — his “force projection” was. God, I hated that ending.

It was announced earlier today that Steve McQueen’s Widows (20th Century Fox, 11.16) will open the BFI London Film Festival on Wednesday, 10.10. The fact that the screening is being called an “international premiere” suggests that the caper thriller will start things off in Telluride or Toronto.

Pic is based on Lydia LaPlante’s Widows mini-series that ran on British television in ’83 and ’85. Wikipage logline for McQueen’s film: “Four armed robbers (Liam Neeson, Garret Dillahunt, Jon Bernthal, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) are killed in a failed heist attempt, only to have their respective widows (Viola Davis, Cynthia Erivo, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez) step up to finish the job.”

Viola Davis, Liam Neeson in Steve McQueen’s Widows.

Widows also stars Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall, Daniel Kaluuya, Jacki Weaver, Lukas Haas and Brian Tyree Henry.

In what particular way[s] could Widows fit into the ’18/’19 awards season? From what I’ve been told, Viola Davis is more or less a slamdunk for a Best Actress nomination. A guy who allegedly saw an early cut has said that “Viola is the standout, a force of nature in a showcase lead role…and she’s so respected as an actress.”

I’ve assumed all along that McQueen, an esteemed art-film director (12 Years A Slave, Shame, Hunger), wouldn’t go slumming by directing a boilerplate robbery caper flick. I’ve been told that he hasn’t done that. I’ve been told that he blends the Chicago-based robbery plot with political commentary involving police brutality, political corruption (Colin Farrell‘s character racking up odious points in this regard) and Black Lives Matter. So you should most likely put out of your mind any thoughts of Widows being an Ocean’s 8 companion piece.

Spittin’ cousins, queens at cross purposes. The willful, emotional, ultimately unlucky Mary Queen of Scots (Saoirse Ronan) vs. the coolly reasoned Queen Elizabeth (Margot Robbie) in the mid to late 1500s. Things don’t quite work out for Mary, but then you knew that. The Focus Features release opens on 12.4.

Yesterday I passed along praise for Ronan’s performance (“incredible, really gets to shine, a full range of emotions”). The flame-haired Robbie looks like a fright. (Cue junket-whore questions about how upsetting it was for the beautiful Robbie to ugly up for the sake of art.) The clips are handsome in a carefully-balanced, steady-as-she-goes, class-A fashion. The exquisite lighting is the work of dp John Mathiesen, a longtime Ridley Scott collaborator.

Directed by Josie Rourke, the trailer seeks to persuade that the film is primarily focused on character and conviction rather than blood and spectacle. The fact that Beau Willimon (House of Cards) wrote the screenplay suggests this. And yet the word around the campfire is that the Game of Thrones aesthetic was also an influence.