News

• Stephen Colbert and J.J. Abrams turned out in force (get it?) this past Saturday for the Montclair Film Festival kickoff fundraiser and buddy-buddy interview. Highlights included an audience prizewinner bluntly inquiring as to how many Ewoks J.J. could take in a fight, Colbert springing J.J.’s acting reel from Six Degrees of Separation on him, and the pair peering up into the fourth tier where I was seated and making remarks like “you’re in low orbit” and “my neck hurts”.

• Kenneth Branagh will be directing and starring in the long-in-the-works Murder on the Orient Express remake, which hopefully will be so many zillion times better than Shadow Recruit.

• Ready to feel old? Toy Story turned 20 years old yesterday. Yep. Thankfully, if you want to feel young again, you can just rewatch Toy Story.

Trailers

Amid the onslaught of Force Awakens material is the most recent TV spot, which dropped last night. This brief tease continues the trend of refusing to give away any plot points and even adds a possible Nien Nunb sighting:

If you want to watch a lot of really really ridiculously good-looking people attempting to do battle with their sexiness, here’s the absurd-looking Zoolander 2:

If you want to watch a lot of really really ridiculously good-looking people attempting to do battle with their sexiness, here’s the absurd-looking Gods of Egypt:

Only in our time is a movie called Gods of Egypt way more white than a Zoolander sequel.

In Cinemas

The Good Dinosaur, Room, The Danish Girl and Victor Frankenstein all hit stateside theaters in various capacities over the Thanksgiving weekend. I’ll probably go for Creed, if only to get a base for the inevitable Creed 2.0: The Hypercreed and the trilogy-capper Threed.

On TV

The Walking Dead had a hell of an episode last night, setting up the mid-season finale and, with luck, an arc from the comics that’s been a long time coming. The Leftovers will also be going on hiatus soon at the close of season 2, and the void left by that show will be sorely felt.

On Netflix

Jessica Jones is thus far providing a nice mix of noirish style and superheroinism, but it’s not quite as gripping as Daredevil. Stay tuned this week for our review of the first season.

Review of the Week

The Evolution International Film Festival at Mallorca played host to a nice slate of films this year, and Mistress America was among them.