Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.
Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship starring Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny will be released next year by Amazon Studios, Deadline reports. See a new still above.
The boat from Wes Anderson‘s The Life Aquatic is currently for sale for $350,000, Yahoo reports:
It’s just the latest chapter in the rich and surprisingly varied life of this vessel, which first set sail in 1958 as a British minesweeper called the HMS Packington. Soon afterward, it was bought by the South African Navy, and renamed the SAS Walvisbaai.
New restorations of Orson Welles‘ The Merchant of Venice and Othello will screen at Venice Film Festival, THR reports.
Watch a video essay analyzing the finale of Goodfellas:
Reverse Shot‘s Nick Pinkerton on the history of 70mm:
It is the format of imperial pomp and imperial folly. It is a tool for showmen that has occasionally found its way into the hands of artists, and sometimes the showman and the artist have been one and the same person. The wide-gauge format 70mm reached its greatest popularity in the 1950s amid a boom of new innovations (Cinemascope, Cinerama, 3D) intended to reverse the fortunes of foundering Hollywood studios; for a time, they even appeared to have done the trick. But every great reign is followed by an epoch of decadence, and the heyday of 70mm encompassed smashes and busts: Oklahoma! (1955) but also Dr. Doolittle (1967); Ben-Hur (1959) but also Cleopatra (1963). One of the greatest films shot in 70mm appeared at the cusp of its popular decline, Anthony Mann’s significantly titled The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). Now Quentin Tarantino, the most high-profile (or at least the most grating) public advocate for preserving analog celluloid as an exhibition format, has shot his The Hateful Eight on the all-but-extinct Ultra Panavision 70, making a crackerjack piece of advance publicity of this fact. The film will open on Christmas in—one expects—nearly every 70mm-equipped theater in the country. As to if this signifies a rise or fall of the format, and in the industry as a whole, remains to be seen.
Watch Fandor‘s video essay on the tragic timing of Denis Villeneuve‘s Polytechnique:
The Daily Beast‘s Keith Phipps on Hollywood’s cringe-worthy transgender evolution:
It’s been an extraordinary few years for transgender visibility and the discussion of transgender issues.
Much of that increased visibility and discussion can be credited to pop culture, from Against Me!’s Laura Jane Grace to Transparent to Orange Is the New Black’s Laverne Cox’s performance and her composed, confident talk-show appearances to the reality show-driven interest in Caitlyn Jenner’s transition to Sean Baker’s remarkable indie film Tangerine. Music, film, and television have helped bring what was until recently pushed to the mystery-shrouded margins into the mainstream—a moment in which art and the advancement of a cause have found a mutually beneficial synergy.