The Newsies is a regular feature that sees The Dissolve cheerfully adding to the awards glut by handing out imaginary awards related to the day’s movie news.
How To Not Be Single Of The Day: Watch How To Be Single
Do you know how to be single? If not, allow me to teach you right now with all of the knowledge I’ve gleaned from the movies. Step one: Cry into ice cream. Step two: Have ill-advised sex with a stranger; cry into ice cream. Step three: Be in a self-improvement montage of some kind; it doesn’t matter at all what you’re doing. Throw the ice cream away defiantly. Step four: Realize the man/woman of your dreams was in front of you the whole time. Literally, just standing there, staring at you. Hand them a spoon. Eat a pint of ice cream together, with two spoons.
If, for some reason, that wasn’t helpful, check out the forthcoming How To Be Single. Leslie Mann, Alison Brie, Dakota Johnson, Dan Stevens, and Rebel Wilson have all just been cast in the movie, which adapts the 2008 novel by Liz Tuccillo. It will follow the story of “Julie Jenson, single New Yorker turned anthropologist,” (are these things mutually exclusive?) who decides to “cash it all in and hit the road. From Paris to Brazil to Sydney, Bali, Beijing, Mumbai and Reykjavik, Julie travels the world to find out if anyone has a better idea how to handle this whole single thing.” Well, Julie, this whole “single thing” was just handled from the far-reaching corners of my desk, so… you can come back.
Watch This Now That You’re Not Single Of The Day: The Neon Demon
Now that all of us are engaged in healthy, fulfilling romantic relationships, we can watch potentially disturbing movies like Nicolas Winding Refn’s upcoming Neon Demon, safe in the snug warmth of each other’s loving, ice-cream-coated arms. We’ve covered Refn’s feature in a previous Newsies; it sounds weirdly woman-hate-y, but who are we to judge? He’s just cast Abbey Lee to star in the film, alongside Elle Fanning, as a “cool ringleader of a maniacal group of models.” Maniacal they may be, but bet those models aren’t single!
Another Rom-Com Set In New York Of The Day: Chronically Metropolitan
Ashley Benson, Chris Noth, Mary-Louise Parker, and Shiloh Fernandez will star in the indie comedy Chronically Metropolitan. Fernandez is set to play a “first-time novelist who returns to New York City [from which anthropologist Julie Jenson has pointlessly flown the coop] to reclaim his lost love (Benson) who is engaged to be married.” Noth and Parker will play Fernandez’s parents. The title of this movie is irksome to me in the same way that people who are like, “Ugh, I hate New York, but I also love it and I can’t live without it. Guess I’m chronically metropolitan!” are irksome to me. You know, those people.
And More New York Of The Day: The Wife
The fucking fantastic Frances McDormand, who blew my face off in Olive Kitteridge, has joined the cast of The Wife, also starring Logan Lerman, the also-fucking-fantastic Brit Marling and Glenn Close, Christian Slater, and Jonathan Pryce. The film, which has been in the works for over a decade, stars Close as Joan Castleman, the wife of philandering New York novelist Joe Castleman (Pryce); Marling as young Joan; McDormand as her mentor; Slater as Castleman’s biographer (every man has one!); and Lerman as the couple’s “troubled son.” If you’re keeping track, and you should be, for the pop quiz: This is the third New York-set movie I’ve mentioned, the third movie centered on someone who has a problem with their current relationship status, the second movie about a “troubled son,” and the first movie that actually sounds pretty good.
Ethical Dilemma Of The Day: What is video-poker cheating, and what is just good old video-poker fun?
D Train directors Andrew Mogel and Jarrad Paul told Variety they’re planning to turn the Wired magazine article “Finding a Vegas Poker Bug Made These Guys Rich—Then Vegas Made Them Pay" into a movie. Jonah Hill will executive produce the film, which will tell the story of “two hackers who found a glitch in video poker machines before amassing nearly $1 million in cash.” Spoiler alert: They were arrested. But they “weren’t technically cheating,” says Mogel. Mogel makes a good and important video-poker point. What counts as video-poker cheating, and what’s just exploiting weaknesses in the video-poker system? What is video poker, really? (I’ve never played video poker.) Tune in next week, when we’ll have a lengthy discussion on video-poker ethics.
James Franco’s Newest Thing Of The Day: In Dubious Battle
The indefatigable James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vincent D’Onofrio, Robert Duvall, Ed Harris, Bryan Cranston, and Danny McBride will all star in the forthcoming In Dubious Battle, which will be directed by Franco, because of course. The movie is based on Steinbeck’s novel of the same name, which depicts “the struggle between labor and capital in 1930s America.” From what I recall, it was a struggle not unlike the internal struggle of James Franco—the struggle between art Franco and commerce Franco, between Marina Abramovic Franco and Your Highness Franco.
Meta Movie Of The Day: Sleepless Nights
Jamie Foxx and Michelle Monaghan will star in Sleepless Nights, an action-thriller about James Franco’s existential crisis. Foxx stars as a “seemingly corrupt Las Vegas cop [who loves video-poker cheating],” and Monaghan is an internal affairs agent, who is inside of James Franco’s brain, giggling as she forces him to keep adapting Steinbeck.