Charles Bramesco

About a month and a half separate the viewing public from the much-hyped live-action remake of Disney’s essential fairytale Beauty and the Beast. While regular TV viewers and net-surfers can look forward to an uninterrupted stream of commercials and ads until then, Disney has given one last push of publicity today with the final trailer promoting their handsomely-appointed new film. And as if to sweeten the deal, they included a snippet of the previously announced re-recording of the majestic theme tune, as sung by La La Land jazz-diluter John Legend and travel-size pop starlet Ariana Grande.

Just when pundits had begun to reduce the Oscar fracas to a two-horse race between toe-tapping populist favorite La La Land and critically-adored downbeat character piece Moonlight, a possible spoiler has come out of nowhere. Last night, the 23rd annual Screen Actors Guild Awards gave Hollywood’s union of performers a chance to recognize some of their own whom had done outstanding work over the past year. The most coveted award of the ceremony is the prize for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Motion Picture, regarded by some as a bellweather for Oscar night, and it went to unexpected contender Hidden Figures.

We’ve got 11 long months to go before anyone will get a look at Star Wars: Episode VIII, so Lucasfilm has tried to pace itself with leaking details of the hotly anticipated upcoming release. Today, however, they dropped a big one: on the official Star Wars web site, a new announcement revealed the subtitle for the eighth installment in what the site refers to as “the Skywalker saga.” The post declared, “We have the greatest fans in this or any other galaxy. In appreciation of the fans, we wanted them to be the first to know the title of the next chapter in the Skywalker saga: STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI.”

Good news: fans are finally getting their shot to lay claim to two highly sought-after pieces of comic book memorabilia, with George Reeves’ original Superman costume and the Batsuit worn by Michael Keaton during his stint as the Batman both up at auction until January 26. The bad news: you’re going to have to part with at least tens of thousands of dollars if you want to get your mitts on that spandex.

Schwing! Party time! Excellent! We‘re not worthy, we’re not worthy!

Despite volumes of scholarship from feminist theorists on its undertones of spousal abuse and insidious romanticizing of male brutality, Disney‘s Beauty and the Beast has remained a cherished childhood favorite worldwide. Kids love talking furniture, go figure. The live-action remake starring Emma Watson and an unrecognizable Dan Stevens is hot on the way to its March 17 release, and Disney has now released two new TV spots to further amp up the anticipation. In the first, embedded above, the Beast implores lovely Belle to “think of the one thing you’ve always wanted, and feel it in your heart.” We get a glimpse of the timeless ballroom-waltz scene, some barroom carousing from Gaston, and yet another look at the deeply unsettling character designs for Lumiere and Cogsworth.

More streaming services than you can shake a virtual stick at have cropped up over the past year, which makes it all the more aggravating when that one movie you want to watch is nowhere to be found. You shell out every month for Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Shudder, Filmstruck and a dozen more, and yet once that craving to rewatch The Lion King hits, you’re plum out of luck. What’s the point of having countless hours of programming at your fingertips for your immediate enjoyment if that doesn’t include The Little Mermaid?

Even if it feels like things are getting worse all the time, with Hollywood delivering an unholy crop of expensive flops amidst murmurs of cinema’s death in 2016, that may not be the case. At the very least, the American film industry isn’t in danger of collapsing any time soon — quite the opposite, in fact. If we’re to take the total sum of money generated by ticket sales in a given year as a barometer of the industry’s overall health, Tinseltown’s still as strong as an ox, Ben-hur remake or no.

The major inside-industry awards come from the Producers’ Guild of America, the Writers’ Guild of America, the Directors’ Guild of America, and the Screen Actors’ Guild. This morning, the nominations for the 2017 SAG Awards were announced from Los Angeles, with a smattering of surprises and populist favorites (what’s up, Stranger Things) among the established awards season juggernauts. (The Natalie Portman v. Emma Stone showdown continues.)

The one good thing that the United States Congress has ever done was pass the National Film Preservation Act in 1988, establishing a National Film Registry in the Library of Congress wherein moving pictures deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” can be securely preserved. The National Film Preservation Board can induct up to 25 new entries into the archives each year, and today Deadline brings the news of which movies will effectively achieve immortality as the Class of 2016. Lots of enduring, worthy works have made the cut, though it is with a solemn heart that I must once again report the egregious continued snub of Pauly Shore comedy vehicle Bio-Dome.