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.
Sony has pulled The Interview from its December 25th theatrical release following threats from hackers.
“Boyhood was a great movie. That, I think, was my favorite movie this year,” President Obama says, agreeing with the majority of critics. As for the First Lady, she adds, “I’ve read others [since, but] I read Gone Girl a couple summers ago, which is one of my favorites. The book is much better than the movie.”
Watch Tina Hassannia‘s video essay on Asghar Farhadi for her new book, included in our Holiday Gift Guide:
The great Hard to Be a God (review) will hit New York City on Jan. 30th via Kino Lorber.
At Time Out, David Ehrlich on the 10 best movie scores by Alexandre Desplat:
It’s a good thing that Alexandre Desplat is one of the most prolific composers in contemporary film, because he’s also one of the best. The 53-year-old Frenchman has scored more than 100 films since 1985 when he began contributing to small movies in his home country. By the time Desplat delivered the haunted but breathlessly tense score for Syriana in 2005, it was clear that the musician was gifted with a rare versatility, one that’s made him absolutely indispensable to some of the world’s best filmmakers. All five of the wildly different scores he wrote this year (Godzilla, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, Unbroken and The Monuments Men) are in contention for major awards, with at least five more in the works for 2015.