Avengers: Infinity War Part One

This article was originally published in Nathaniel's intermittent column at Towleroad

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING THOUGHTS ARE FREE OF SPOILERS (THE MOVIE HAVING JUST OPENED) EXCEPT FOR THE MOVIE’S OPENING BATTLE AND A VAGUE SPOILER ABOUT THE GENERAL NATURE / IMPERMANENCE OF SUPERHERO DEATHS WITHIN THIS GENRE. IF YOU'D LIKE WE CAN DISCUSS IN MORE SPOILERY DETAIL A WEEK OR TWO FROM NOW. LET US KNOW.

If gloves make a big fashion comeback, blame Thanos. The alien destroyer has been haunting the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (aka The Avengers) from the sidelines (aka the post credits sequences) for a full decade of moviegoing. He's been on the hunt for the six “Infinity Stones,” (aka the Tesseract, The Aether, etc...) to decorate and power his universe-controlling glove (aka the “Infinity Gauntlet”). Sorry for all those ‘also known as’ asides but there are so many names to keep track of!

Consider, though it’s much less difficult if you don’t, that most of the six Infinity Stones have gone by at least two different names within the last decade’s worth of Marvel movies. We'll cite just one example since it’s crucial to the story.

The most familiar gem from the previous movies is “The Mind Stone”.  When last we checked in with our heroes it was sitting all lovely and golden on the broadly handsome expanse of The Vision’s Paul-Bettany shaped forehead… but it didn’t start there...

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Doc Corner: Women Astronauts and Rachel Dolezal on Netflix

By Glenn Dunks

“That’s one small leap for a woman, another giant step for mankind” is how Mercury 13 opens. Ignore that it is probably the teensiest bit too twee of a means to open a movie – and also doesn’t make much sense in so far as what they’re referencing – and consider for a moment what could have been. David Sington and Heather Walsh’s film isn’t one of speculative fiction, but rather the untold story of the women who partook in a NASA program.

In many ways, Mercury 13 feels like a blueprint for a feature narrative drama film. Watching the doc and one can almost see it playing out with actors like Emma Stone in the roles of these determined women who took to the skies and played an important part in the war efforts before being recruited for a secret mission to test whether women were fit for space travel.

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"Mean Girls" and "Spongebob" lead the 72nd Annual Tony Nominations!

by Nathaniel R

Katharine McPhee lost the imaginary Tony Award at the end of the much-missed TV series "Smash" but she's starring in "Waitress" on Broadway now and was given the honor of announcing the Tony nominations this morning with Tony winner Leslie Odom Jr of "Hamilton," Murder on the Orient Express, and "nationwide in on your side... 🎵" TV commercial jingle fame. She and Leslie were super charming during the announcement with McPhee getting the giggles at her own perpetual stumbling over the pronunciation of "Spongebob". It soon turned into a running gag where both announcers were pronouncing it "Spahngebob Squahrpants"

"Spongebob Squarepants" and "Mean Girls" led the nominations for musicals with 12 each while "Angels in America" was the most nominated play, with 11 nominations. A full list of nominations with trivia and commentary is after the jump...

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Voila ~ the April Foolish Predictions are Complete!

by Nathaniel R

Whew. Can y'all give me a round of applause? Somehow I finished the April Foolish charts in all the early doable categories (i.e. all but documentaries and the three shorts categories) before April was done! Let this be a new leaf turned as we need lots of new leaves while we reinvent ourselves FOR 2018.

The freshly baked charts...

PREDICTION INDEX |  PICTURE | DIRECTOR | ACTOR 

And the charts that previously went up, some of which we've discussed on the blog....

ACTRESS | SUPPORTING ACTOR | SUPPORTING ACTRESS | SCREENPLAYS | FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM | VISUAL CATEGORIES | MUSIC AND SOUND CATEGORIES | ANIMATED FEATURES

As you can see if you peruse them, they're filled with all sorts of narrative possibilities. Some of those stories they tell are in direct opposition to one another. I urge all of you to try this year in advance thing at home some year. It's incredibly confusing because each time you place a movie here you have to figure how it might affect things over there since there are distinct patterns to the way things happen. 

Steve Carell in "The Women of Marwen" based on the story that also informed the documentary "Marwencol"

It's like trying to construct a crazy intricate jigsaw puzzle without the final image to work from! You can make it up as you go along but what the hell kind of picture are your fingers forming?  And no matter how careful you are some things never end up making any sense...

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April Showers: Blue Jasmine

A final April Showers for the month. Here's Ilich on Blue Jasmine (2013).

Blue Jasmine takes on the narrative of Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire and removes it from its intended New Orleans setting to soak it in the San Francisco coastline. It's there that Jasmine (formerly Jeanette, always Cate Blanchett) reluctantly calls her sister's place home after her socialite life in New York City less than gently escorts her out. Water and cleansing are only a couple of the elements used to contrast her former, generously sponsored life in the city—shown in abrupt flashbacks throughout—against her less sophisticated past and current unraveling.

It's a paralyzing shower that sets Blanchett's Jasmine up for her last scene, but both mean little without the context provided before that give us an insight into Jasmine's aspirations and self-destructive habits. The film is as fascinated with its lead's denial as we are with Blanchett's performance...

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