Sunday, October 15, 2017 at 9:08AM by Nathaniel R
Sorry to begin your day with something so grim but it's actressy. Today marks the centennial of the execution of exotic dancer Mata Hari by firing squad for espionage during "The Great War" (aka World War I)...
Saturday, October 14, 2017 at 8:00PM by Chris Feil
E7 - "Babar the Borible"
I haven’t been quite sure what to make of this season of Transparent. Whereas the two previous seasons were fairly bold in creating seismic arcs for all of the Pfeffermans, this season felt like a chamber piece full of half-steps towards global politics and religion. The journey to Israel was an intriguing way to continue expanding the family history and contextualizing the show’s themes. But by the end of the season, the religious elements of the seasons feel more tangential and underdeveloped. Odd that as Transparent’s literal world got bigger, the show got unsatisfyingly smaller...
Saturday, October 14, 2017 at 5:07PM By Nathaniel R
It's the end of an era. Harvey Weinstein has been expelled from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences given the avalanche of sexual harassment and rape claims that have hit in the past week. That's quite a downfall for a man once synonomous with Oscar Night. Or as The Los Angeles Times succinctly puts it
The move... in symbolic terms, amounts to a virtual expulsion from Hollywood itself.
The Oscars aren't the house that Harvey built, of course. They have survived many scandals and scandalous members and will survive this. The organization predates his birth by 25 years though how's this for an eery bit of Oscar/Harvey trivia: the very first televised Oscars were held on the night of baby Harvey's first birthday on March 19th, 1953. The producing giant didn't come into prominence until the early 1990s with the rise of Miramax but once he did he changed the way Oscar campaigns ran, was thanked relentlessly in acceptance speeches, and made prestige mini-majors the dominant Oscar players across town.
Of course one could argue that the Weinstein era had ended years ago. The Weinstein Company has struggled in recent years against the rise of now-powerful awards players like Fox Searchlight, A24, Amazon Studios and more. There isn't even much to say about the way the Weinstein sexual harassment scandals will affect the Oscars this year. TWC only had one release this year that was successful enough to justify a campaign of any kind (Wind River) but that was a long shot at best even before the company was embroiled in this scandal. The period drama The Current War was their Christmas hopeful but its festival response was tepid and with the company falling apart and cries to "dissolve the board" out there it seems unlikely that it will see release any time soon.
The Academy's Board of Governors (incidentally just one woman shy of being 50% women) was right to get this scandal off their plate immediately given that the Honorary Oscars are just around the corner. Who could be celebratory with anything like this depressing hurtful story on their minds? But on a deeper level they're taking a stand against the way Hollywood has been run for years. They state that they made the move in order to send a message:
The era of willful ignorance and shameful complicity in sexually predatory behavior and workplace harassment in our industry is over.
Well done.
Saturday, October 14, 2017 at 12:17PM In an effort to break out of my silence -- October is my favorite month so why has it been so hard? -- micro thoughts on 5 Oscar hopefuls I meant to review but didn't. Whoops. Please to discuss in the comments.
Battle of the Sexes (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)
The story of Billie Jean King's (Emma Stone) famous 1973 match with Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) and her efforts to make women's tennis viable in a sexist industry
Capsule: A timely well-crafted look back to the beginnings of a gender war that's depressingly still raging and a soupçon of queer romance to give it unique personality. Dayton & Faris's light touch is the right choice for this briskly-paced but delicately felt recreation of a pivotal American moment. Emma Stone is perfection as the heroic tight shouldered athlete at the center. Just discussed on the podcast. B+
Oscar Chances: This one could go either way. Much will depend on how smart Fox Searchlight is at selling it to voters. Though maybe don't bet against Emma Stone returning to Best Actress; she's very burrowed into King's skin but still as sunny as Emma Stone.
Blade Runner 2049, Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, Victoria and Abdul and the Shape of Water are after the jump
Friday, October 13, 2017 at 2:00PM 
Nathaniel, Nick, Joe and Chris try and catch up with movies the podcast hasn't covered
Index (42 minutes)
00:01 Battle of the Sexes
12:00 mother!, interpretations, Q & A culture
28:30 Michelle Pfeiffer and Darren Aronofsky
34:00 Beach Rats
39:15 silliness and sign-offs
You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you?
