Paris Fashion Week Gorgeousness

Jane and Dame Hel, working the Paris Fashion Week runway, presented without comment to bless your evening.

Beauty vs Beast: Dreaming of Electric Sheep

Jason from MNPP here... or am I? Is this me? Am I here? So many existential questions here on the eve of the release of Blade Runner 2049 this weekend and all I have is a "Beauty vs Beast" poll to face them down with. Y'all gotta help me suss it out! Are we a Deckard (Harrison Ford) or are we a Pris (Daryl Hannah)? And is this the version of life with the voiceover and the unicorns or isn't it? I am so confused...

PREVIOUSLY Last week we wished David Lynch's Eraserhead a happy 40th birthday, and in a delightfully close contest you came down on the side of the pulsating little baby pod thing - a testament to a special effect that Lynch himself steadfastly refuses to label as such, I'd say. Said Nick T:

"Baby, because I asked my dad if he resonated with Henry's parental struggles raising me and he gave me a look that said I was still making him struggle."

The Furniture: Slack Bay's Giddy Grotesqueries

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

“Look! Mussel-gatherers!” Isabelle Van Peteghem (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) shrieks. “How picturesque!”

Her deranged tone of voice, along with the confused faces of the mussel-gatherers, let you know that you’re watching a Bruno Dumont film. Slack Bay is a comedy of manners and hats, kidnapping and cannibalism. Set on the coast of Northern France in 1910, it’s a period piece with no shortage of surprises.

Initially, the film seems to be making a fairly straightforward point about tourism and class. André (Fabrice Luchini) and Isabelle Van Peteghem are nightmarishly enthusiastic. Aude (Juliette Binoche), André’s sister, is even worse. They all find everything terribly amusing, including the budding friendship between Aude’s daughter, Billie (Raph), and a local kid named Ma Loute (Brandon Lavieville). The interior of their home mimics the interiors of their heads, packed with dusty, fancy nonsense.

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Smackdown '85: Anjelica, Amy, Meg, Margaret and Oprah

Presenting the Supporting Actresses of '85. It was all scandal all the time at this colorful party. There were three much gossiped about women (a mafia princess, a drunk promiscuous entertainer, and a delusional pregnant nun) and two stubborn women who were just NOT having either the gossip or the abusive and cheating men around them. It was the about appreciating the color purple (Oprah & Margaret), seeing red (Amy & Meg), and embracing jet black comedy (Anjelica).

THE NOMINEES 

from left to right: Avery, Huston, Madigan, Tilly, and Winfrey

Oscar celebrated newcomers in 1985 with a shortlist composed entirely of first timers. All five actresses were relatively inexperienced (as Oscar lists go) having made less than ten films each so no overdue conversations were to be had. One of them (Oprah Winfrey) was even making her film debut though the eventual winner (Anjelica Huston) was already Hollywood royalty, being the daughter of the film titan directing her and the girlfriend of the superstar headlining her Best Picture nominated vehicle.

Notable women who Oscar didn't nominate were Globe nominees Kelly McGillis (Witness) and Sonia Braga (Kiss of the Spider Woman), BAFTA nominees Judi Dench (Wetherby) and Tracey Ullman (Plenty), and BAFTA winner Rosanna Arquette (Desperately Seeking Susan)... who was very much a leading lady but you know how awards season is! Other key supporting players that attracted critical attention and/or movie fans in 1985 were Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy (The Breakfast Club), Demi Moore and Mare Winningham (St Elmo's Fire), Isabella Rossellini and Helen Mirren (White Nights), Madonna (Desperately Seeking Susan), Lea Thompson (Back to the Future), Laura Dern (Mask), Ann Wedgeworth (Sweet Dreams), and Mieko Harada (Ran).

THIS MONTH'S PANELISTS

from left to right: Zehetner, Virtel, Nathaniel R, Nazemian, Morgan

Here to talk about these five nominated turns, in reverse alphabetical order: Actress Nora Zehetner (Creative Control, Brick), comedian/writer Louis Virtel  (Billy on the Street, Throwing Shade), your host Nathaniel R (The Film Experience), novelist/producer Abdi Nazemian ("The Authentics" and Call Me By Your Name), and writer/director Michelle Morgan (It Happened in LA). And now it's time for the main event... 

1985
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN  

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Transparent S4 E1-3: Off to Israel

by Chris Feil

The opening theme music to Transparent by Dustin O’Halloran always chokes me up. Something about its evolving images and sound carry the weight of the shared histories - LGBTQ, Judaism, and family - speaks to both the known and still secreted past that makes the Pfefferman clan all too relatable. Like the rest of us, they’ve been somewhere and it hasn’t been easy. But from the opening emotive thrum, the theme now incorporating pilgrimage images and a traditional Jewish instrumentation, this season announces that it’s going somewhere too.

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