How I Feel / How I Wish I Felt

How I Feel / How I Wish I Felt as demonstrated by DeliveranceI seem to have done something to my shoulder* so typing has become painful. People are performing superhuman feats at the Olympics whilst looking sexy and I'm watching like a mangled corpse in my living room. Fun times. Alas, that means this week's Best Shot Special Edition focusing on both cinematography and a Best Costume choice (as tribute to Orry-Kelly with the release of the documentary "Women He Undressed") might be very late. I'm taking frequent long stretching breaks.

Best Shot Articles Elsewhere
• Jason Choi *first time participant* looks at the final sequence in An American in Paris (1951) 
• I Want to Believe relates to Sugar Kane in Some Like it Hot (1959)
• Dancin' Dan on Marilyn's curves and despair in Some Like It Hot (1959) 
• Allison Tooey looks at the musical Les Girls (1957) 
• Timothy Brayton has a lot to say about the Best Picture winner An American in Paris (1951)

* by shoulder I obviously mean back (the pain likes to surprise me as to where it will show up) because I have a historically problematic one. When everyone is looking at Olympians like "what are those circular bruises on their bodies?" I'm all 'Oh, so and so's been cupping' because I've basically tried every treatment in my lifetime. 

Praising Jared Leto's Sartorial Style

by Murtada

Will Smith is a big movie star and has been one for a very long time. What would he choose to wear to promote his new superhero movie at fancy premieres in New York and London?

Why brown and blue suits, as if he's going to the latest formal after work function...

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Vintage '84: Travel Back in Time...

1984 is our "Year of the Month", as we work towards the Supporting Actress Smackdown on the last Sunday in the month (more on that soon). So let's steep ourselves in that year that was a bit. It was an Olympics year (Los Angeles in summer, Sarajevo in winter), the Ethiopian famine alarmed the world and prompted that "Do They Know It's Christmas" music world response, the first Apple Macintosh went on sale, TV brought us the premiere of the ubiquitous Wendy's commercial "Where's the beef?", several franchises that still won't go away debuted in early forms, for better and worse (The Terminator, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers), the first MTV Video Awards was held, featuring Madonna's historic "Like a Virgin" performance, and there were two sudden confusing celebrity deaths (35 year old comedian Andy Kaufman to cancer -- which later prompted hoax theories -- and 26 year old beefcake superstar Jon-Erik Hexum who died of an accidental gunshot on the set of his TV show).

Indiana Jones becomes a franchise | Madonna, Kathleen Turner, and Daryl Hannah all become superstars, Geraldine Ferraro is first female VP candidate, and Rob Lowe is the hot new boytoy

Marinate in the Juices of 1984 via Movies, Music, Theater, and Television after the jump...

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Doc Corner: A Russian Master Returns at MIFF Plus Frank Zappa and More

Glenn here. Each Tuesday reviews n documentaries from theatres, festivals, and on demand. This week four more from MIFF following last week's round-up.

The Event

One of Russian/Ukrainian cinema’s contemporary masters, Sergei Loznitsa, has a career that has successfully juggles both documentary traditional narrative cinema. His latest is The Event, a rather exceptional example of the artform that at just 74 minutes long nonetheless has the aura of an epic. Utilizing only black and white 35mm archival footage recorded in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) over the three days of the attempted coup d’etat that failed and eventually brought about the end of the U.S.S.R., The Event is a key reminder that for many in the world dictatorships, revolutions, and social revolt are issues of genuine life and death and not just something to tweet about online.

The found footage is of a remarkable quality, having been stored away for decades seemingly never to be seen since. While the images shown are filmed far away from the crisis happening in Moscow, they are still nonetheless fascinating to watch. This isn’t a film of violent confrontations like Loznitsa’s Maidan, rather it is one of bewilderment. A sea of faces descending on the public spaces of Leningrad to hear speeches, huddle around transistor radios, and read mass-distributed pamphlets that breed fear. Some of them are concerned, but many of them look simply nonplussed. Still, on screen they are rivetting. In the film’s best scene, a massive crowd stands in silence their hands in the air with peace signs, while in another a Soviet flag is drawn down over Parliament and replaced by the imperial tri-color one that flies still today albeit its colors faded by the black and white, a likely powerful statement by the Ukrainian-born Loznitsa to suggest in hindsight that just because one horror might be ending, doesn't mean another won't follow. Of course, they’re just two moments of many that make The Event a special film and with an occasional musical score courtesy of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake”, a rousing and powerfully cinematic one, too.

An Australian gem, Frank Zappa, and lost videogames after the jump...

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A First Glimpse of Villeneuve's 'Arrival'

Chris here with a first look at one of the fall's big Oscar question marks. Last year, Denis Villeneuve's Sicario did quite well by Oscar standards if you consider its punishing bleakness and divisiveness even if it missed the major races. This year he's returning with the sci-fi Arrival, and we've been patiently waiting to see if this will raise his Oscar cache.

To go with the building buzz, here are our first looks...

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