Nathaniel Gives Thanks
Wednesday, November 22, 2017 at 10:45PM by Nathaniel R
Living through a difficult year gives you more reasons than ever to take every excuse to count your blessings. No matter how bad life is the magic of moving pictures, or storytelling and the craft of acting, are always reliable mood-boosters. They're not just a blessed escape but a companion, through which we can learn about ourselves. But let's not get too fancy about it because we mostly just want to squeal "WHEEEEEE!" when we think of the joy of movies.
I'd like to give thanks for the following in particular this year:
• Atomic Blonde's cool
• Holly Hunter's thaw in The Big Sick
• God's Own Country's heat
• That super random time when I was invited to speak to a group of home-schooled teenagers in their monthly film class get together where they make one short film each year (long story). One of them even drew me while I was speaking unbeknownst to me!
• "Bring me the anatomy book"
• The Little Foxes on Broadway
• That haircut in Battle of the Sexes
• The breath-catch abruptness of Lady Bird's ending paired with the teary exhale of Call Me By Your Name's finale. What did we do to deserve two movies this beautiful about that raw memorable year of life between adolescence and adulthood?
• That complex emotionally assymetrical embrace when Mary J Blige holds a devastated Carey Mulligan in Mudbound
• The parade of dates and suitors in The Wedding Plan. I know the would-be religious bride doesn't feel lucky but damn girl, that's a whole lot of Israeli sexiness to choose from.
• The wry inventive first act of Downsizing, which I still giggle about regularly. So curious to hear what y'all will think of that movie when it arrives.
• My time at the Eugene O'Neill National Critics Institute this summer. What an experience that was.
• The Handmaid's Tale from start to finish. So much brilliant actressing everywhere you looked.
• The shock of complicated ADULT sexuality in Professor Marston and the Wonder Women -- it makes you realize how seldom we see any of that onscreen... at least in English language films.
• Seeing Girls Trip in a crowded theater full of women of color who were having a complete audible blast
• Bell and The Bening disco-dancing in Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool
• That female directors were everywhere (at least at festivals) and their films were often among the best of the lot.
• ALL OF YOU READING
• ..and the RePfeiffal. My all time favorite is back and I couldn't be happier about it. Well, I could... if the Academy were to, say, give Michelle Pfeiffer a well earned Oscar nomination for mother! I could be convinced to be even happier than I already am about her "comeback".
don't look now but Is Michelle still staring at me?
Unable to stop thinking about / talking about / watching movies from the time he understood what they were, Nathaniel did the only thing he could think of to do as an adult: he let it take over his life completely. You can read more about him and the TFE team here.
Reader Comments (13)
Nathaniel, have you seen Wonder yet? It is so so good. I absolutely loved it and think the studio should start an Oscar campaign NOW.
Nathaniel and the team: I don't celebrate Thanksgiving here in the UK but I always love reading these posts at this time of year and this year I want to say how thankful I am for all of your wonderful writing and for this site overall, all year long. It's such a good place to visit - I do so each day - and even when things get heated, it's thought-provoking heat!
And speaking of wonder...how come we get all these titles in the same year:
Wonder
Wonder Woman
Wonder Wheel
Wonderstruck
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women
It's as though the film titles themselves are fighting back against negativity!
^Because they feed on each other's publicity. Do you remember the year where there were 3 main characters named Joy and involved in Oscar nominations? This year there are two notorious Lady Birds. That is not coincidence.
Happy Thanksgiving, Professor Rogers and the Wonder Staff. Thanks for keeping this place fun, passionate and civil. There's no other like it.
Thanks you for this site and the time dedicated to the movies.
Though Thanksgiving was last month in Canada, I am thankful that, on a whim, my partner and I went to see Marcelo Caetano's directorial debut, "Body Electric" last night, here in Toronto. I could not have been more surprised, delighted and gobsmacked by this absolute joy of a movie, I was literally walking in a warm bubble of giddiness and ecstasy on the way home. The best aphrodisiac of the year, says the hubby (or at least until we see "Call Me By Your Name"). Corpo Elétrico, indeed! Merci de m'avoir raccompagnée & mucho-grande Brazil:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6474626/?ref_=nv_sr_1
:)
And Happy Thanksgiving to you
Happy Turkey Day! I second the Pfeiffer in mother! love. Sexiest performance of the year? Scariest performance of the year? Check. Check.
I saw Dreamgirls with an almost entirely African-American audience. Standing ovation and audible weeping after "And I Am Telling You". Makes for a very fond memory of the movie.
Cynthia Nixon's devastating monologue as Birdie and Laura Linney's spectacular Regina are indeed great wonders to be thankful about !!!
Thank you for the site and happy thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving Nathaniel - the posts on this website are the ones I save until last, so I'm not just scanning over them on the bus or on my break, but savoring them.
Thank you to you and all of your staff for all that you do, and Happy Thanksgiving!!!