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.