Doc Corner: 'Hail Satan?'

By Glenn Dunks

How long do you think it took director Penny Lane to choose between putting a ? or an ! in the title of her latest delight of a documentary. Her follow-up to the equally wonderful Nuts! (another one where either punctuation mark would work), Hail Satan? left me wanting to convert from the cosy world of agnosticism to the Satanic Temple, which I suppose is as glowing a recommendation as one could get for a film directly about the Satanic Temple.

I was first introduced to Lane through Our Nixon, a relatively staid and standard assemblage of home movies that held little suggestion that Lane would quickly become one of the most interesting purveyors of absurd American life working today.

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April Foolish Predictions #6: Costume Design

Our annual April Foolish Oscar Predictions continue

Can "Aladdin" repeat "Beauty & The Beast"'s success in Costume Design? And can we ever forgive Michael Wilkinson for making Aladdin wear a shirt for the whole movie?

The last few years of the Costume Design category have been very Powell/Atwood heavy as Oscar's two design queens have either won again (Atwood in 2016) or been double-nominated twice-over (Powell in 2015 and 2018) but it looks like we'll be taking a wee break from those much honored artists this year. Will there be any room room for first-time nominees (Paul Tazewell, Mayes C Rubeo, Julian Day, Daniel Orlandi?) or will we get mostly costuming regulars who could continue to march to Atwood and Powell-like status (Jacqueline Durran, Albert Wolsky, Consolata Boyle, Alexandra Byrne?)

Here's the chart (and the prediction index if you haven't been playing along). But after the jump some images to whet your appetite for the year in costuming to come...

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Review: Brie Larson's "Unicorn Store"

by Anne Marie

With Captain Marvel crossing the $300million mark at the box office, Netflix has capitalized on Brie Larson's booming popularity to acquire her 2017 directorial debut. Unicorn Store is a coming-of-age comedy that happens to also star buddy and co-Avenger Samuel L. Jackson. And while Larson fans will enjoy watching the actress glitter (sometimes literally) across the screen for an untidy 92 minutes, ultimately the star's freshman effort comes off as more style than subsance.

Written by Samantha McIntyre (Married), Unicorn Store tells the self-consciously magical story of a twenty-something failed artist named Kit (Larson), who gets a second chance when she's offered the chance to fulfill her childhood dream...of owning a unicorn. After she fulfills some obligations, of course. The premise is purposely absurd, and for the most part, Larson adeptly navigates between the more magically bizarre scenes of straw-dying and stable-building, and the more quotidian (and creepy) B plot wherein Larson’s character tries to prove herself at a temp job with a predatory boss...

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1972: Soaked in Booze with "The Ruling Class"

TFE will be periodically looking back at the 1972 film year before we hit the Supporting Actress Smackdown at month's end. Here's Anna from Defiant Success

Adapted from the play of the same name by Peter Barnes (who also serves the film’s writer), Peter Medak’s The Ruling Class establishes its bizarre nature early on. The plot kicks off after Ralph Gurney, the 13th Earl of Gurney (Harry Andrews) accidentally hangs himself while performing autoerotic asphyxiation. Upon his death, his only surviving son Jack (Peter O’Toole) becomes the 14th Earl of Gurney. One problem with this new arrangement: Jack firmly believes that he’s Jesus Christ...

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April Foolish Predictions #5: Visual Categories

[drumroll] Our annual April Foolish Oscar Predictions continue

"Nomadland" was shot by the cinematographer of "The Rider"

We always mention at the start of all this that we call them April Foolish predictions because it's foolish to assume we know anything at all quite yet. Oscar buzz begins the day of announcement for projects with "pedigree" but the reality of the Oscar race is much more complex than that as the quality of films, size of campaigns, box office results, media pets, and public perception all end up weighing in later in the year. So consider these early bird predictions as "what ifs"... we do not pretend to have the year figured out just yet as we're going on hunches...

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