The New Classics - Y Tu Mama Tambien

Michael Cusumano here to add a title that is near and dear to my heart to the New Classics pantheon 

Scene: Epilogue
The Narrator in coming-of-age stories most often represents a grown-up version of the protagonist. Think The Sandlot or A Christmas Story, or the quintessential example, The Wonder Years, voices looking back, awash in nostalgia. In Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mamá También not only is the narrator not a character, but the voice is indifferent, even coldly clinical in its omniscience, as likely to note the fate of a passing group of wild pigs as to reveal the deepest secrets of the protagonists.

We get used to the voice as a welcome companion throughout the film. Its flat, objective viewpoint is a welcome respite from the main trio’s frequent emotional upheavals. Little do we realize we are being set up for the emotional gut punch of the film’s epilogue...

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Watch at Home: What/If life were a Cabaret, Greta?

Nathaniel R giving you the heads up on what's available to you now to screen at home.

New on DVD/Blu-Ray
• Climax - Gaspar Noe's latest provocation about an orgiastice dance troup on drugs
• Greta - Opinions are split on this femme thriller at TFE HQ but yours truly is on the 'Did Neil Jordan forget how to make movies?' side of said split. 

Notable iTunes 99¢ Deals
• Cabaret - OMG you guys. See Bob Fosse's masterpiece (well, his first masterpiece. There was another one seven years later) for only a dollar...

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The 72 Greatest Gowns of the 72nd Cannes Festival (Part 2)

by Nathaniel R

Look, Andie MacDowell (with Ellen von Unwerth and Izabel Goulart) at a party in Cannes is illustrating for us exactly how we feel like watching actresses work the red carpets at Cannes: drunk, giddy, silly, happy and greedy. 

So let's finish up that list of our favourite gowns at this year's Cannes but before we do that we should note that we purposely didn't include any pants outfits though there were more women in slacks this year than has been the norm. Of those our favourite looks belonged to Margot Robbie and Li Yuchun. Like so...

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The 72 Greatest Gowns of the 72nd Cannes Festival (Part 1)

by Nathaniel R

How did we ignore the gowns from Cannes red carpets for the entirety of this year's run in the South of France? As penance we've collected our favourite gowns (i.e. anything that isn't pants) in two giant red carpet posts. Herewith the 72 greatest gowns from the Cannes Festival ranked in rough order of our appreciation. The order is for entertainment purposes only and we shan't stand by the arbitrary rankings if grilled about them. The order would change every five minutes as this was pieced together bit by bit over several days and our favourite color might be champagne in five minutes whereas at this very second it happens to be red (weird) and usually it's blue or purple.

72 ELLE FANNING 

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50th Anniversary: "Midnight Cowboy"

by Mark Brinkerhoff

Gay pride month is nearly upon us, so what better time to revisit Midnight Cowboy, the first LGBT-related Best Picture Oscar winner, which arrived in theaters 50 years ago this week. It remains, incidentally, the only X-rated film (for “homosexual frame of reference" and its "possible influence upon youngsters”) ever to win the Academy’s top award. 

Centering on Joe Buck, a wannabe hustler from Texas who finds himself entirely out of his depth in the big city (New York, that is), Midnight Cowboy succeeds poignantly, in the words of its director, as an “exploration of loneliness.” It also doubles as — and doubles down on — disastrous toxic masculinity: how men often are conditioned to (mis)treat others, not to mention themselves, as disposable, degradable objects of disaffection. 

In this ambling story, callousness reigns supreme, with humanity increasingly lost in the constant shuffle, on the streets of Manhattan...

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