iTunes' 99¢ Deals This Week

No, we are not conspiring with iTunes. It's pure accident that their 99¢ deal this week is I, Tonya moments after Jason asked us to vote on it in the Beauty vs Beast column. I don't like that movie but if you do or if you haven't seen it 99¢ can't really be beat.

I find myself turning more and more to iTunes and hoping for 99¢ rental deals for films I don't own because Netflix / Prime / Filmstruck whoever have such limited and shifting selections each month. iTunes changes their dollar deals quickly but right at the moment there are a ton of great films as well as some interesting little ones... 

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Perfect Things Which Are Perfect. "Rear Window" Edition

by Nathaniel R

This past weekend Jason and I went to a big screen showing of Hitchcock's masterpiece Rear Window (1954). Or one of his masterpieces that is; has more than his share, that one. We went just because it was playing (bless you rep scene) and it was the absolutely best thing to see during an actual heatwave in NYC because it's set during one yet it's its own air-conditioning. It's utterly cool...

I love that so many characters in the picture but especially LB (Stewart), eternally in pajamas and broken leg cast, come across like the heat is wearing at their nerves, temper, and clothing. Except Grace Kelly as Lisa Carol Fremont, who just floats onto the screen in a cocktail dress, in slomo no less in one of the cinema's all time greatest entrances. Lisa always looks like she is immune to common people concerns like the weather. This only benefits the film because it plays deliciously to L.B.'s (James Stewart) conflicted perception of her as somehow both above the mortal world but also too fragile for it. He thinks his rough and tumble travelling photographer existence too much for her. But isn't the rich dichotomy of the film that she's actually braver than he is when all the dangerous seeds the picture so gleefully places, eventually bloom? 

I've seen Rear Window several times but somehow I always forget big chunks of it. Like that it was set during a heatwave -- how did I forget that? But the heatwave ready to melt me again once I left the theater is beside the point. As I sat there totally engrossed and then delighted and then tense and then elated, I was reminded of a simple fact: Oh riiiiight, this perfect thing is perfect.

COMMENT PARTY ☛ So my spread-the-good-vibes question to you is this. When was the last time you saw an old favorite only to be surprised anew at its total perfection? 

Doc Corner: The Dandy Glam of 'Love, Cecil'

by Glenn Dunks

Cecil Beaton was a dandy. He was an elegant fop, an aesthete, a bright young thing, a (mostly) homosexual. These are all words used to describe him in Love, Cecil, a charming bio-doc from director Lisa Immordino Vreeland. They are words not used in malice, but in reverence to a man whose singular attitudes flew in the face of what men were ‘supposed’ to be. Cecil Beaton had about him an air of posh aristocracy that belied his place in society, but which would ultimately allow him to become ingratiated into the inner-sanctum of Britain’s upper-class (including right up the Queen herself), the world of celebrity, and even the Academy as the Oscar-winning designer behind Gigi and My Fair Lady. He also just happens to be one of the great photographers of the 21st century

Love, Cecil is Vreeland’s most accomplished film to date...

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Lukewarm off the Presses: Little Waspy Wonder Women

by Nathaniel R

Look at this lucky so and so getting a selfie with La Pfeiff!

Running so late! Three topics worth blogging about that slipped us by this past week. Michelle & pfans, Wonder Woman 1984 images, and Greta Gerwig's next project. That's a lot. Ready. Let's go...

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Release date shuffle. The backloading begins with "Boy Erased" and "On the Basis of Sex"

by Nathaniel R

Ah.... statue lust. It invariably shoves everything into the last two months of the year. This just in: Focus has pushed back both of its key contenders this year: Boy Erased, the gay conversion drama, is moving the beginning of its platform release from September 28th until November 2nd and On the Basis of Sex, the biopic on Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is moving its limited launch from November 9th until December 25th. Though pushing back a little seems kind of wise for On the Basis of Sex (put a little distance between yourself and RBG) Christmas seems like a step too far. Or is that just me? 

We expect a few more Oscar contenders to push back into December. Why? Well, despite statistics being in favor of releasing in October or November if you'd like to win e--  The Shape of Water (2017) was actually the first Best Picture winner to begin its release in December since Million Dollar Baby (2004) -- common beliefs are hard to shake and Hollywood has long viewed a December berth as the be-all and end-all of awards strategies. There is a good reason for that though we hate to admit it: despite December being tough for Best Picture wins in the modern era (momentum needed!) it is and basically always has been easier to get nominations if you release in December. Try to imagine, say, The Post, being nominated last year had it come out in September. It doesn't happen. But in December it had so much pre-release hype as an assumed frontrunner that it was able to weather lukewarm precursor attention and snag the nod.  

Wings (1927) the first best picture winner. It still holds up. For fun here's a list of when every Best Picture ever first opened in theaters excluding festival debuts obviously. (Some of the dates are a bit fuzzy, of course, that's especially true for ye olden times when listings are harder to come by and sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between event premieres and the actual beginning of a platform release...

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