Barbara Harris (1935-2018)

by Nathaniel R

Barbara Harris in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979)

Sad news yesterday. One of the nation's best and most underappreciated actresses Barbara Harris passed away at 83 from lung cancer. The Chicago native got her start as a teenager on local stages and was an original member of Chicago's famed Second City troupe. Her intermittent screen career sprang initially from her stage successes. Though her filmography is mostly in the 1970s, she made a few 80s movies before retiring including Peggy Sue Got Married, Grosse Point Blank, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Curiously for such a talented thespian of both stage and screen, she seemed somewhat ambivalent about her career, stating that she didn't miss acting after her retirement...

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Soundtracking: "My Best Friend's Wedding"

by Chris Feil

Time has been kinder to My Best Friend’s Wedding than what my memory of its initial response was: the film was too mean-spirited for a mainstream romantic comedy, Julia Roberts’ heroine’s reprehensible behavior at odds with her America’s Sweetheart status. Now the film’s legacy shows just how wrong those initial hot takers were, with its dismantling of genre fairy tale illusions being the core of its peak genre genius. Oddly, one of the primary ways it cracks open our expectations of cinematic romance is one of its most pleasing and digestible: its soundtrack of gold standard, Burt Bacharachian love songs.

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Is this the end for "Harlots"?

by Nathaniel R

There wasn't enough interest to continue our lengthy "Harlots" write-ups but dayumn, y'all are missing out if you're still now watching. The show is absolutely a smorgasbord of actressing. Season 2 initially felt like the Lesley Manville show after Season 1's Samantha Morton flavor but everyone in the cast is vying for queen of this deliciously talented pool of fascinating women in season 2. Tomorrow night is the season finale.

I do wonder sometimes if the writers are writing this show into a corner, though. How can it continue for a third season  -- if renewed *bites nails* --  given what's happened to the characters? With hangings, stabbings, whippings, betrayals, and general abundance of emotional scarring it feels like there will soon be no one left intact? Or is the nihilism the end game and this is a series finale tomorrow? Season 2 isn't as much "fun" as Season 1, and given what's transpired the show has probably left "fun" behind for good, but it's still dynamite drama. Watch it. And bless Morton, Manville, Liv Tyler, Jessica Brown Findlay, and the rest of the cast for investigating the psyches of these bruised angry witty sexual women. 

All You Can Link Smorgasbord

Instagram Actor Garret Clayton (Hairspray Live!, King Cobra, The Fosters) has officially come out of the closet
/Film a rejected 1998 pitch for a Catwoman solo movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer
AV Club Danny Boyle has dropped out of Bond 25. The longer the film delays production, the more I suspect Daniel Craig will bolt, too.
Variety Asia Argento sure has had it rough lately. In addition to her own rage about Weinstein, and the suicide of her boyfriend, she herself is denying claims that she sexually assaulted a minor.

More after the jump including the dying YA movie boom, Madonna docs and criticisms, Sebastian Stan, Crazy Rich Asians, and more...

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Nicole Kidman in "Destroyer". Is De-Glam Back?

by Nathaniel R

We've seen set photos but this is the first official image from Annapurna of Nicole Kidman in Destroyer, her LAPD drama and suspected second Oscar bid. She plays Erin Bell, a woman haunted by her past when she was undercover with a criminal gang...

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