Blueprints: "Tully"

For this upcoming Mother’s Day weekend, Jorge takes a look at the depictions of the hardships of motherhood in Diablo Cody and Jason’s Reitman’s latest joint.

At this point it may be an overstatement, but motherhood is not easy. As it turns out, taking care of another, much smaller living and breathing human being requires more time, attention and energy than one sole human being is able to provide. Tully, among many other things, is an examination of the mental toll that motherhood takes on a person.

Let’s take a look at the tools that Diablo Cody’s script uses to portray the everyday hassle, tediousness and exhaustion that Charlize Theron’s Marlo has to endure, before Tully comes in and rescues her...

Click to read more ...

Review: "The Seagull"

by Jason Adams

Nina (Saoirse Ronan) is sweetly exasperated by Konstantin (Billy Howle), whose avant-garde play she has just acted (and flopped) in for a small crowd of friends and relations. "Nothing happens in your play," she says. "It's all people talking. You ought to add a love story."

Anton Chekov, who wrote the maybe-you've-heard-of-it 1895 play The Seagull upon which this movie is based, was of course making a joke at his own expense --The Seagull is really nothing but talk and love stories. Half a dozen love stories are all twisted up, a gordian knot of romantic entanglements...

Click to read more ...

Cannes Carpet #1: Cruz, Bingbing, Adjani, Moore and more...

by Nathaniel R

Chloe, Chiara, Fan Bingbing, and Carey

With Cannes two days strong now, let's survey the first round of fashions with 16 of the most memorable looks to date. Chloe Sevigny has moved past her fashion muse days but still brings the style while jurying one of the sidebars. It's sort of a starchy pleat with silver gift wrapping. (I don't know what I'm looking at exactly which is sometimes welcome!) Actress Chiara Mastroianni, child of not one but two bonafide legends (Mastroianni & Deneuve, don'cha know) appears to have stepped out of the 1980s directly into 2018. From a distance the dress is like a splatter painting on acid. And Fan Bingbing generally brings several trunks (or maybe trucks?) worth of fashion to Cannes. This Ali Karoui mint-green strapless number is the best of them so far...

Click to read more ...

Months of Meryl: Death Becomes Her (1992)

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep. 

 

 #19 —Madeline Ashton, a past-her-prime Hollywood actress who goes to great lengths to preserve her good looks.

MATTHEW: Meryl Streep and her good friend Goldie Hawn once came very close to riding off a cliff together. During the early 1990s, the pair had been in search of a dual-star vehicle to appear in and were initially in contention to play the titular roles in Thelma & Louise, along with one-time possibilities Jodie Foster, Frances McDormand, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Hawn and Streep actively courted Pathé Entertainment’s former C.E.O. Alan Ladd, Jr. for the parts and even tossed around ideas for a happier alternate ending. (Streep, who would have played Louise, wanted Thelma to live.) Eventually, Streep’s schedule got in the way, while Ladd deemed Hawn an iffy fit for the project, clearing the way for Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon to take on the most popular parts of their careers...

Click to read more ...

Stage Door: Joshua Henry Wows in "Carousel"

by Nathaniel R

"So that's why 'Carousel' is rarely revived... got it!"

Dear reader, I have a confession to make. I had never seen the golden age Rodgers & Hammerstein musical "Carousel" performed before this week. Nor had I ever seen the now rarely discussed film version Carousel (1956), starring Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae. So when I sat down in Broadway's Imperial Theater for the 11-time Tony nominated revival, I really had no idea what to expect...

Click to read more ...