Doc Corner: 'The Price of Gold' Brings Clarity to 'I, Tonya'

By Glenn Dunks

The defining trait of I, Tonya that has separated it from a glut of biopics is that darkly comedic tone achieved significantly through fake direct-to-camera interviews by an assortment of ghoulish villains and anti-heroes. One could argue that with its cast of monstrous characters and flamboyant yet true-to-life costumes and wig-work, the film’s mock documentary device was entirely unnecessary at achieving its desired laughs.

Yet while I saw the value of its method as a sort of short-hand directorial device used to wrangle the story’s many real life contradictions and he-said-she-said-he-said-she-said-he-said narrative, having watched Nanette Burstein’s sublime The Price of Gold, it comes off as actually just lazy...

Click to read more ...

Link Trip

• Boy Culture took on a massive and fascinating project: A "brief" (haha) history of LGBTQ moments on television starting from TV's beginnings! (I Love Lucy might contain the first actual gay joke on TV... but things really pick up in the 1970s). It's a must-read if you care about these things
• The Grio Get Out takes four prizes at the AAFCAS while Girls Trip and Detroit both take home two
• Deadline reports on the Sci-Tech award where there was a an impassioned speech and a transgender winner
• IndieWire MoviePass is driving its subscriber base to Oscar-nominated movies

Lots more after the jump including Oscar news, Sarah Jessica Parker making headlines, Quentin Tarantino's response to Uma Thurman's story, and three memorable actors passing away...

Click to read more ...

What did you see this weekend?

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office (Feb 9th-11th)
W I D E 800+ screens	L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide
1. 🔺 Fifty Shades Freed $38.8 NEW REVIEW	1. 🔺 La Boda de Valentina $1.1 on 331 screens NEW
2. 🔺 Peter Rabbit $25 NEW	2. 🔺 Pad Man  $760k on 152 screens NEW
3. 🔺 The 15:17 To Paris $12.6  NEW	3. 🔺 Oscar Nominated Short Films $615k on 180 screens NEW
4. Jumanji $9.8 (cum. $365.6)	4. 🔺  A Fantastic Woman $121k on 20 screens (cum. $232k) CAPSULE | REVIEW
5. The Greatest Showman $6.4 (cum. $146.5) REVIEW | ANOTHER HIT MUSICAL	5. 🔺 The Insult $109k on 50 screens (cum. $454k)

Fifty Shades Freed  continued its franchise's box office power by opening at #1 again. This weekend's bow also brought the franchise's total box office haul over the billion dollar mark. That's a lot of green for something barely blue...

Click to read more ...

Jóhann Jóhannsson (1969-2018)

by Nathaniel R

Photo by Timothée Lambrecq

Tragic news: The gifted Icelandic film composer Jóhann Jóhannson, who lived in Berlin, died on Friday at only 48 years of age. The cause of his death is not yet known...

Click to read more ...

RPDR All Stars 3: E3 - Eggplant Faceplant

by Chris Feil

Last week on RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, we lost the delightful Thorgy Thor after her inner saboteur gave our fashion clown a major creative blockage. Thorgy had left the girls a little more than the usual lipstick love note, as Bebe called it “you know, a picture”, which instantly restirred the pot of that fraught elimination ceremony and kicked off an episode of bickering.

The fallout of Thorgy’s elimination added another layer to Shangela’s distrust of Dela, who would have also sent Thorgy home. Shangela continues to suggest that Ben is just saving face for the sake of manipulation, but there has yet to be sign of her using it against anyone. What is more likely (and concerning) is that Shangela already has let the competition go to her head - we should be terrified that it will exhaust her as it did in season three and unsettle her status as one of the frontrunners.

Click to read more ...