The Furniture: Brazil's Pungent Pot of Duct Soup

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

Hi there! I want to talk to you about ducts.

I mean that quite seriously, though I’m also quoting the opening lines of Terry Gilliam’s wacky and wonderful Brazil. It’s a film with a lot of unique production design, for which art director Norman Garwood and set decorator Maggie Gray received an Oscar nomination. They lost to Out of Africa, but I find it helpful to pretend that didn’t happen.

It’s nearly impossible to choose a single element to feature. I’ve half a mind to simply post all of the bleakly hilarious propaganda posters that clutter the walls of the film’s dystopian metropolis. Another option would be the design of the dream sequences, which become increasingly majestic as Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) loses touch with reality.

But I still want to talk to you about ducts...

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Difficult People S3 E3-4: John Cho, Rabbits, and A Dybbuk

Chris and Spencer are dishing this season of Difficult People!

In “Code Change”, Julie uses AA to fight her addiction to her mother, Arthur fails valiantly to satisfy Julie in bed, and Billy comes to the separate rescue of his brother and sister-in-law.

SPENCER: Why had I never thought of a church as a place to charge my phone, first of all? Let alone a Synagogue!

CHRIS: And there’s free coffee. I feel like we spoke too soon last time about the show's guest actors only being asked to just play wacky because Rosie O'Donnell was maybe the show's most straight-faced character ever.

S: I know, right? It was almost jarring — but definitely in a good way. Her reference to Billy being gay… she’s totally in on the joke.

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1985 is on. Start watching and voting!

The 1985 Supporting Actress Smackdown is on October 1st. Which means you have one month to watch or rewatch the movies and vote. 

• Margaret Avery, The Color Purple available for rent on iTunes
• Anjelica Huston, Prizzi's Honor
• Amy Madigan, Twice in a Lifetime available for rent on Amazon
• Meg Tilley, Agnes of God available for rent on iTunes
• Oprah Winfrey, The Color Purple 

We'll be announcing the panelists in a couple of weeks but you, the readers (collectively) are the final panelists. Your votes count towards the results. So get to rewatching or finally catching up with these four movies and send in your votes (from 1 to 5 hearts for each lady - only the performances you've seen please) with 1985 Smackdown in the subject line. You have until Friday September 29th to vote. 

OTD: Madonna Mania and a Dangerous Release Date

On this day (Sept 2nd) in showbiz-related history...

31 BC Cleopatra loses the Battle of Actium to Octavian's troops in the final war of the Roman Republic. Liz is very upset but it turns out Dick is still alive and he leaves his men to drown to catch up with her and work on his thigh tan! Not great, Bob.

Madonna mania, September 1st movie releases and more after the jump...

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Lord of the Tweets

Fiona Apple always knew. pic.twitter.com/8tZZJ0FSsH

— Chris Crocker (@ChrisCrocker) August 29, 2017

A sobering reminder before we hit a sillier survey of most amusing tweets o' the week. Topics include but are not limited to: Tulip Fever mania, Laura Dern action figures, mother! enthusiasms, that stupid news that there's going to be an all female Lord of the Flies movie (that doesn't even make sense -- women aren't that stupid!), Judith Light, Ridley Scott and more. It's all after the jump...

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