Julianne Moore & an Unexpected Adjective

Chris here, reminding you that Julianne Moore is an Oscar winning actress because it doesn't get old. Perhaps I should also remind that she still likes to have fun in a silly action movie or two. This fall she joins a thoroughly bizarre cast for the Kingsman sequel, hopefully getting some screentime with buddy Colin Firth. But her character-revealing poster for the film is an odd one, emblazening the actress with a cheeky smile and one word: "deluded". Is this movie throwing shade toward the goddess or our blind fandom? Either way, how dare they. In the comments, tell us another adjective you would use to highlight Julianne!

Q&A: Who needs their own "Big Little Lies"?

Hello dear readers. I didn't forget about your questions. I just ran away for two weeks to beautiful southern Connecticut and the National Critics Institute. It was grand. But, now, back to work. Here are seven questions you asked (more to come) answered...

MARK G: Word in the UK from a respected critic is that Kate Winslet is on top/peak/Blue Jasmine form in Woody's Wonder Wheel and the film has a chance as breakout hit. What do you think of Winslet's chances of winning a 2nd - you always say the ladies win a 2nd within the first 10 years.

NATHANIEL: Until the Steve Jobs year I thought it highly improbable but that year reminded me that it was possible if she lucks out and runs with a great performance in a weak year. She was clearly in the runner-up position and only category frauding from Vikander denied her her second. Winslet's hurdle will be that people who win an "overdue" Oscar don't tend to win again thereafter. Overdue Oscars carry a whiff of 'thanks for the career -- NEXT!' as if everyone knows it has to happen but wants to swiftly move on. Note that Pacino and Sarandon were never nominated again after winning. (As for Wonder Wheel who knows. Woody's output is so uneven.)

TYLER: What is your absolute favorite Audrey Hepburn performance? 

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"Being There" -- Essential Viewing For the Right Now

by Nathaniel R

Hal Ashby’s Being There (1979) is a fortune teller. And the future it foretells isn’t rosy. The classic film about a TV-loving cypher who Forrest Gumps his way into history is approaching its 40th anniversary, but its essential viewing for the right now.  Don't wait until 2019 to see it.

Among the film’s many queasy previews of life in the early 21st century is the proliferation of screens. Here that takes the shape of television, with Ashby frequent crosscutting to whatever is on the TV in a given scene. Though the content we see is recognizably dated, its intrusion is evergreen. 

Hidden within the prophecy of multiple screens replacing actual experience, is an even sharper notion of the screen as a mirror...

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Beauty vs Beast: From Ape To Eternity

Jason from MNPP here with a new round of our "Beauty vs Beast" series! I haven't had a chance to see War of the Planet of the Apes yet but I have heard the near unanimous praise so I'll make it soon - until then let's tackle the classic original film from 1968 this week, because who doesn't love to see Charlton Heston shackled and abused for whatever reason. Opposite his amusingly bombastic astronaut George is Dr. Zira (Kim Hunter), who gives that movie's simians a sweet heart - something that the new series of films has really run with.

PREVIOUSLY Last week we wished blad icon Yul Brynner a happy birthday with some King of Siam action but it was his dancing partner who swept y'all off your feet - Deborah Kerr won 67% of the vote. Said Pam:

"I always pick the lady in a gentleman vs lady competition. Plus Deborah Kerr gets higher marks for looking glorious in period dresses and Technicolor. And how easy and natural her chemistry seems with all of her male co-stars, even if she detested them IRL. (But according to some sources, she had dalliances with more than a few...but Yul was not one of them)"

The Furniture: A Quiet Passion's Floral Punctuations

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

by Daniel Walber 

If you know one thing about the life of Emily Dickinson, it’s probably that she was a recluse. She spent the last years of her life cooped up in her Massachusetts home. Very few of her 1,800 poems were published during her lifetime. Up until very recently, only one picture of her was known to exist.

Yet she is now recognized as the most important American poet of the 19th century. That her universally resonant voice emerged from such isolation has seemed miraculous. A Quiet Passion peers into this conundrum and finds some strikingly poetic answers.

Unsurprisingly, the key to understanding is found in her house. Cynthia Nixon gives a brilliant performance, but the difference between Terence Davies’s film and lesser biopics is that she is not left to fend for herself. The work of production designer Merijn Sep and set decorator Ilse Willocx is crucial... 

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