San Sebastián Announces Their Competition Slate!

by Nick Taylor

THE END (2024) Joshua Oppenheimer

More film festival announcements yesterday, this time from the 72nd San Sebastián International Film Festival. They’ve unveiled their Main Competition slate, with more titles set to come, and it’s a damn exciting list of names. The festival runs from September 20th-28th, which probably means a lot of folks will sprint from Toronto to Spain...

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Ranking the two-time Best Actress winners

by Baby Clyde

Hilary Swank accepts her second Best Actress Oscar at the 77th Academy Awards.

To celebrate the 50th birthday of two-time Best Actress winner Hilary Swank, I've decided to rank all of the double champs in everyone's favorite category. It's a list of all-time greats, but the performances range from the sublime to the truly Dangerous. They are being judged solely on the performance, but I may be somewhat swayed if they beat out more deserving nominees or didn't win for their best work. I do not include those overachieving triple and quadruple recipients (Kate, Frances, Meryl, and Ingrid) who don't need any more attention. So, with a hearty Happy Birthday to the birthday girl, let's see how our Million Dollar Baby stacks up against her second-time sisters…

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Hail Satan and Holy Blasphemy: An Olympian Watchlist

by Cláudio Alves

Christian conservatives worldwide seem to have had their outrage activated by the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony. The French Revolution pageantry has been decried as satanic, but even more religious nuts are losing their mind over a tableau starring drag queens in a pose that could remind one of Da Vinci's Last Supper. According to the ceremony's artistic director, Thomas Jolly, the image was in reference to and reverence of a painting. But it was no piece of Catholic iconography, rather The Feast of the Gods by Jan van Bijlert, a depiction of the Olympians with Bacchus in the front.

Still, even if Jolly had re-imagined the Last Supper with queer performers, why would that be an insult instead of a celebration? Appeals to religious decorum are mere smokescreens, hiding hatred and trying to give it a justification. In response to such culture war odiousness, I can think of no better response than a provocation in the form of a list – here at TFE, we are known list-o-maniacs, after all. If you yearn to be offended by blasphemous media, satanic sensations, and some glorious filth, here are thirteen flicks to scratch that itch…

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Meet the Vampire Lestat

by Cláudio Alves

The best show currently on TV is coming for a third season. Though its renewal was only announced at the end of last month, shooting for the next chapter in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire seems well underway. At least, that's what one can surmise from the just-released teaser, where Sam Reid dons the Vampire Lestat's rock persona and sits down for a filmed interview. Moving from the literary-minded recordings of the first two seasons, the show is moving into the realm of concert tour mockumentary. One hopes that the updated format maintains the queer Gothic romance sensibilities that have earned it a small army of devoted fans. But of course, judging from the online reaction, the showrunners have nothing to worry about. The fandom is over the moon...

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"Come to the Stable" and Tennis Nuns

by Nick Taylor

Today is the 75th anniversary of Come to the Stable, which has to rank among the most inoffensive, featherweight films to earn seven nominations from Thee Academy Awards. The story of two nuns, Sister Margaret (Loretta Young) and Sister Scholastica (Celeste Holm), who travel all the way from France to a wintry New England township so they can build a hospital. “Why do they go all the way to New England” you might ask, but who cares!

Specific details about why things happen are not the draw of Come to the Stable. A musician/landlord named Bob does not want the nuns to build their new hospital on a hill he owns for some reason, which doesn’t stop them from securing a plot of land and importing two dozen of their Sisters from France. At one point the nuns sneak into a gangster’s suite and successfully convince him to sell the aforementioned plot of land after they trade stories about serving in World War II. In short, every obstacle to Sister Margaret and Sister Scholastica getting what they want proves powerless in the face of their somewhat savvy, utterly guileless embodiments of faith. However, there is one enemy the women cannot pray away, one barrier they must overcome with strength, vigor, and attention. That barrier’s name, you might ask? She’s called tennis . . . .

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