RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars E1 - Let's Get All Star-ted

By Chris Feil

RuPaul is bringing back some of the biggest names in Drag Race herstory and honey she is not holding back.

The premiere of this new season of All Stars (let's full-stop forget the team-based first All-Stars existed, shall we?) is a new benchmark for the series, providing more drama and unexpected twists than ever before while still keeping the focus on the queens' personalities. Even the evolution of the contestants' personas provides some refreshing surprises with past villains like Phi Phi O'Hara and Roxxxy Andrews out to prove that they should be known for something more than their past bitchery. In fact, assumed early frontrunners took a back seat in this premiere in favor of the girls looking to battle perceptions on their way to the crown.

But Drag Race is quite eager to shake up the formula this season, something that the show desperately needs in order to raise the stakes on these powerhouses and to combat the diminishing returns of series staples like Snatch Game. And the first big twist is ruthless: the queens that perform best in the main challenge will Lipsync For Their Legacy, and the winner gets both $10,000 and the right to eliminate a queen. Oh, y'all wanted a twist? The genius here is that the very structure of the show is built to bring more drama.

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4 Days til the Smackdown - Meet the Panelists!

The Supporting Actress Smackdown of 1984 is coming your way on Wednesday August 31st with Dame Peggy Ashcroft defending her Oscar from the other side. Will the panel co-sign that Oscar win or throw their votes to Christine Lahti, Lindsay Crouse, or legendary Oscar regulars in the form or either Glenn Close or Geraldine Page. Please remember that readers are the collective sixth panelist so I expect your answers to these questions in the comments (as well as your ballots - details on what to send me here).

MEET THE PANELISTS

Please give a hearty welcome to two first time Smackdowners

NOAH TSIKA
Noah Tsika is the Assistant Professor of Media Studies at Queens College, CUNY. He has also written two books on cinema: Nollywood Stars: Media and Migration in West Africa and the Diaspora and Pink 2.0: Encoding Queer Cinema on the Internet. 
Follow Noah on Twitter 

SHEILA O'MALLEY 
Sheila O'Malley is a regular film critic for Rogerebert.com and other outlets including The Criterion Collection. She wrote the narration (read by Angelina Jolie) for the Gena Rowlands tribute reel played at the 2016 Governors Awards. Her blog is The Sheila Variations.  
Follow Sheila on Twitter. 

...welcome back two regular Smackdowners

JOE REID
Joe Reid never went to film school, unless you count the film school of hard knocks, which he also didn't go to. That hasn't stopped him from writing about movies. He is currently Senior Writer at Decider.com. One day, he'll have written about his love for The Hours, Go, and Mermaids enough that he can finally close his laptop, satisfied that his work is done. 
Follow Joe on Twitter 

NICK DAVIS
Nick Davis writes the reviews and features at the website Nick's Flick Picks.  The site's unpredictable cycles of frenzied activity and long dormancy have to do with his also being an Associate Professor of English and Gender & Sexuality Studies at Northwestern, where his research and teaching mostly concern narrative film in different eras, genres, and countries. 
Follow Nick on Twitter 

And, of course, your host with all his needy questions about your favorites this and that...

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Tweetweek: Braindead Marquees and Out-of-the-Box Casting

I don't know if I like the sound of this double feature...

Sausage Squad? pic.twitter.com/9fW5XdZvAq

— You Had One Job (@_youhadonejob1) August 24, 2016

After the jump funny tweet games, supportive boyfriends, The Night Of casting, a dissolve from The Godfather, a proposed franchise for Hugh Jackman, FYC Ellen Burstyn, and a little webslinging... 

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Request: Oscar Nominated Performances of the Aughts, Ranked

by Nathaniel R

This list was requested by Carlos recently in the comments. Perhaps in light of the Oscar Nominated Performances ranked of the past six years... so why not. It's a perfect weekend activity and will help you get in the mood for the possibly turbulent Oscar season ahead. So let's do this crazy...

ALL THE OSCAR NOMINATED PERFORMANCES RANKED (2000-2009)

First a terrible confession for one such as I: Two Oscar nominated performances in the Aughts slipped right past my movie devouring eyeballs (the shame. the shame.) I never got around to Tommy Lee Jones In the Valley of Elah or Cooler Alec Baldwin. I accept your judgment and will choose my favorite of whatever punishments are recommended.

So let's rank the whole other 198 lot of 'em, with the caveats that this is silly (apples & oranges) and had you asked me on a different day the order might have been different though the general truth of the groupings below would stay the same. 

1. Mo'Nique, Precious (2009) *
2. Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
3. Johnny Depp, The Pirates of the Caribbean (2003)
4. Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain (2005)
5. Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood (2007) *
6. Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal (2006)

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Foreign Oscar Race Begins: Australia, Brazil, Croatia, Cuba, Denmark

Over the next couple of months we'll be hearing the names of the 70ish films that will be competing for Oscar's coveted shortlist as Best Foreign Language Film. So far nine countries have selected their films and other countries have begun the winnowing to get to their top choice.

Our charts are now in progress with posters, info, and links to official sites and such as well as links back to highlights from last year's global class. 

The Companion forces a boxer and a soldier with AIDS to spend lots of time together

Chart 1 Afghanistan to Finland

Denmark and Brazil have narrowed it down to three films each with Brazil's choice already embroiled in a lot of controversy due to political fighting in regards to Aquarius (starring Sonia Braga which hits TIFF & NYFF shortly and which was very well received at Cannes) though I have to admit it's hard to make sense of the turmoil from an outsider's perspective given the Google translate limitations. Thank to Jon in the comments for alerting us to this brewing controversy but if someone can sum it up for us in brief that would be appreciated. But on our first chart we have three official submissions

CUBA - THE COMPANION
Cuba's submission is about a boxer accused of doping who is forced to become a companion to a soldier who has contracted AIDS. Cuba has only been nominated for the LGBT drama Strawberry & Chocolate (1994) in the past but I maintain that Behavior (2014), their most recent submission, would have been a worthy nominee. Here's the new film's trailer with subtitles:

CROATIA - ON THE OTHER SIDE
There is a trailer available but not subtitled. It's about a mother who's kept a secret for a very long time.

AUSTRALIA - TANNA
Australia's entry takes place on a remote island and is performed by the Yakel tribe. This one opens in New York City and Los Angeles in September so cross your fingers that it wins further expansion. Here's the official site and the trailer. Our own Glenn Dunks wrote about it for Paradise magazine. It won two prizes at Venice last year and it looks potentially exciting...

Tanna - Trailer - All parts performed by the people of Yakel from Lightyear Entertainment on Vimeo.