The Furniture: The Best of Absolutely Fabulous

Daniel Walber's series looks at Production Design in contemporary and classic movies

This, week, in honor of the most fabulous sitcom in the history of television, I’m going to try something a bit different. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, expanding toward world domination as we speak, is a booze-soaked-cherry on top of a quarter-century-aged fruitcake. It also does more than well by the show’s strongest points, bringing back not only its beloved characters but also its crazed sense of fashion.

And as you can tell by its choice use of an underwater exercise bike, the movie renews the TV show’s flare for production design as a comic tool. Jennifer Saunders and the show's design team, which only varied a bit over the years, have always used excess to their advantage. To prove my point, here are five favorite design moments from the many seasons of Absolutely Fabulous...

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Podcast/Smackdown Pt 1: "Julia" & "The Goodbye Girl"

As a companion piece to yesterday's Smackdown, a two-part podcast. In the first installment Mark Harris, Guy Lodge, Nick Davis, Sara Black McCulloch, and Nathaniel R discuss 1977's Oscar race, Jane Fonda & Vanessa Redgrave's friendship, Neil Simon's quippy writing, and more...

Part One. Index (41 minutes)
00:01 Intros, 1977 Memories, Annie Hall vs Star Wars
05:55 "getting" movies and Oscar-watching before the internet
09:09 Julia and Jane Fonda's curious "supporting" lead
16:23 Gender in Julia, Vanessa Redgrave's politics, and queer subtext
29:45 Child acting and difficult language in The Goodbye Girl
35:45 The influx of divorce/single parenting movies in the 70s
39:14 Nick's family memory of The Goodbye Girl

You can listen to the podcast here or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you?  

Smackdown 77. Part One. Julia

Top 7 David Harbour

A surprise list to start your morning off right. We've been thinking a lot about Stranger Things these past couple of weeks, and many of those thoughts have revolved around the unexpectedly hefty role for usual supporting player David Harbour. I personally think he's Best in Show in that sci-fi fantasy 80s nostalgia trip. The first time I remember seeing him was on Broadway in 2001 as the object of Robert Sean Leonard's crushing in Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love. His profile has been growing slowly ever since and its a treat to see him make so much of such a big opportunity in the Netflix hit.

Favorite David Harbour Performances

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Smackdown '77: Melinda, Leslie, Tuesday, Quinn, and Vanessa Redgrave

Presenting the Supporting Actress Nominees of '77. A mother with extraterrestrial problems, a highly neurotic swinger, a wealthy political activist, a precocious daughter, and a timid ballerina.

THE NOMINEES 

John Travolta opening the envelope

If the characters weren't quite typical this time, the shortlist formation was a familiar mix of career glories. Consider the slotting: Oh look, there's the child actor slot that the Supporting Actress category is famous for going to Quinn Cummings; Tuesday Weld wins the underappreciated enduring talent nod; No typical shortlist is complete without a newish critical darling with momentum which in 1977 was Melinda Dillon (she had created the "Honey" role in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf  on stage but didn't get to do the movie and was finally making film inroads via her role in the previous year's Best Picture nominee Bound for Glory ); Finally, you have to have a current Oscar darling with considerable prestige and fame (Vanessa Redgrave) on hand in any given year. Oops, that's only four. The last type is more rare but not unprecented. The final player fell under what you might call the "novelty" slot (Leslie Browne). When the latter happens it's usually either foreign-born non-actors or famous musicians but in this case it was a soon to be principal dancer with the American Ballet Company.

THIS MONTH'S PANELISTS

Here to talk about these five turns are our panelists: Mark Harris (Author of "Pictures at a Revolution," and "Five Came Back"), Guy Lodge (Variety, The Observer), Nick Davis (Associate Professor of English and Gender & Sexuality Studies at Northwestern), Sara Black McCulloch (Rearcher, Translator, Writer) and your host Nathaniel R (Editor, The Film Experience).

And now it's time for the main event... 

1977 
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN 

 

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July. It's (Almost) a Wrap

We started the month off wishing Olivia de Havilland a happy centennial. She's now our oldest living Oscar winner! Then we completed our our "halfway mark" year in review which is like a warm up for the Film Bitch Awards at years end. We'll close the month tomorrow with the Supporting Actress Smackdown of 1977. Otherwise July has been the usual array of randomness. We like a good variety at The Film Experience as long as that variety includes lots of actressing and films from multiple genres and eras.

But about this era for a moment: the summer blockbusters have been a little rough this summer but find a smaller release to see this weekend: Miss Sharon Jones opened yesterday; do NOT miss Viggo Mortensen in Captain Fantastic which added over 400 theaters yesterday (it's now probably somewhere near you) and lives up to its title; and you might also want an opinion on the new Woody, Cafe Society, which expanded by 400+ new theaters of its own.

7 Favorites
• Nicolas Winding Refn an interview
• Q&A Oscar Free Dames & Disney Films answering reader questions  
• Cast This Auntie Mame. Who should be the bosom buddy to Tilda's eccentric aunt?
• Judy: "The Man That Got Away" three filmed versions of the classic song 
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes sweet & sour 
• Three Women still can't get over this very 60s very honey-blonde photograph 
• Everybody Wants Some!! 70s sitcom style 

7 That Spurred the Most Conversation
• Trailer: La La Land (2016) yes no maybe so... or in this case yaaaaas
• Working Girl (1989) better than you remembered it!
• Garry Marshall (RIP) let's rethink that career
• Who Deserves an Honorary Oscar? an FYC list for the Academy
• Margot Robbie's Beauty and other hot topics
• Emmy Nominations same as it ever was i.e. mostly the same with a couple new flourishes wherever they were forced to make some changes due to departing shows
• Oscar Chart Updates the crystal ball is still cloudy

1977 Celebration to get you in the mood for the Smackdown tomorrow
A gallery of magazine covers from 1977, Diane Keaton in Looking for Mr Goodbar, revisiting childhood "classics" like Pete's Dragon, the Oscar beloved (but not) ballet soap opera The Turning Point, what did the Golden Globes love that year?,  Islands in the Stream starring both The Bahamas and George C Scott (in that billing order), the James Bond flick The Spy Who Loved Me had a memorable villainous HQ, Great cinematography in Julia and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Olivia de Havilland appeared in the disaster flick Airport '77, and Oscar's animated short nominees starred a claymation Jimmy Carter. 

Coming in August
New Movies: Meryl & Hugh in FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS, the all star SUICIDE SQUAD, Laika's KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS, and the reimagination of PETE'S DRAGON. Interviews: Diane Kruger, the Morris From America team, and hopefully more; Big News: the announcement  of the Academy's Honorary Oscar recipients for 2016; Restorations: HOWARDS END; Retrospectives: the films of 1984 (our "year of the month"), and a return to our "Swing, Tarzan, Swing!" series to wrap it up with three final episodes.