Review: "Other People"

By Chris Feil

You may think you have seen films like this year's Sundance competitor Other People, what with its dark humor and disease-based family melodrama (and maybe more than a few coming from Sundance itself). Jesse Plemons stars as David, a struggling comedy writer returning home from New York to care for his mother Joanne (Molly Shannon, at her most natural) as she fights a losing battle against nerve cancer. David's relationship with his family is stunted by lingering tensions from his coming out, especially with his father (Bradley Whitford).

The parent-child dynamics and cancer plotline are certainly some of the more familiar aspects of the film, but underneath is a more unique study on on suburban stifling of queerness.

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TIFF: That time Glen Powell told me to "Google 'Tyler Hoechlin's Superman ass'"

Nathaniel R reporting from TIFF

Glen suggested doing a "serious" pose for fun - it's very prom!

Hidden Figures Brunch Pt 1
This morning began with a brunch for Hidden Figures, the female mathematicians at NASA picture, opening on December 25th, attended by stars Taraji P Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae and co-star Glen Powell (who plays astronaught John Glenn in the picture) as well as Pharrell who wrote two original songs for the movie...

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TIFF Animated Wonders: The Red Turtle & My Life as a Courgette

Nathaniel R reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival

In the American landscape of animated features, barring extremely rare indies like Anomalisa, it's always safe to refer to animated films as "a genre" even though it technically isn't one. But you always know the type of film you're going to get. Some of them are magnificent, but even those play safely in-line with expectations: family friendly, cute and colorful, noisy/busy for short attention spans, funny. So long as you meet those four expectations you're allowed to color outside the lines of the actual governing genre (adventure/comedy) used by animation studios and draw from other genres like musicals, fantasy pictures, and horror so long as the horror is cute-grotesque (think Tim Burton's forays into the genre or all of Laika pictures).

For the forseeable future, though, we'll have to keep looking abroad for an understanding of animation as a film medium (what it actually is), capable of telling any type of story that might spring from any kind of genre. Festivals that program animated films are wise. They're often beautiful counterprogramming to more typical art fare. On the first day of the festival I caught two of them, both of which are aiming for Oscar love...

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Masters of Sex Catch-up: Our Story So Far

Season 4 of Masters of Sex premieres on September 11 at 10pm Eastern on Showtime. I’ve been blogging this show for all of its run.

Masters of Sex is based on the true story of the breakthrough sex research of Doctor William Masters (Michael Sheen) and Virginia Johnson (Lizzy Caplan) (“Masters & Johnson”), while intermingling fact and fiction. Some characters are entirely fictional, parts of the chronology are tweaked, but major historical moments are generally respected.

Where we left off: Here’s the quick summation of the Season 3 finale—read below for a detailed series summary. Bill Masters, realizing his love for Virginia Johnson, confesses his affair to his wife, who already knew. Too late; he’s chased Virginia and her new fiancé to the airport, but they take off for Mexico and presumably elopement. Barton Scully is in love with a hot gay doctor. Helen and Betty are expecting thanks to Austin. Libby dumped the next door neighbor hottie, who moved out immediately.

Okay, what? If you want to know more, read on:

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Red Carpet: Venice, Toronto and Kruger (Oh, My!)

Jose here. I'm glad to report that as the temperatures come down, slightly, so do the hemlines, which means it's red carpet season! <3 So let's get down to business! First up in Venice we have Eva Herzigova in a sheer, but elegant, Alberta Ferreti. The Italian designer's bold work usually pops up in Venetian red carpets and Herzigova's simple styling make us think she's equally ready for a fancy cocktail party, as she is for lounging poolside. Next up the divine Emma Stone in Atelier Versace, who more and more seems to be paying homage to red carpet goddess Nicole Kidman and you won't hear me complain about that.

European red carpets tend to be more playful which is why it's no surprise to see Chiara Mastroianni in this androgynous suit from Gucci, the smoky makeup and severe hair round up one of my favorite looks of the year. Since Amy Adams is in the new Tom Ford movie, she might as well wear what he designs, right? (Also, talk about multitasking Mr. Ford) She's a vision in this sparkling column that seems to have sprung from a Halston wet dream.  More looks after the jump!

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