Posterized: Hello, her name is... Sally Field

M'lynn. Gidget. Norma Rae. The Flying Nun. Sybil. Edna Spalding. Mary Todd Lincoln. Mrs Gump. We know her by many names but the one we'll always love best is "Sally Field," perfectly stage-name appropriate for instant recall and audience adoration... and also her real name since birth. 

Though she's been famous for literally half a century (!) she hasn't always been properly appreciated... a common fate for stars whose work looks effortless and who excel in "light" genres like dramedies and romantic comedies. But we like her. We really really like her. Don't you?

Her biggest hits: Forrest Gump, Mrs Doubtfire, Hooper, Lincoln, Steel Magnolias, and literally every film she made with Burt Reynolds from 1977-1980 -- audiences couldn't get enough of them together back then. Most frequent co-stars: Burt Reynolds (4), Jeff Bridges, Michael Caine, Dom de Luise, Tom Hanks, Ed Harris, and Tommy Lee Jones (2). Awards haul: 3 Emmys, 2 Oscars, 1 SAG, 2 Golden Globes, 2 NYFCC, and for Norma Rae a bunch of one time prizes... Cannes, NSFC, NBR, and LAFCA

But let's talk about you + Sally. Do you  ♥ ? How many of her film roles have you seen? All 30 are after the jump...

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A Toast to Lilly Wachowski

This week, the younger Wachowski sibling revealed that she has transitioned. Everyone raise your glasses to Lilly Wachowski!

In an open letter, Lilly detailed her recent struggle with different press outlets that have nearly gone public with her story, particularly taking the Daily Mail rightly to task for their vulturous treatment of trans individuals. While it's disgusting that press interference has pushed Lilly to reveal her transition publicly before she might have planned, her statements about the current state of trans acceptance and treatment utilize her sizeable platform perfectly. Thank goodness she got to tell her story in her own way.

The letter is a gorgeous bit of writing, a rare insight into the more introverted of the already media wary siblings. In one of the most crucial and eloquent moments of the piece, she questions our societal perception of gender:

But these words, "transgender" and "transitioned" are hard for me because they both have lost their complexity in their assimilation into the mainstream. (...) But the reality, my reality is that I've been transitioning and will continue to transition all of my life, through the infinite that exists between male and female as it does in the infinite between the binary of zero and one. We need to elevate the dialogue beyond the simplicity of binary. Binary is a false idol.

That sentiment is one that is also present in the sisters' work, and one of their most exciting themes, to boot. Now that both siblings are living openly (Lana came forward with her transition in 2012) perhaps they'll be able to explore that even deeper than we've seen with Cloud Atlas and Sense8. For the trivia obsessives, Nathaniel wondered if this made the Wachowski's the first sister directing duo? The names that immediately popped up were the Soska sisters. Do you know of any others? 

Reader's Choice: a look back at Gattaca (1997)

Welcome to the new bi-weekly series "Reader's Choice." For the first episode I gave you a choice of several films currently streaming and you picked Gattaca (on Amazon Prime). I hope you enjoy and comment since we haven't talked about this movie ever, that I can recall. - Nathaniel

Memories of Gattaca are fuzzy at best. I saw it only once in theaters 19 years ago. I remember: Jude Law in a wheelchair; sterile, sleek, and awesome production design; Uma Thurman being an icy receptionist?; Ethan Hawke being less of a perfect specimen than Jude Law in the context of the movie (this remains true out of context); a hard to buy premise about violence being bred out of the human race?; something about brothers swimming? That's it. 

Join me in this revisit...

A fascinating juxtaposition: When the costume design credit arrives we're looking at a naked body

Gattaca begins with a beautiful blue credits sequence which becomes eerier as it goes along once you realize what its macro imagery is telling you. Ethan Hawke is ridding himself of all human detritus: dead flesh, body hair, cuticles, until he's smooth as a statue. He repeats this in several ways though sometimes (at work) the detritus isn't his. All the workers at his job get their fingers pricked upon entering like its a diabetic research center. There are even daily urine tests... which seems extreme for a world that's so into cleanliness. What if someone misses the specimen cup? 

At the pee test the doctor (Xander Berkeley) looks right at his penis and says the following. [more...]

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Where Does Will Smith Go From Here?

Kieran here. It may be heresy to admit this among other cinephiles, but I like Will Smith. I think he’s a talented actor. On a more personal level, I’m not nearly as irrationally annoyed by him or his children as many seem to be. Earlier this week it was announced that Smith and his Suicide Squad director David Ayer have inked Netflix’s biggest film deal to date with their supernatural police thriller Bright. He was once thought of as the industry’s last true movie star. With both this new project and Suicide Squad (out later this year), one wonders what’s on the horizon for Will Smith...

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YNMS: Florence Foster Jenkins

Murtada here. Stephen Frears recent output has been uneven. This month, his Lance Armstrong biopic The Program was met with lukewarm reviews and a VOD purgatory release, while Lay the Favorite (2012) and Tamara Drewe (2010) were both immediately forgotten. However he does well when teamed with grand actresses in intimate dramas (The Queen, Philomena). So we are cautiously optimistic about his collaboration with Meryl Streep in Florence Foster Jenkins. The story, of an amateur opera singer, known and ridiculed for her very bad singing and her complete delusion about her abilities, is intriguing.

Let's break down the newly released trailer..... after the jump.

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