Red Carpet Lineup: Naomie Harris x 4

Naomie Harris on various red carpets promoting Spectre...

Naomie's best "Spectre" Red Carpet Look?

Form-fitting

Striped

Color-blocked

Flowing

Quizzes

Hello mates. It's Nathaniel back from London where James Bond's latest adventure Spectre is already out and filling houses. When I was there Tim & Guy were talking about a Moneypenny commercial (embedded below) and how Naomie Harris has more opportunity to show off her action chops in that promo than she does in the films. As for Spectre, Harris herself is promising more action for Moneypenny.

TFE has been in Naomie Harris's corner since her apocalyptic fierceness in 28 Days Later (2002). That film was a great launching pad for Harris, Cillian Murphy, and Brendan Gleeson (who all worked a lot in the subsequent years) but it arguably did more for zombies themselves who've been truly ubiquitous since. Hollywood never did capitalize on this British beauty's screen presence and complete ease within the always active action genre, though. Same old story and blindspots one supposes. So we're glad she has the Bond franchises -- nice work if you can get it -- for steady income.

Do Moneypenny and Q and M get recast immediately in the next film when Bond does or do they get another paycheck before they're booted?

Women's Pictures - Jennifer Kent's The Babadook

Happy early Halloween, everyone!

In the comments section of last week's post on A Girl Walked Home Alone At Night, a brief but lively discussion sprung up over whether folks prefer the Iranian-American vampire flick, or Jennifer Kent's inaugural feature film, The Babadook. Rather than pit the two films against each other, let's just take a moment to appreciate the fact that in 2014, we got two really good, buzzed-about horror films from two new female directors. This, as much as any other reason, is why I hope 2014 will be remembered in the future as one of those Great Years of Film.

Anyway, it could be argued that whether you prefer A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night or The Babadook is partially determined by whether you prefer indie swagger to conventional horror. But to call the film "conventional" would be to sell The Babadook incredibly short. At first glance, The Babadook looks like a stylish example of a supernatural thriller, but the genre tropes hide a dangerous film about the subconscious strife between parent and child. [More...]

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Iris, a great subject.

With Oscar's documentary longlist out, we're catching up with a few. Here's Deborah on Iris.

Sometimes all you need is a great subject.

To say this does a disservice to documentarian Albert Maysles, who has created a visual feast with Iris, but the primary delight of the film is Iris herself. Iris Apfel, at 94 years old, has lived a life of visual feast. If your tolerance of eccentric little old ladies is low, you won’t love this film, but phooey on you in that case. This woman is a prize, a person who celebrates her own uniqueness, who takes joy wherever she can, and the film focuses on that joy...

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Kristen Wiig's Awards Bait: 'Crying in a Sweater'

Margaret here, bringing you the first of this year's Oscar-bait parodies and with it proof that awards season is fully upon us.

Kristen Wiig, on the promo circuit for Nasty Baby, used her spot as a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to debut the trailer for her new "extremely independent" movie Crying in a Sweater (directed by Michael Bay). The title, if you can believe it, about covers it: Wiig lolls about tearfully in a series of sweaters while rhapsodic critical praise scrolls by. She's poking fun at the kind of dramatic low-budget Oscar hopeful that she's starred in more than once, but the result is silly enough that it doesn't read as snide.

My personal favorite performances in the Crying in a Sweater subgenre include Toni Collette in The Sixth Sense, Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game, and Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine, but the gold standard has to be Diane Keaton in Something's Gotta Give:

    

In fact, there's a lot of overlap here with the favored TFE movie category Women Who Lie to Themselves. Which prompts the question: what are your favorite crying-in-a-sweater performances? How many of them come from Women Who Lie to Themselves?

HBO’s LGBT History: Outrage (2009)

Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.

Last week we revisited Carrie & co. in their silver screen outings. As it turns out, the Sarah Jessica Parker series continues to elicit strong reactions though the films are, across the board, considered lesser versions of the oft-brilliant HBO show. This week, we look at Kirby Dick’s doc Outrage which navigates the tricky issue of outing closeted gay politicians. The doc aired on HBO in October 2009 after a Tribeca bow and a limited release earlier that year.

“There is nothing more public than privacy.”

I quote this Michael Warner gem almost every day. Usually to myself; it’s a mantra that perfectly captures many of the discussions about the LGBT community in the twenty-first century. It gets at the inherent and insidious privilege of privacy; it’s always those who don’t realize how their own “private life” (dating, family, marriage) is inherently public (coughMattDamoncough) who claim to want to keep it away from public view. Warner’s epigram could very well function as an apt tag-line for Kirby’s film (though “Do Ask. Do Tell” has a delightful campy, gossipy tone that’s a brilliant reworking of the militaryspeak it echoes).

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