Almost There: Lesley Manville in "Another Year"

by Cláudio Alves

With The Crown's fifth season comes a new opportunity for the world to bask in the glory of Lesley Manville. As Princess Margaret, she's a charismatic scene-stealer, indulging in all the melodrama thrown at her whilst brandishing a cigarette holder like a conductor's baton. Though a fair share of high-class glamour characterizes both her new Netflix gig and the role that earned her an Oscar nomination, that's not always the register within which Manville moves. You could even argue that she built her career on playing the opposite sort of people, working-class characters like the titular Mrs. Harris in this year's Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris – another outstanding performance.

Another example is Mary in Mike Leigh's Another Year. Prior to Phantom Thread, that 2010 drama surely marked the closest the actress had ever come to Oscar gold…

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The Movie-Related Nominees for the 65th Annual Grammy Awards

by Nathaniel R

Each year when the Grammy nominations are announced we report on nominees of interest to film fans. But before we get to the screen entertainment-adjacent stuff, we must first acknowledge the recording industry's three marquee categories: Album, Record, and Song of the year. We have a repeat of 2017 with Adele & Beyoncé squaring off yet again for the top prize. Beyoncé leads the nominations this year with 9 and as of today is tied with her husband Jay-Z as the most nominated musician of all time at the Grammys since they've each  received 88 nominations over the course of their careers... 

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Box Office: "Wakanda Forever" Domination

By Ben Miller

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ruled the weekend box office with a $181 million opening.  Believe it or not, that's second-best on the year to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.  Marvel knows how to make money.  The second Black Panther entry arrived to good reviews (84% on Rotten Tomatoes) and zero counterprogramming.  It also added another $150 million internationally.  The film is expected to be the number two grossing film of the year in a few weeks (behind Top Gun: Maverick).

Weekend Box Office (actuals) November 11th-13th 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended links if we've written about it
WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER	TRIANGLE OF SADNESS
1  🔺 BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER $181.3 *NEW*	1 ★ TRIANGLE OF SADNESS (sweden/uk) $250k (cum. $3.5) 184 screens

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"Joyland" banned in Pakistan. Can it still compete at the Oscars?

by Nathaniel R

Saim Sadiq (via Instagram, left) and a memorable shot from his feature debut "Joyland" (right)

Censorship has been part of the history of art forever. The ways in which we think of censorship in Hollywood cinema usually involve ratings boards or production codes... self-censorship from the industry to prevent outside censorship from the government. It's less a case of banning art than an attempt to keep storytellers in line with accepted norms, however conservative those norms might be in their time. When the story of censorship visibly collides with the Oscar race, though, it's usually across the border and in the Best International Feature Film category. Now we have another of those stories via Pakistan's Oscar submission Joyland. 

The movie, a brilliant feature debut from 31 year old filmmaker Saim Sadiq, is a drama about a young husband in Lahore who falls for a trans performer after being hired by a local dance theater. It first came to international attention when it premiered at Cannes (the first Pakistani movie to do so) and won both Un Certain Regard and the Queer Palm. Just a week before its premiere in Pakistan its release was denied, endangering its Oscar run.  Questions naturally crop out like "Why would a country submit a film and then ban it?" and "Can it still compete?" so let's answer those...

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Veronica Lake Centennial "Flesh Feast"

for Veronica Lake's centennial we're revisiting a few of her films...

by Jason Adams

Veronica Lake’s final words on film are “Heil Hitler.” 

Nothing in the first sixty-five minutes of first-time director Brad F. Grinter’s schlocky 1970 mad scientist flick Flesh Feast will really prepare you for the final five minutes when a plot twist makes that line of dialogue possible, so I don’t feel particularly guilty spoiling the film’s ending up front – its ending is all it really has going for it...

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