Almost There: Marilyn Monroe in "Some Like It Hot"

by Cláudio Alves

September started with the Venice Film Festival where Andrew Dominik's controversial Blonde premiered and closes with its arrival on Netflix. As a Marilyn Monroe fan who tried and failed to get through Joyce Carol Oates' doorstop of a novel, I had early apprehensions about this production and its fictionalized account of the star's troubled life. However, the combination of a gorgeous-looking trailer and moralistic backlash online led me to anticipate the movie with bullish optimism. Yet, having seen the thing, I'm afraid I can't sincerely take on a contrarian positive take nor defend most aspects of the misbegotten mess.

Worst of all, I'm stricken by the picture's puddle-deep purview of stardom, image-making, and Monroe herself as a person and phenomenon. Considerations of her as an actress are similarly shallow, verging on nonexistent. This is especially disheartening because, above all else, she was an amazing actress whose talent is often overlooked, either obfuscated by the glare of tragedy or dismissed by those who can't see beyond media objectification. So, to combat both narratives, let's remember Marilyn Monroe, the actress, in one of her best films – Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot…

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Review: 'Don't Worry Darling'

By Glenn Dunks

To quote Lady Gaga: That’s gossip!

To ignore the gossip cycle that has become the press tour of Don’t Worry Darling can be difficult in the macro, but when the movie started it slipped away quite easily. For whatever may have been said about Olivia Wilde’s second directorial feature in the lead up to its release, that friction hasn’t quite come through on screen.

It’s not a good movie in the sense that it is coherent and fully grapples with the ideas it appears to be putting forward. It isn't and it doesn't. But it also is not a bad movie in that it is badly made or devoid of imagination or one where you can tell everybody on set hated everyone else. Which, after everything that’s happened, feels like more of a win in the moment than it oughta be...

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Apologies for the Momentary Lull.

Dear readers, We apologize for the lack of the normal volume of writing/updates. There have been significant unavoidable struggles off site. Because life is life, these are naturally paired with other time-consuming things that are entirely unrelated like moving apartments in a couple of weeks plus festivals (NYFF screenings begin today and then Middleburg). While we collect ourselves check out the updated Oscar charts for Picture, Director,  Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, International Film, Screenplays, Visuals, Sound if you haven't yet. More soon.

Also please consider following on Instagram and subscribing to the new substack which I'll be using to experiment a bit or in case we go dark or decide to switch hosting platforms or whatnot. 

10th Anniversary Middleburg Film Festival tickets now on sale!

by Nathaniel R

the Opening Night, Centerpiece, and Spotlight films

Has it really been ten years? We've been going to Middleburg for years now for this intimate weekend festival in scenic Virginia. Three years ago your host here (that's me) launched an ongoing early morning Oscar panel "Coffee & Contenders" with Clayton Davis and Jazz Tangcay (who have both since joined Variety). It's a treat to see famiiar faces from the Washington DC area each year and if any readers come to the festival make sure to say hello. Festivals start to feel like reunion parties if you go enough times!

The year they'll have films like White Noise, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Somewhere in Queens, and The Whale (and more to be announced). Receiving tributes and awards this year are actors Stephanie Hsu and Brendan Fraser, writer/director Noah Baumbach, editor Bob Ducsay, and composer Michael Abels.  Passes and ticket passages are now on sale. Full press release after the jump...

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"Holy Spider" and other interesting updates to Best International Feature Film

by Nathaniel R

"Holy Spider" will be released in the US, dates TBA

Lots to tell you about today in the Best International Feature Film race. We are just six days away from the deadline for countries to submit their representative film for consideration at the upcoming Oscars but we know one country that won't be submitting and that's Russia since they're boycotting us given which side we fall on in their war on Ukraine.

We generally know most of the list before that deadline due to press releases from all around the world. But not all. There are usually about 90ish entries and we have 70 announced thus far. You might remember that last year the Academy chucked their (very good and transparent) tradition of releasing the full official list of submissions in early October. If they continue that this year we won't have exact counts for awhile which is quite sad since those films need all the attention they can get and they only have a short window to get that since the all but 10 of them will be culled on December 21st when the shortlist is announced. What's more we thrive on statistics and factoids when getting obsessed with this niche window into global cinema and you cant do that without the exact list. ANYWAY, sorry about all the minutae. There are quite a few interesting new submissions / factoids to share with you after the jump...

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