NYFF: The Human Body tenderized in 'De Humani Corporis Fabrica'

by Jason Adams

Do you ever find yourself zoning out to one of those surgery shows they sometimes have on basic cable? Titles like Botched or Plastic Surgery: Before and After where they stick their reality-show cameras into people’s literal guts and poke around? Yeah me neither. A lurid dramatization like the series Nip/Tuck I could handle, but the real stuff’s always been a bridge too far. But then I’ve always had that line drawn in the sand when it came to Horror Movies as well – I’ll watch all sorts of gruesomeness as long as I know it’s fake but you’d have to tie me down to get me to watch one of those Faces of Death videos. 

So why then did I find myself so lulled into hypnotic contemplation by directors Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s surreal-ish surgery documentary De Humani Corporis Fabrica (meaning “Of the Structure of the Human Body” and named after the legendary 1555 anatomical texts) at the New York Film Festival this week?

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What did you see over the weekend?

By Ben Miller

Unsurprisingly, horror films released in October rule the box office.  Smile was able to snag the top spot behind a viral marketing campaign and a better-than-average critical recepiton (77% on Rotten Tomatoes).  Unfortunately, the big story of the box office week was the failure of Bros.  The Billy Eichner-starring film earned less than $5 million despite an A CinemaScore and critical praise (91% on RT).  Plenty of people on Twitter have their opinions on the failure, but maybe we should let the film continue it's run before deeming it a failure.  Regardless of the opening weekend, this doesn't bode well for the viability of LGBTQ+ studio content going forward.

Weekend Box Office  September 30th-October 2nd 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended links if we've written about it
WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
SMILE	PONNIYIN SELVAN

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Almost There: Margot Robbie in "Mary, Queen of Scots"

by Cláudio Alves

Since her 2013 breakthrough in The Wolf of Wall Street, Margot Robbie's Hollywood career has risen so consistently and quickly that its verging on meteoric. Early stabs at blockbuster stardom paid off with her über-popular Harley Quinn, soon giving way to more prestigious pursuits. I, Tonya earned the Australian actress her first Oscar nomination, and a second soon followed for Bombshell. This year, beyond dominating social media while location shooting for Greta Gerwig's upcoming Barbie, Robbie returns with two big movies. First up is David O. Russell's Amsterdam which opens Friday under a wave of controversy and critical scorn. Then, on Christmas Day, Damien Chazelle's Babylon finds her playing a Clara Bow-type in one of the year's buzziest titles.

As we wait to see if Robbie ends the season as a three-time Oscar nominee, let's turn our minds back to when the thespian tried her hand at playing one of the most dramatized figures in film history – Elizabeth I in Mary, Queen of Scots…

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Streaming Roulette (Oct 3rd-9th): Call Me By Your Queerest Fear

by Nathaniel R

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) © MGM

Each of us has heaven and hell in him.

As many of you have gleaned your host here has been struggling this past month. So as ever we take solace in the movies and we've been gorging of late so time for another streaming catch-up. We've realized of late that in attempting to do too many things here at TFE -- we are after all not Variety or The New York Times --  we do too little. So we have to streamline / simplify. Our first victim is Streaming Roulette. Rather than a monthly series in which we try to highlight EVERYTHING that's new to streaming on all the services, we're going to recommend a handful of titles weekly just for an excuse to talk about them. We'll keep the "roulette" part which is to say we'll freeze frame randomly on the scroll bar and that's the image we'll share as visual (What? We like our gimmicks). 

4 Things to Watch This Week...

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Deadline is up for Oscar's Best International Film submissions

by Nathaniel R

KINGS OF THE WORLD, Colombia's Oscar submission

Today, October 3rd, is the deadline for participating countries to get their Oscar submissions in for the Best International Feature Film category. We've mentioned before that the Academy (wrongly) chucked their longstanding tradition of publicly announcing the entire longlist for Best International Feature Film last season... if they don't release it again this year we might not know for certain for a few days or even a few weeks what is exactly on the list they're considering in the first round of voting. They'll narrow the list down to 15 films on December 21st, 2022 and then announce the actual nominations on January 24th, 2023.  As of now we know of 81 countries that announced plans to submit a particular film and you can read about all of them on the charts. 

If you've been playing along here with each article a shorter list of the last six films to be announced is after the jump...

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