Review: Bessie

TFE's newest contributor Angelica Jade Bastién on HBO's latest biopic

For over two decades Queen Latifah has been trying to bring the life of Bessie Smith, the legendary "Empress of the Blues" who found success in the 1920s and 1930s, to the screen. Despite Bessie's life being a perfect mix of glamour and tragedy that seems tailor made for a biopic I'm not surprised it has taken Latifah this long to bring her story to life. Bessie Smith (Queen Latifah) is a rough hewn, country, bisexual, and passionate broad. The film doesn't sand off her edges or shy away from her contradictions instead it embraces them. Bessie tracks the legend from her early days as a singer with her older brother/manager, Clarence (Tory Kittles) always in her corner to the Great Depression when all her personal and professional success falters. 

Anyone familiar with women's pictures knows the emotional terrain Bessie is covering. But what makes this women's picture downright transgressive is its sympathetic,multi-layered portrayal of black queer desire...

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Bad Blood: How many film references did you catch?

Manuel, PhD here (it's official as of yesterday people!) and while I should bring you some high brow news to commemorate the occasion - maybe about Cannes or the feminist box office weekend we had - I want to chat about Taylor Swift's Bad Blood video instead. I mean, the credits read "A Joseph Kahn film" so we should obviously pencil it in for Best Animated Live Action Short Film, yes? After plenty of Sin City-style posters, we finally got to see the full video last night at the Billboard Music Awards (which also featured a bunch of dancing Umas!):

It's a smorgasbord of filmic references: Tron bikes! Hunger Games-ey costumes! Leeloo-lookalikes! Academy Award nominee Hailee Stanfield! Minority Report-esque art direction! Sucker Punch-ean lineup! Mad Max: Fury Road color palette finish! Aeon Flux and Ultraviolet echoes! 

I'm sure I missed plenty, but I'm also curious to see if I was the only one who kept thinking of that amazing Battlestar Galactica episode ("Unfinished Business") during those boxing scenes? And more importantly, do you agree that bandaids don't fix bullet holes?

(the video is after the jump because it likes to just start playing randomly)

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Review: Mad Max: Fury Road

Michael C here to review my most anticipated film of the summer. Isn't it wonderful when anticipation and quality go together?

With each passing Summer the concept of the Event Movie gets a little more cheapened, a little more downgraded. Like eyes adjusting to darkness, we see weightless CG blurs collide with other weightless CG blurs and deem it good enough. That is until a film like George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road comes along to rip the curtains down and the light flood in. No, that image is not strong enough. Fury Road tears through the multiplex like a great cleansing fire, leaving the great herd of lesser, timid blockbusters scattering to escape its path. 

It may seem an odd declaration to make about a franchise reboot, itself the third sequel in a series dormant since 1985’s Beyond Thunderdome. But Miller proves that any project can attain greatness with the right spirit of reckless ambition. The prevailing mentality is that an established brand is an excuse to play it safe, to scrub a rehash of the original story down to a neutered PG-13 so as not to risk alienating a single ticket buyer on Earth. George Miller goes full tilt in the opposite direction, embracing the franchise’ twisted id...

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Podcast: Max & Furiosa On The Road

Nathaniel welcomes back Anne Marie and regular Nick Davis and new guest Kyle Stevens to discuss George Miller's critically drooled over action masterwork Mad Max Fury Road. Though is it really as good as they say? We look deep at that misdirection of a prologue, the hallucinatory visuals, and the central conceit vs the female characterizations. We even talk Oscars a little bit. There are a few spoilers so it's best to see the film before listening if you care about such thing.

Please to enjoy and continue the conversation in the comments. You can listen at the bottom of this post or download from iTunes.  

Companion Links: 
Michael's Fury Road review
Tina Turner's "We Don't Need Another Hero"
Kyle's Twitter Account - Follow him. He's fun!

Fury Roadcast

Goodbye To Dear Loved Ones

I'm too distraught at the moment to truly process it but my favorite television show of all time ends tonight. End of an era, indeed. In just a few short hours at that. I'm off to co-host a finale party at the Museum of the Moving Image. (We will surely discuss later and probably through the Emmys so awards seasons have their blessings in keeping conversation relevant and alive.)

But to those who are also in mourning, you are not alone. This show has fascinated so many and inspired such wonderful writing on the web for seven years at many different sites. Let us cry on each other's virtual shoulders. Favorite episode. Favorite character. Favorite season in the comments please!