Cláudio’s Best Shot Pick: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

The next episode of our series, ‘Hit Me With Your Best Shot,’ arrives tomorrow night. It’s focused on the 1954 musical extravaganza Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. You still have time to participate. For now, as something of a preview, here’s Cláudio’s entry.

Adapted from Stephen Vincent Benet's The Sobbin' Women, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is the definition of problematic. Indeed, for some, a romantic premise that hinges on the real and horrifying subject of bride kidnapping might be irredeemable. Even for one like me, who regards cinema as audiovisual expression that can be entirely divorced from narrative, this effervescent tale of abducted women falling for their captors can be hard to swallow, look past. Consider that such objections don't even touch on the picture's penchant to treat rape imagery as comedy – yikes…

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Doc Corner: Amy Poehler's 'Lucy and Desi'

By Glenn Dunks

I hadn’t expected it, but I somehow became a defender of an Aaron Sorkin movie across the most recent awards season. Unexpected because I was not a fan of Sorkin’s earlier directorial efforts. But his somewhat fictionalized film about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez, Being the Ricardos, had—for all its faults—a point of view about its subjects and as a piece of storytelling. At least one that went beyond the more predictable birth-to-death narrative of star-laden biopics where performers are essentially asked to pantomime through famous moments across history.

I am sure many fans who disliked Sorkin’s film will embrace Amy Poehler’s documentary, Lucy and Desi. It’s also not a comedy in the way that non-fiction can be funny, but it plays a lot of clips from I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show and more, so it plays more like one...

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Review: Father Stu is a Watchable Mess

By Ben Miller

Rosalind Ross' Father Stu can't decide what film it wants to be. Is it the unorthodox story of a man coming to terms with aging, or is it the fish-out-of-water story of a man who shouldn't be a priest joining the priesthood? This lack of vision turns the film into a tonal mishmash, but one that is inherently watchable.

Mark Wahlberg stars as Stuart "Stu" Long, an amateur boxer approaching middle age in Montana.  Frequently drunk and delinquent, Stu looks to turn his life around by moving to Los Angeles to become an actor.

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April Foolish Oscar Predix Pt 3 - Visual Categories

by Nathaniel R

Will ELVIS get the usual Catherine Martin nominations for a Bazmark production?

The April Foolish predictions continue with the visual categories which means the rest of the week is the highest profile of categories: Actors, Directors, and Pictures. Obviously this is too early for confidence -- especially in below the line categories since many films haven't released a single image yet. Much will change including which films get released but we'd hold up our year in advance prediction records against anyones.  At this point the only thing anyone has to go on is a) previous work from the craftsmen involved, b) whether the film might have a "Most" boost (contemporary set pictures generally struggle in the visual categories even when they're brilliant), c) hunches aka crystal ball projections as to how the film involved might fare overall. Regarding the latter, it's commonly understood that Best Picture heat will help you in every category even though each should be judged on its own merits.

Check out the charts, won'cha? Two items of discussion we wanted to underline follow after the jump...

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Hou Hsiao-Hsien @75: New Millennium (2001-2022)

The conclusion of a four part series by Cláudio Alves

In the cinema of Hou Hsiao-Hsien, the 21st century started with a neon dream. The camera follows Shu Qi's Vicky as she runs through a Taipei tunnel, lights flickering above. Everything happens in slow-motion, flickers turn into waves and the actress's movement makes a strange unnatural dance. She looks back at us, hair flying in a cloud of black tendrils, her eyes asking us to follow her down the tunnel, like Alice down the rabbit hole. It's a hypnotic sight, made more seductive by the music of Lim Giong, house beats and techno dronings that transform the screen into a pulsing heart.

2001's Millennium Mambo fulfills the formalistic promise of Daughter of the Nile, transcending Goodbye South, Goodbye's tethering to material truth. Like its protagonist, the film looks back at its director's history while moving forward to an unknown future. It's the start of a new chapter for Hou Hsiao-Hsien…

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