25th Anniversary: "Face/Off"

by Nick Taylor

Yeah, that’s right motherfuckers, we are talking about ci-ne-MA! We’re celebrating the 25th anniversary of Chinese action auteur John Woo’s third English-language film, the 11th highest grossing film of 1997, a lone Oscar nominee in the now-subsumed Sound Editing category (may her memory be eternal) that was inevitably bulldozed by Titanic. It's one of the most voluptuously insane movies Nicolas fucking Cage has ever appeared in; Face/Off, where they take the face OFF.

Anyone who knows me knows I’ve been proselytizing about this film for years, ever since I first saw it with my sister Melina and some friends of our  about 8 years ago. The 25th anniversary was an ideal opportunity to pop in the Blu-Ray Tommy got me for Christmas and finally share (he might say inflict) its majesty with him. Our roommates even joined us, and I had so much fucking fun watching them experience it for the first time...

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Through Her Lens: 2013 (The 86th Oscars)

A series by Juan Carlos Ojano. Introduction / Explanation

Steve McQueen became the first Black director to helm a Best Picture winner for 12 Years a Slave (2013), telling the harrowing story of African-American freeman Solomon Northup who was kidnapped in 1841 and was sold to slavery. McQueen also became the first Black producer to receive a Best Picture award. Meanwhile, the film’s biggest competition was Gravity, a science fiction-thriller film set in space. Winning seven Oscars, the film was directed by Alfonso Cuarón, becoming the first Latin American to win the Best Director Oscar.

While having these two films as frontrunners is a win for representation at the Oscars,  female directors were still left out of the conversation for majority of the awards season.  Out of the 289 films included in the Reminder List of Eligible Films in 2013 (86th Academy Awards), only 32* (11.1%) were directed/co-directed by women...

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Happy 4th if you celebrate

Happy Fourth of July

Tootsie (1982)

Apologies for the radio silence this weekend -- though we've been updated the Oscar charts -- but we took the weekend to recharge via Fire Island (not Fire Island the movie though that's come up in conversation multiple times). After "The Invasion of the Pines" today, the annual tradition wherein drag queens ferry it from Cherry Grove to the Pines, we're headed back to our less glittery, less eye-candy filled lives *sniffle*. So this post is illustrated with the three photos from the TFE archives that best sum up this weekend...

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Streaming Roulette, July 2022

We never know which films to cover since there are so many channels so please note that we welcome comments and requests for more in-depth coverage of new-to-streaming titles. 

Okay, time for this month's streaming roulette. You know the rules. We highlight new-to-streaming movies and an occasional TV series by freezing them on the scroll bar at entirely random places and just sharing what pops up. No cheating*!

Okay, we're going to have a nice CALM talk like we discussed, right?

LOVE, VICTOR (SEASON 3) on Hulu
Sad this show is ending but also relieved since so few high school shows wrap up at their natural ending point (senior year) before they've overstayed their welcome. Have you started watching the final season yet? Ana Ortiz (who is completely Emmy worthy for season 2) and James Martinez as Victor's parents are both so terrific and not at all the afterthoughts parents so often are in teen soaps...

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Linking up that hill

• Criterion Renate Reinsve (Worst Person in the World) demonstrates marvelous taste while inside the Criterion Closet
• Boy Culture their delicious annual recap of Broadway Bares (lots of photos and video)
• MNPP Pedro Almodóvar is making another short (after that Tilda-starring The Human Voice). This one a gay western starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal. Can't wait!

More after the jump including Dakota Johnson, The Lovely Laura Linney, Kate Bush, a new film from Andrew Haigh, and a reinvention of James Bond...

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