One For Them, One For Me: Mike White (x 2) in 2017

A new series by Christopher James

Mike White (left) makes himself one of the images of excess and wealth in "Brad's Status," one of four movies he wrote in 2017 (and the only one he also directed).

Do one for them; do one for you. If you can still do projects for yourself, you can keep your soul.
— Martin Scorsese: A Journey

Why not make a lot of movies and make a lot of money?

Mike White’s 2017 was full of many ups and downs. Few people would be able to make four movies in a year and have them all be good. Mike White decided to split the difference, making two personal projects alongside two painfully obvious cash grabs.  White is among the credited writers on The Emoji Movie and Pitch Perfect 3. But that wasn't all. He also wrote and directed the comedy Brad’s Status, a passion project. Finally, he wrote the screenplay for Beatriz at Dinner, directed by Miguel Artera, which serves as a great precursor to his HBO smash hit The White Lotus. Let's look for any common themes or threads for these four scripts that all came out in the same year...

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Nathaniel's Top Ten List (Best of 2021)

by Nathaniel R

Movies are not quite keepsakes anymore with physical media dying. Yet they remain emotional treasures to return to or reflect upon as real as any beloved mementos you could place in a keepsake box. For awards and list obsessives they take on extra-meaning as stand-ins for each calendar year as well. We have to have a gimmick for the top ten lists each year, else the task of putting so much love into words becomes too daunting.  So this year we've chosen memorable objects as a frame with which to remember the year's best. These great films were filled with fawned over items and knick knacks from "purty" paper flowers to restless coffee cups, from razor-sharp seashell bracelets to winning lottery tickets, from horny religious figurines to magical belts.

20 HONORABLE MENTIONS

So that you don't immediately ask "WHERE IS  ____?" here are the 20 films outside of the top 10 list that were loved and/or deeply admired. Plus, in keeping with the chosen theme, the visual object we most closely associate with them... 

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Interview: Martha Plimpton on Her Role in ‘Mass’

By Abe Friedtanzer

We’re back with another spotlight on one of the strongest films of 2021, Mass, which managed to earn exactly one nomination from BAFTA today, for Ann Dowd in the supporting actress category. Nathaniel spoke with Dowd recently and I had the chance to talk to writer-director Fran Kranz, and today we have Martha Plimpton, the fantastic stage and screen actress who plays Gail… 

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Oscar Volley: Those DGA Nominees (and more) in Best Director

Our Oscar Volleys series is down to our last two categories. Here are Tim Brayton and Eric Blume to talk Best Director. (This volley was recorded before the BAFTA announcement but since those nominations are juried they probably won't have much bearing on Oscar outcomes.)

Eric Blume:  Tim, I'm thrilled to talk shop about the Best Director category. Let's start with Jane Campion, Denis Villeneuve, and Kenneth Branagh who all seem unlikely to miss.  I'm personally thrilled that Campion might ride her crest all the way to a win. Nobody else could have made The Power of the Dog work so layered and subtle, or told that story without it seeming heavy-handed, obvious, or silly. The film gives Campion the chance to do her specialty: embroiling us in a narrative and in character motivations so intensely strange yet fully human that we're transported by our own confusion and curiosity.  She has that special ability to deliver a rare grounded sense of whatthefuckery in her movies. There are moments where so much is happening psychologically, where so many meanings are transpiring simultaneously, that you can't even fully process it until it's passed you by.

I'm also a huge fan of Villeneuve, a natural-born filmmaker if there ever was one...

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Doc Corner: 'Janet Jackson.' and 'Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché'

By Glenn Dunks

British X-Ray Spex frontwoman Poly Styrene and American pop superstar Janet Jackson are two very different musicians. It stands to reason that any biographic documentary about either would be wildly unalike. Although both artists are boundary-pushing women of colour in music, on very basic metrics, Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché and Janet Jackson. are indeed very different. One is a exploration of a punk icon’s chaotic life and early death in all of its subject’s messy, unglamorous glory. The other is a sprawling, four-part work of popumentary that venerates and celebrates with high-gloss entertainment. However, it is in the areas where these projects intersect where one project finds its strengths and the other, unfortunately, falters...

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