NYFF: "Întregalde" Slashes Old Habits For Something Fresh

by Jason Adams

Tell me if you've heard this one before -- a group of young people get lost in the woods. They pick up a stranger, and he's acting really weird. They lose their phone signals because of how remote they are in the wilderness. Their car breaks down. The group starts separating, one by one. Even more strange-behaving men show up. There are tales of an abandoned building in the mist-shrouded woods, and everybody starts wandering around trying to find it. One of them falls and hurts their leg. Night falls and their flashlight beams scatter in the darkness, no safe haven in sight. Snow begins to fall on a mysterious little shack. 

If you think I've just described the latest schlock horror flick to hit movie theater screens I wouldn't blame you, but this is actually the latest serious-minded art-house film from Romanian director Radu Muntean (Tuesday, After Christmas), who proves that there's nothing more enlivening than watching somebody serious-minded renegotiate the same old same old elements into something new, strange, and hypnotic. Întregalde is a low-key astonishment.

You can see the warning signs accumulating early on...

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Beauty Break: Franz Rogowski (Great Freedom)

by Nathaniel R

Franz Rogowski at Cannes for "The Great Freedom" this summer

This morning we learned that Sebastian Meise's Great Freedom, a German language post war drama about a homosexual in prison will be Austria's submission for the Oscars this year (chart updates). The film stars Franz Rogowski who we've loved looking at ever since we first saw him in the amazing continuous shot movie Victoria (2015) and whose career picked up steam after the international acclaim for Transit (2018). 2021 has been a busy year for the German star. The romantic fantasy Undine (2020) was released in June in the US and directly afterwards he spent the next few months at film festivals promoting three new projects: Great Freedom at Cannes in July, Luzifer at Locarno in August, and the Italian film Freaks Out at Venice in early September. 

Photos, some shot by the man himself (who has a fun Instagram account), some from his movies, and some lifted from MNPP (Jason is also a huge fan) are after the jump...

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Link Lasso

• Time Timothée Chalamet profile
• EW first look at Scream 5 - Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox both return
• Pop Culture Happy Hour insightful piece on the black lady therapist on TV with Ted Lasso, White Lotus, and In Treatment all arriving at that crowded trope party
• AV Club 5 reasons to be optimistic about season three of Ted Lasso

More after the jump including Dave Chapelle's controversial comedy show, Disney-related deaths, new projects for Jake Gyllenhaal, and MCU journeys for Kumail Nanjiani and Will Poulter...

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Best International Feature Film: Croatia, Finland, Japan and more...

FEAR

Since we last posted there have been five more countries announcing their submissions for our favourite Oscar category that doesn't include "actress" in the title. Find out about those movies after the jump.

BULGARIA
Bulgaria has opted to send a film called Fear by Ivaylo Hristov. It's about a widow on the Bulgarian/Turkish border who meets an African refugee. And yes, it's yet another 2021 film that's shot in black and white (so many this year!)...

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Horror Costuming: Hellraiser (1987)

by Cláudio Alves

Last October, I had a lot of fun exploring the art of costume design in horror movies. This Halloween season, the miniseries is back with new misadventures through the annals of horror history and some of its boldest sartorial visions. To get some semblance of order, the write-ups will start with an iconic nightmare of 1980s cinema and move, decade by decade, until a grand finale in the form of an Oscar FYC for the current awards season. So let's start things off by looking towards the meeting point of pleasure and pain, seeking where they become indivisible, and contemplating how such ideas can be materialized in costumes. Clive Barker's Hellraiser has such sights to show us…

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