Yes No Maybe So: "House of Gucci"

by Nathaniel R

"Father... Son.... and House of Gucci" If the trailer is any indication, people are going to be obsessing on or quoting House of Gucci frequently in the coming months. So let's go immediately to our Yes No Maybe So™ routine, but in the more expansive second-by-second way we do occassionally when we're really excited...

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We stand with Scarlett!

by Nathaniel R

As you may have heard, Scarlett Johansson has sued Disney for breach of contract. She may have lost up to $50 million in bonuses on Black Widow. The very simplest way to explain it is that expensive movie stars (and some key directors) tend to earn "points" based on box office performance. A-listers like Johansson can reap hefty sums each time a movie passes certain agreed-upon thresholds. Disney, eager to beef up their Disney+ service, didn't regenotiate with her about her Black Widow contract before opting to place it on their streaming service for $30, thereby undermining its traditional box office and cutting Scarlett out of the significant $ of Disney+ purchases...

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Oscar Charts: Will "Best Actor" be Peter Dinklage vs Will Smith?

by Nathaniel R

Peter Dinklage in the 2019 stage production of Cyrano. Photo from Jeenah Moon for the New York Times

Jose Ferrer won the Oscar playing Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) and forty years later French movie star Gérard Depardieu was nominated for the same role. Thirty-one years later will Peter Dinklage prove lucky number three while having a go at the classic big-nosed role? About that big-nose, though. In the pre-COVID stage run, the production got people talking partially because it made significat alterations to the material, the most visible of which was the lack of that infamous nose. The thinking was that we all have things that make us insecure so the world-famous nose might be a stand-in for anything.

The other major alteration was that it was a musical with songs by The National. What will Joe Wright make of all this for the big screen?

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Doc Corner: Three new dance documentaries

By Glenn Dunks

Dance is such a physical art. It is a beautiful medium, of course, but one that doesn’t always allow for great documentaries about it. Watching it can be a divine experience (Wim Wenders’ Pina, for instance), but to get into the nuts and bolts of the craft is difficult. A trio of new documentaries highlight these strengths and weaknesses. All three put their focus on black dancers, and all have strong queer themes as they navigate a creative space emerging through the pain of racism and the AIDS epidemic. Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters by Rosalynde LeBlanc and Tom Hurwitz, Jamila Wignot’s Ailey, and Firestarter — The Story of Bangarra by Wayne Blair and Nel Minchin each highlight the bodies and the stories. But it’s the former about the iconic titular choreographer and one of his most famous works that best captures the athleticism, the drama and the intimacy of dance...

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The Best Costumes of 1998

by Cláudio Alves

It's time to say goodbye to 1998 and move on to the next Supporting Actress Smackdown year, 1986. However, before that, let's take a look at the Best Costume Design race that saw Sandy Powell receive her first double nomination, a face-off of Elizabethan fashions, two movies whose only nod was in this category, and a riff on midcentury sitcoms. The ceremony's host, Whoopi Goldberg, even modeled pieces from each nominee, opening the show in Queen Elizabeth I drag.

All in all, it's a rather conventional costume design lineup seeing as it's entirely composed of period work. However, some of these individual achievements deserve special attention for their playful glamour, radical visions of marginalized histories, and parodical referentiality. The nominees were:  

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