HAPPY PRIDE 🏳️‍🌈

It's Pride Sunday here in NYC so we're taking the afternoon off for the Queer Liberation march and to get a sunburn. The latter is assumed from past experience no matter how much sunscreen we lather on (thanks Danish ancestry).  On a more serious and celebratory note, isn't it positively inspiring how many out celebrities we have now? We grew up in the 80s when we had only a handful (Rupert Everett, Martina Navratilova, Harvey Fierstein, Jimmy Sommerville, Boy George, and maybe a couple of others). In the 1990s 'coming out' became a more regular but still 'controversial' celebrity occurrence. Today the news cycle moves on pretty quickly from a celebrity's admission of queerness and that's healthy! Today's young people have hundreds of LGBTQ celebrities to pick and choose from to enjoy or relate to or be inspired by during their formative years.

As movie fanatics we knew in our hearts all along (despite protests to the contrary, sometimes frustratingly from the queer community) that once enough actors came out the myth that it would ruin acting careers would be exposed as just that: a total myth. Strength in numbers! Happy pride to all the queer artists and entertainers and Happy Pride to all our LGBTQ+ readers and allies!  

Emmy FYC: The cast of "Small Axe"

by Cláudio Alves

As Christopher James mentioned in his overview of the Limited Series Emmy race, much of the discourse surrounding Small Axe has focused on categorization. Is it TV or cinema? To be perfectly blunt, I don't care. Indeed, it's been pretty disheartening to see how so much energy was spent debating this matter instead of simply appreciating the work. To me, the five Small Axe films are a miracle of audiovisual expression and historical narrative, perchance Steve McQueen's most important masterpiece. When it came time to write these Emmy FYCs, I jumped at the chance of singing the anthology's praise. Honestly, the only problem was singling out just one element to promote.

While I could just as happily have written about Shabier Kirchner's luminous cinematography or the sensuous textures of Jacqueline Durran's costumes, I've decided to focus on the actors…

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Pfeiffer Pfriday takes on "The Fabulous Baker Boys"

by Nathaniel R

Have you been listening to the podcast "Pfeiffer Pfridays"? Each week Jerry and Michael revisit, or screen for the pfirst time, a Pfeiffer movie. Sometimes they have guests in tow. They're not going in chronological order but hopping around. This weekend marks their 30th episode so they're making whoopie and covering one of the greatest pfilms of the 1980s: The Fabulous Baker Boys. Guest starring... me!

We get into it, not just the Pfeiffer ascendance into the pantheon of it all, but the Bridges brothers character arcs, Jennifer Tilly's hilarious supporting role, the movie's Old Hollywood glamour, the screenplay, the cinematography, and the 1989 Oscar race.

Smackdown '46: Duel in the Sun with the King of Siam

Welcome back to the Supporting Actress Smackdown. Each month we pick an Oscar vintage to explore through the lens of actressing at the edges. This episode goes back to the 19th Academy Awards honoring 1946. It isn't a particularly beloved Oscar vintage though the Best Picture winner, The Best Years of Our Lives, is sublime. Apart from the winner and the Christmas film It's a Wonderful Life, the Academy all but ignored the most enduring pictures of that post-war year (Notorious, Gilda, The Postman Always Rings Twice). But we're here to discuss Best Supporting Actress and these five women were having a moment...

THE NOMINEES For the 1946 Oscars the Academy invited back two previous winners (Gale Sondergaard & Ethel Barrymore), tossed a bouquet in the form of 'career' nomination to a legend (Lillian Gish), honored a character actress for stretching (Flora Robson) without realizing how poorly that kind of stretch would age, and invited a new starlet (Anne Baxter) into the club. That's a typical mix in some ways though the films were a fun mix of genres rather than five straightforward dramas. We've got a culture clash historical epic (Anna and the King of Siam), a thriller (The Spiral Staircase), a camp western (Duel in the Sun), a post-war spiritual journey (The Razor's Edge), and a restless genre-hopping whatsit (Saratoga Trunk).

THE PANELISTS Here to talk about the performances and films are (alpha order from left to right), playwright Peter Duchan, film critic Guy Lodge, Statueseque's Allen Nguyen, and Actor Tory Devon Smith. And, as ever, your host Nathaniel R. Let's begin...

 SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN + PODCAST  
The companion podcast can be downloaded at the bottom of this article or by visiting the iTunes page...  

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Quickies to Catch Up (pt 2): Female led thrillers and CG beasts in battle

by Nathaniel R

In an attempt to clear our cache of notes and fill out that review page for 2021, we're addressing movies we didn't get around to discussing in full for your commenting pleasure. Better late than never! As we were typing these Luca emerged but it's so good it deserves one big post or several little ones before the Oscars so more on that soon. If you missed part one of this review catch-up, that's here. After the jump brief thoughts on four films: Godzilla vs Kong, Mortal Kombat, Those Who Wish Me Dead, and The Woman in the Window...

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