Carole Lombard: First Lady of Screwball (and Much More!)

by Cláudio Alves

The Criterion Channel is honoring Carole Lombard with one of their latest collections. This curated sample of eleven films illuminates different talents in the Old Hollywood star's repertoire, from her comedic chops to less heralded, though not less excellent, work in melodramas. While she's best remembered as the queen of the screwball genre thanks to films like My Man Godfrey, Lombard was a multifaceted actress whose range deserves to be remembered. While her life was cut short by a tragic plane crash in 1942, the starlet's filmography is a thing of beauty, vast and distinctive, full of treasures to discover and enjoy…

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"Zola" is a must-see

Spend some time in batshit insane Florida this weekend. Writer/Director Janicza Bravo's stripper comedy Zola (co-written by Tony-nominated playwright Jeremy O. Harris) which was a major Sundance hit way back in January 2020 before the pandemic, is finally in theaters. It was worth the wait. Murtada raved about it last year...

Zola is the first film to get how social media interactions have shaped the way people talk to each other IRL. How many times have you said "LOL" to someone’s face? Admit it, many times. Bravo and Harris manage the find the right speech cadences for that sort of phone jargon. Then, Bravo masterfully realizes them visually so that they are seamless. [Read the full review] 

It's a great and wild time at the movies headlined by fast-rising wonder Taylour Paige (so fun as Viola's girl in Ma Rainey last season) in a nimble deadpan funny star turn. She had me in stitches with a one word line reading "...word" early on in this weekend misadventure before the gallows-humor comedy rubbernecks around its rather serious and frightening sex-trafficking elements. She and the underappreciated Riley Keough are both expert at keeping their performances both real and "in quotes" for the different points of view and emotional facades the women wear to survive. 

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July whether you find this holiday...

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How Had I Never Seen..."Independence Day"?

by Cláudio Alves

Some of my recent choices for the "How Had I Never Seen" series may have leaned towards the esoteric. Probably most people don't wonder why or how they have never set eyes on Valley of the Dolls or Girlfriends. This time around, however, I've decided to fix a pretty deep lacuna in my movie-watching, one that's firmly in the mainstream rather than an arthouse curio. Today marks the 25th anniversary of Roland Emmerich's 1996 Oscar-winning mega-blockbuster Independence Day. To commemorate the date, I finally watched the flick that turned Will Smith into a star of the silver screen, redefined the effects-driven summer movie, and birthed a new era of Hollywood entertainment… 

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1998: Toni Collette in "Velvet Goldmine"

We're revisiting the 1998 film year in the lead up to the next Supporting Actress Smackdown. As always Nick Taylor will suggest a few alternates to Oscar's ballot.

by Nick Taylor

We begin our dive into 1998 with one of two films to get lone nominations for Costume Design but deserved way more attention in other categories. I’ll have plenty to say about the treasure trove of supporting actressing in Beloved next week, but who could be a better starting point for a retrospective in this category than Toni Collette’s prismatic turn in Velvet Goldmine? Collette is a regular godsend to directors who need a smart actress to ground and humanize second-tier characters that might otherwise seem wan or uninteresting. The role of Mandy Slade, the storied wife of disgraced, long-missing glam superstar Brian Slade, is perhaps too fascinatingly written and too doted over by director Todd Haynes and his team of heroically imaginative collaborators to fit into a coterie of women like About a Boy’s Fiona Brewer or Krampus’ Sarah Engel. On top of that, the demands Haynes places on the role call upon a very different skill set than Collette is normally asked to use. And yet, what makes her work in Velvet Goldmine so exhilarating is how different her approach to this role is, giving what might be her most dissimilar performance in a career full of film-elevating work...

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