How Had I Never Seen… the "Valley of the Dolls" movies?

by Cláudio Alves

As part of a robust Pride-themed selection, the Criterion Channel has added Russ Meyer's 1970 Beyond the Valley of the Dolls to its streaming roster. The Roger Ebert-penned follow-up cum send-up to the 1967 trashterpiece Valley of the Dolls is as campy as its predecessor, making the lurid underbelly of show business into the stuff of dragtastic entertainment. In other words, it's a perfect flick to put on whilst celebrating Pride Month. As I'd never seen either picture, I decided to take this as an opportunity to explore them both and share my thoughts with you, dear readers. I don't know what I was expecting from this double feature, but it wasn't what I found. Suffice it to say, I was surprised, gooped, and gagged…

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Emmys Watch: Lead Actor in a Limited Series currently has no frontrunner

Our team is breaking down the top contenders in all the major Emmy races and highlighting some of our favorites. Today, we’re looking at Outstanding Lead Actor In A Limited Series

Ethan Hawke's performance as John Brown in "The Good Lord Bird" looks to win the star his first Emmy.

By: Christopher James

Heading into Emmy nominations for this particular category, we don’t have a single actor who has won a precursor. We’re in a race without a frontrunner! The past year of awards all went to Mark Ruffalo for I Know This Much Is True, who also won the Emmy. This makes the race all the more exciting. Will the Emmys award the star of a series nominated in many categories, or will they go for a big name actor in a series that doesn’t show up anywhere else. They went with the latter last year, as Ruffalo was the only nominee for I Know This Much is True.

Read on to see who might be in contention this year...

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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.