Drag Race RuCap: "RDR Live!"

For the next few months, Nick Taylor and Cláudio Alves will be following and recapping RuPaul’s Drag Race season sixteen…

Last week's episode was an eleventh hour tearjerker. Everybody cried.

CLÁUDIO: As ever, I’m disappointed with the Drag Race take on comedy challenges. In this episode, the dolls reprised an idea from All-Stars 8, doing RuPaul’s take on Saturday Night Live. Indeed, they even recycled some of the archetypes and scenarios from that latest All-Stars season, causing some in the fandom to accuse one of the new queens of copying an old gal who found herself in the same shoes. But we’ll talk about that later. All in all, this was my pick for the worst episode of the season so far even before its heartbreaking finish. But I know you have more affection for Drag Race comedy challenges than I do, so your reaction may have been radically different. Was it? 

NICK: This one let me down. I suppose the mediocre writing of the bits made it more authentic to the SNL experience, but almost everyone felt ill-served by the format of the challenge and the bits as scripted . . . .

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Almost There: Penélope Cruz in "Ferrari"

by Cláudio Alves

To celebrate the return of the Almost There series, let's consider the season's buzziest turns, starting with a contender who came close to her third Best Supporting Actress nomination and fifth overall nod. She's won before, for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, in a much different register than the one she's exploring in this latest bid for gold. Of course, I'm talking about Spanish superstar Penélope Cruz, who molded her natural accent into some vaguely Italian sound to play Laura Ferrari in Michael Mann's long-gestating biopic project. It's an immense performance, primordial in its power and classical in construction. Devastated and devastating, she's grief incarnate…

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Abe’s Sundance Jury of One

By Abe Friedtanzer

Pedro Pascal in Freaky Tales | Sundance Institute

This was my ninth time being in Park City for the Sundance Film Festival, and even though a family occasion meant I only arrived on Sunday (the festival started Thursday), I still saw twenty-five films in person and three before the fest. I did three days of five movies back-to-back, which is an incomparable thrill that can also prove quite exhausting. Fortunately, there was plenty of good fare worth remembering, and some of it is even coming soon to a screen of some sort near you!

Because there’s just so much playing, I didn’t actually see most of the official award winners, but you can peruse that list here. For my “jury of one,” here are my top ten films and a few other assorted honors. My reviews, if available, are hyperlinked, as well as notes on distribution if available...

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Will "Anatomy of a Fall" sweep the Césars?

by Nathaniel R

a snapshot from "Anatomy of a Fall"

The nominations for the 49th annual César Awards came out nearly simultaneously to the Oscar nominations so we accidentally missed them. Je suis désolé. As you would surely expect, Justine Triet's Oscar nominated Anatomy of a Fall is also a big deal across the pond. But it didn't top the nominations. That honor went to Thomas Cailley's mutant adventure The Animal Kingdom. Perhaps the biggest surprise / disconnect for those of us viewing from overseas is that France's unfortunately not-nominated Oscar submission The Taste of Things shows up in only two craft categories; if it wasn't well-loved at home, why did they submit it? But also: why didn't they love it? It's exquisite.

The ceremony will be held on February 23rd this year in Paris. The nominations, some trivia, and a few comments are after the jump...

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Sundance Review: Getting Through Life and COVID with ‘Stress Positions’

By Abe Friedtanzer

John Early in "Stress Positions"

Since March 2020, a number of films and TV series have addressed the life-altering COVID-19 pandemic in their storylines. Often it’s fodder for comedy, since looking back at people furiously wiping down groceries and staying far, far apart from each other can be humorous in retrospect. In some cases, it’s just an extra obstacle to make life a little bit harder and more complicated. In filmmaker Theda Hammel’s feature debut, Stress Positions, staying afloat in a chaotic and isolating time is a considerable challenge for its memorable characters.

John Early stars as Terry, a recently divorced Brooklyn resident watching over his nineteen-year-old nephew from Morocco, Bahlul (Qaher Harhash), as he recovers from an accident...

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