FYC: Ben Affleck, The Way Back

By: Patrick Gratton

Has anyone set flame to their post Oscar goodwill as quickly as Ben Affleck? And he did it not once but twice! The eternal comeback kid, Affleck has been lunging forward and falling back in and out of the public and critical favor for the larger part of his career. Bouncing back and forth, whether it be his “Hollywood’s new leading man” phase, his Gigli-tabloid fodder phase, his Affleckassance directorial efforts, his Batfleck phase and the Sadffleck meme, Affleck has continuously struggled to maintain a second act in his career. In retrospect, through baggage-induced trial and error, Affleck has built a career of rising above lowered expectations, only to fall again.

After a career's worth of trying to fit the bill that Hollywood gave him, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he wears 'rundown & disgruntled' so well in Gavin O’Connor’s The Way Back...

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Showbiz History: Trainspotting's 25th and a one-time-only Globe happening

8 random things that happened on this day, February 23rd, in showbiz history

1939 The 11th Academy Awards are held with zany family comedy You Can't Take It With You winning the top prize and Jezebel pulling down both Lead and Supporting Actress. This past summer we spent a lot of time discussing the 1938 film year. What's more, I even ranked all ten Best Picture nominees and guest starred on the "And the Runner Up Is..." podcast about it (icymi). Honestly these viewing projects, but especially 1938, got us through the first few months of the COVID lockdown. 

1950 The 7th Golden Globes are held honoring the best of 1949. All the King's Men wins Best Picture (as it also would at the Oscars later). It was the last year of the Globes before they begin to separate their categories into Drama and Comedy but the next piece of Globes trivia is even more unusual...

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Weekend box office: Croods is a rare pandemic hit and Nomadland just opened

by Nathaniel R

so sad we'll never get to see this one on the big screen!

We haven't been checking in with the box office regularly because it's so uneventful. But it's good to glance on occassion. Here's the US box office top ten (links go to reviews). There's a few thoughts after the jump as well.

1. The Croods New Age $1.7 (cum. $50.8)
2. The Little Things $1.2 (cum. $11.8)
3. Judas and the Black Messiah $905k (cum. $3.3)
4. Wonder Woman 1984 $805k (cum. $42.6)
5. The Marksman $781k (cum. $11.4)...

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Giulietta Masina @ 100: Cabiria's perfect ending

by Cláudio Alves

Born 100 years ago in San Giorno di Piano, Giulietta Masina is one of the most indelible faces of Italian cinema. She started her career as a theatre and radio actress but, by the time her husband Federico Fellini made the transition from screenwriter to film director, Masina was ready to follow him on the journey to the big screen. Despite having worked for other such notable auteurs as Rossellini and Wertmüller, Masina's legacy is defined by her husband's pictures. He immortalized her in more ways than one, both creating film monuments to her humanity, and using their marital strife to create many a celluloid drama...

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Gay Best Friend: Calla Mackie in "Rachel, Rachel" (1968)

a series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope

Who wouldn't risk it all for Estelle Parsons in those Edna Mode glasses?

We’re continuing our retro streak of the Gay Best Friend series this week, though we’re moving a bit forward in time (and to the subject of a Smackdown). In our Rebel Without a Cause entry, we discussed how director Nicholas Ray, actor Sal Mineo and writer Stewart Stern all coded Plato as gay, even though the Hays Code wouldn’t let homosexuality be openly discussed on film. This week, we’re looking at another Stewart Stern script, Rachel, Rachel. That film premiered thirteen years later (1968) and with the dissolution of the code we see less of a need to rely on coding. Estelle Parsons’ gregarious teacher Calla Mackie is established as a lesbian within the film. However, it reinforces tropes in gay representation that would continue for decades later. Calla may be a burst of energy early on, but her story moves into the “sad lesbian” and “tragic gay” frameworks we’ve become all too familiar with.

Before delving into Calla, we have to set up the object of her affection, the titular Rachel (Joanne Woodward)...

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