Gay Best Friend: Tony in "Bend It Like Beckham"

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

Jess (Parminder Nagra) and Tony (Ameet Chana) are best friends and soccer players who both experience struggles within their strict Indian community.In honor of the “big game” yesterday, I wanted to see if there were any sports movies that would fit the Gay Best Friend column. The venn diagrams were slim, until I stumbled upon the crowd-pleasing surprise 2003 hit Bend it Like Beckham. Gurinder Chada’s sports romantic comedy grew from an initial release in just six theaters and ended up grossing $32 million domestically and $76 million worldwide. The film follows a young Indian girl, Jess (Parminder Nagra) who defies her family’s wishes and pursues playing on an all girls soccer team. What follows is an interesting and frank examination of cultural and gendered norms around sports.

So who’s the Gay Best Friend? Don’t worry, we’re getting to that…

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Showbiz History: Taxi Driver, Grammy Openers, and Globe Switcheroos

5 random things that happened on this day, February 8th, in showbiz history...

Julie Andrews in her infamous 'kill them with kindness' Globes speech in which she thanked the producer of... wait for it... My Fair Lady.

1921 One hundred years ago movie star Lana Turner was born. More on her later.

1965 The 22nd annual Golden Globe awards honoring the films of 1964 were held. Becket (drama) and My Fair Lady (comedy/musical) took the Best Picture prizes. And at the peak of the popularity of gigantic big screen musicals, it was the "comedy/musical" winners for acting that repeated on Oscar night with Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady) and Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins) both winning here first...

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Best International Feature: Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine

by Cláudio Alves

The Academy will announce its 15 finalists for the Best International Feature Oscar next Tuesday. For the first time in years, the shortlist will not include any saves from the executive committee, meaning that some more challenging pieces might suffer for it. In any case, as that day approaches, our joint adventure through the submissions continues. However, since time is short, I've decided to focus these last few groups of capsule reviews on pictures that enchanted me, the kind of titles I'd be ecstatic to see on the shortlist. Without further ado, let's delve into Slovenia's meditation on memory, Sweden's tale of chaotic motherhood, and Ukraine's sci-fi dystopia… 

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Top 10 Goofiest Golden Globe Nominations of the 21st Century

by Christopher James

If the awards season were members of your family at the Thanksgiving table, the Golden Globes would be your delightfully kooky Great Aunt. She always brings a bottle of great wine, wears loud colored clothes and tells stories of the scandals of distant family members of generations ago. She'll always manage to surprise you in new, yet similar ways.

What would the Golden Globes be without their penchant for movie stars, musicals with extra glitter and star vehicles that may or may not exist? More than anything, the Golden Globes love to surprise. In honor (and in some cases dishonor) of this weeks’ nominations, let's rank the 10 Goofiest Golden Globe nominations of the past two decades.

Please note: This does not mean 10 worst nods. These are just the 10 that were the most head-scratching based on the season they happened in...

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Peggy Link

• Movie City New Gurus of Gold latest predictions - i find it interesting that the ranking is all over the place with Promising Young Woman all the way from #1 to #10 (though it's on all the lists)
• IndieWire There was so much awards stuff happening this week that we never discusseed Todd Haynes planning a Peggy Lee biopic with Michelle Williams. Obviously I feel bad about this because we love all three people and that sounds amazing!
• Empire Got a spare 182 minutes? Directors Edgar Wright and Quentin Tarantino did a podcast together.

Steven Yeun, WandaVision, a messy Color Purple legal battle, a strange Nicole Kidman story, Edward Scissorhands at the Superbowl, and more after the jump...

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