Gay Best Friend: George Hanson (Paul Rudd) in The Object of My Affection (1998)

Series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope

Doesn't it look like these two crazy, beautiful kids would make a cute couple? Think again.Another week, another 1998 comedy about the relationship between a woman and her gay best friend starring a cast member of Friends. You have to love a specific subgenre. While Lisa Kudrow and Martin Donovan traveled across the country to find Christina Ricci in The Opposite of Sex, Jennifer Aniston stayed in New York in a more familiar genre -- the romantic comedy.

As the title The Object of My Affection suggests, Aniston falls in love. Unfortunately for her, the titular role is her new gay best friend, a first grade teacher played by a baby-faced, charming Paul Rudd. Wendy Wasserstein’s adaptation of the Stephen McCauley book of the same name uses genre tropes to sand some of the thorny elements of the premise. Yet, this not-always-perfect movie gives a really interesting look at a codependent friends who love each other, but also hold each other back...

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Oscars: 238 eligible documentaries — but what will make the shortlist?

By Glenn Dunks

18 of the staggering 238 hopefuls in Best Documentary Feature

Yes, you read that right. Two-hundred and thirty-eight (238!) films have qualified for this year’s Best Documentary Feature category. That’s up from the previous record number of submissions, a lowly and pathetic 170 in 2017. Pfft. From Acasă, My Home (which we reviewed here just last week) to Zappa, the full list is available on the Academy’s website.

This incredible high figure can of course be partly explained by the extended eligibility period. After all, documentaries are among the only breed of movie that doesn’t necessarily get slotted in seasons; there’s always new, great content getting released every week either through theatrical or digital platforms...

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Sundance: Discussing Grief in “Mass”

By Abe Friedtanzer

 It’s always interesting to see actors step behind the camera to direct, both for the subject matters they choose and the times they decide not to cast themselves in their projects. I was particularly moved by William H. Macy’s debut in that role with Rudderless, which played at Sundance in 2014 but didn’t go very far after that. It dealt with a father struggling to connect with his late son through his music after a school shooting. Now, Fran Kranz, who I always remember as Topher on Dollhouse, is exploring a similar concept as writer and director of Mass.

The film opens with church staff members setting up a room for an awkward meeting set to occur between two sets of parents...

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Showbiz History: Bill Murray on David Letterman, Janet Jackson at the Superbowl

6 random things that happend on this day, February 1st, in showbiz history

1929 One of the earliest movie musicals Broadway Melody premieres in Los Angeles. The following year it would win Best Picture at the 2nd annual Oscars, the first sound film to do so...

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Sundance: “On the Count of Three” review

By Abe Friedtanzer

 

Meeting characters at a moment where they want to end their lives is a complicated endeavor. It’s important to introduce them and explain who they are while communicating what has happened to get them to this mental place. Such narratives are often melancholy, but they can also be unexpectedly funny, as is the case with On the Count of Three...

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