The Furniture: Promising Young Woman and Set Decoration as Weapon

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber. (Click on the images for magnified detail)

The best part of Promising Young Woman, aside from Carey Mulligan’s performance, is the look. It’s refreshing to see a comedy with so striking a visual sensibility, a neon nihilism that leaps off the screen. It’s certainly the first time I’ve ever seen coffee shop decor that I could describe as “snide.”

The work put in by production designer Michael Perry, art director Liz Kloczkowski and set decorator Rae Deslich is remarkable. Promising Young Woman has such a heightened visual sensibility, occasionally its own plot seems surprisingly tame in comparison...

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Cannes & Berlinale delayed

While we're on record objecting to awards shows changing their eligibility dates like crazy (despite, you know, the quarantine accessibility of streaming giving us all ways to see lots of movies) here's one change we can totally get behind and which makes total sense. Cannes, which always takes place in May, has moved itself to July for the 2021 film year.  More specifically the festival will run from July 6th through July 17th.  Last year, Spike Lee as chosen as jury president but then the event was cancelled so he was meant to reign in 2021 instead. That's still the plan (assuming Spike's schedule hasn't changed).

Though this is only a two month move it could prove a bit disruptive to the fall A list festivals like Venice, Telluride, and Toronto who generally can nab world premieres from prestige filmmakers whose films weren't quite ready for Cannes. Now all the A-list non Sundance festivals, including Berlinale, which is usually in February but will be in June this year, will take place across only a four month span. That's a lot of competition for films!

Angels & Insects @ 25: Entomological Perversions

by Cláudio Alves

Angels & Insects arrived in US theaters 25 years ago. The picture had had its premiere at the 48th Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or but it would take several more months for it to get a commercial release in the UK and the States. Once that happened, Phillip Haas' adaptation of an A.S. Byatt novel received plenty of acclaim from such renowned critics as Roger Ebert, conquering enough buzz to get a surprising, if deserved, Best Costume Design Oscar nomination. Nowadays, the flick isn't talked about, which is a terrible injustice as far as I'm concerned.

To rectify such lack of contemporary discussion, let's try to explore the sensuous perversions and entomological nightmares of this tale insects, incest, and insidiousness…

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Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana

That's the first shot of Kristen Stewart as Diana in Pablo Larraín's next film Spencer, one of our presumed Oscar hopefuls for 2021 though the release plans aren't at all firm yet. Let's hope it goes better for Kristen than it did for Naomi Watts! (Not that it won't by default, but still). So we might be looking at our first Best Actress nominee of the new film ye -- No, we can't get into that yet; we're still in this season.

There's no word yet on who is playing Prince Charles but the film takes place over a single weekend (the best kind of biopic!) and we trust Larraín to make this totally interesting since his films (Jackie, No, Neruda) always are, even the ones that are totally filled with hard-to-watch hatefulness (Tony Manero, Ema, The Club). Larraín's films are always exquisitely put together and this one will be no exception with the cinematographer of Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Claire Mathon), two time Oscar winner Jacqueline Durran (Anna Karenina, Little Women) on costumes, and Oscar nominee Jonny Greenwood (Phantom Thread) on score duties. 

Showbiz History: The biggest Oscar nomination shock ever + the "Before" trilogy begins

5 random things that happened on this day, January 27th, in showbiz history

1939 Idiots Delight starring Norma Shearer and Clark Gable opens in theaters. It was their final picture together but Mr Gable had in fact become a star IN a Norma Shearer picture: A Free Soul (1931). Jesse James starring Tyrone Power was also released on this day during "Hollywood's Greatest Year"...

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