Michelle Pfeiffer as Betty Ford? We're so ready!

by Nathaniel R

As all of you pfans now, Michelle Pfeiffer is not easy to pin down. She's been skittish about projects for her entire career, regularly turning down big deal stuff. That became especially true after the mid 90s when she turned her attention to raising her two children and only sporadically made movies, taking some very long breaks from cameras. With the kids left for college she finally started acting again. Her return has been pretty slow but it's now speeding up. Her renewed public profile began with the launch of her perfume line "Henry Rose" and a wonderful Instagram account (social media is not something we ever thought she'd embrace!). We're now in the middle of French Exit's awards run (we're crossing our pfingers hard for a Globe nomination as they've historically loved her more than Oscar voters have). There's so much Pfeiffer to enjoy lately including an amazing new interview with George Clooney in which she reveals she feels exactly the opposite as critics do when it comes to what she thinks are her best performances, and a long conversation with Scott Feinberg at the Hollywood Reporter.

Now comes news that she's signed on for the Showtime series The First Lady to be directed by Danish director and Oscar winner Susanne Bier. Emmy nomination #2 here she comes! The anthology series will reportedly focus on multiple first ladies per season...

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How Do You Solve a Problem Like Nina: The Ghost of "Promising Young Woman"

by Lynn Lee

Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS for Promising Young Woman. Do not read until you've seen the film.

Can we all agree that Carey Mulligan IS Promising Young Woman?  Not just that she’s sensational in it, though she is.  No, I mean she is the movie: her performance as the tormented and tormenting protagonist, Cassie, is what holds it together and propels it to its gut-punch of a conclusion.

That’s not to shortchange PYW’s solid supporting cast or writer-director Emerald Fennell, who brings impressive confidence and panache to her feature debut and whose razor-sharp script gave Mulligan a perfect opportunity to shine.  But what could have remained merely provocative on page really needed the right acting touch to sell the character’s complex blend of steeliness and vulnerability, wit and anguish, sexiness and inconspicuousness, icy calculation and seething rage, on screen.  Luckily for Fennell, and for us, Mulligan convincingly conveys all aspects of this unlikely avenging angel and fuses them into a cohesive, if conflicted, whole.

Well, almost all aspects...

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Doc Corner: Sundance winner 'Acasă, My Home'

By Glenn Dunks

Acasă, My Home’s opening passage ends with a single shot that is so startling it would normally be quite hard for the rest of the film to live up to its surprise. It’s little wonder then that it won a Special Jury Award for cinematography at 2020’s Sundance Film Festival, having some of the best use of drone documentary photography I’ve seen—something that should silence the naysayers of this common doc tool, at least for a little bit.

It’s lucky then for first-time Romanian filmmaker Radu Ciorniciuc—previously only known as a journalist and for featuring in something called, yes, Sick Chicken: What You Need to Know—that drama follows his subjects wherever they go...

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Showbiz History: Jane & Tom, Elizabeth Taylor shouting "Gladiator!"

6 random things that happened on this day, January 21st, in showbiz history

1973 Jane Fonda marries activist Tom Hayden (they were already pregnant with son Troy Garity, who followed his mom into the acting profession). Hayden is played by Eddie Redmayne in the Best Picture hopeful Trial of the Chicago 7 which takes place from 1968 through 1970. The couple divorced in 1990.  

1978 The soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever hits #1 on the Billboard 200 Album chart (where it will stay for an incredible six months). One week later the film will lose all of its categories at the Golden Globes even Best Song "How Deep Is Your Love" which loses to "You Light Up My Life"...

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The Furniture: The Elephant Man and an Interior City

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

There’s an image from The Elephant Man I can’t get out of my head. 

Well, there are a few. David Lynch and Freddie Francis didn’t exactly slouch here. But there’s one moment, quite early on, that struck me with its oddness. Dr. Treves (Anthony Hopkins) has snuck into the legally-tenuous circus of Mr. Bytes (Freddie Jones), just as the police are about to shut him down. The deeper one ventures, the strange the surroundings look. Here we see a cop navigating this temporary labyrinth of light and shadow...

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