NYFF: Laura Dern's first leading role and a lost Blaxploitation treasure

Sean Donovan looks at two films from NYFF's "Revivals" section...

The major film festivals of the world, New York included, take as much responsibility for cinema’s past as its future. Alongside new hyped arthouse projects, festivals program curios from the past that may have fallen through the cracks or not received their due recognition in their day. In other instances, festivals re-deploy older films to the contemporary moment in an act of deliberate commentary, the film speaking to culture in a way that feels freshly vital for 2020 (that is certainly the case of one of the selections profiled here). Over the past weekend, New York Film Fest virtual cinema uploaded two of their revival selections, Joyce Chopra’s Sundance-winning drama Smooth Talk (1985) and a Blaxploitation cult film The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973). Both are canny, fascinating picks from the NYFF, and well worth the revisit in 2020...

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Mickey @ 100: "Babes in Arms"

by Camila Henriques

As we continue our centennial tribute to Mickey Rooney, it’s time to talk Babes in Arms. For a long time the 1939 musical was remembered mostly because of the pairing of Rooney and real life BFF Judy Garland, but the conversation has shifted to a necessary bumpier road, since the movie is just one of many examples of that era to feature performances in blackface (including the two leads).

The film’s place in Mickey’s career is not to be diminished: he received an Oscar nom for Best Actor at the age of 19 (the second youngest ever nominated) . The year before he had been awarded a Juvenile Oscar (Judy won the same honor the following year, as she had this hit and that other 1939 film).

A vaudevillian kid just like his co-star, Rooney was already a veteran when Babes… came around, with his Andy Hardy journey already begun...

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It's Raining Timothée

Perhaps to capitalize on the excitement for the forthcoming Dune (2020) and maybe The French Dispatch (though it no longer has a release date), Timothée's previous leading role, A Rainy Day in New York, is finally getting a US release (October 9th) given the barren theatrical landscape. As you may recall Amazon dumped it in 2019 during their contract dispute with Woody Allen. 

We haven't seen A Rainy Day -- though the new trailer is the kind where it feels like you've just seen the whole movie -- so our subject is Timothée himself. If this had been anything like a normal year, he would have been everywhere. Think about it. He is coming off of three Oscar hits (Lady Bird, Little Women, Call Me By Your Name) and arriving in two buzzy projects from well loved auteurs The French Dispatch and Dune. What's more had Hollywood been operating at its normal speed, we'd have heard new casting news since he's in-demand. In short, he would have been in the media constantly. The Oscar nominated actor turns 25 in December. Male actors who break out in their early 20s don't always have the career one expects but sometimes they stay popular even when their actual competitors arrive (since most male stars don't truly break big until their late 20s or early 30s). What do you see in Timothée's future? If you were his management team where would you be steering his career next? 

Emmy Winners 2020: "Schitt's Creek" clean sweep and more...

by Nathaniel R

It was both a usual Emmy night (Regina King + HBO dominance) and a very unusual one. In fact, last night's Primetime Emmy Awards were historic in many more ways than just being held in a nearly empty building during a pandemic. Zendaya became the youngest winner ever for Best Drama Actress (she turned 24 three weeks ago). It was a clean sweep for Schitt's Creek with all seven Comedy awards which has literally never happened before. After the jump the full list of winners with more commentary...  

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NYFF: "Malmkrog"

by Jason Adams

The urge to wander off into our own personal worlds has become, presently, understandable. Many of us have been literally forced into it in 2020, covering our faces and taping up our windows, our only human interaction through Zoom. How many of us have watched pixelated people blow out their birthday candles from their corner of the Brady Bunch squares on our laptop screens? But I mean more than physical isolation here -- I mean it feels as if in some ways our imaginations are having a renaissance; in the absence of open spaces and fresh air at the least our brains have been given a moment to breathe.  It's in some ways terrifying and in others liberating, but there seem to be ways of embracing this shitty moment that aren't shit in themselves.

Reality dictates that Cristi Puiu's new film Malmkrog, named after the region in Romania where it is supposed to be set, must have been filmed before right now. But it feels of right now, right this minute, at least in the way of its isolated white-windowed impenetrability...

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