Streaming Roulette, Sept: Whoever Slew Carey Mulligan's Oscar dreams?

If you're new to the site this is how we share new streaming offerings for the month. We select a handful or two of titles and just randomly hit a place on the scroll bar to see what the film looks like - no cheating.  Ready? Let's play...

I used to dress like this all the time when I was younger...

Wildlife (2018) on Netflix
We stand by our stanning of Carey Mulligan in this movie. She should'a been in 2018's Best Actress lineup. How many more great performances does she have to give before Oscar nom #2? 

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Almost There: Let's vote again!

by Cláudio Alves

Last month, we asked you to choose what performances should be analyzed in the Almost There series which concerns itself with acting achievements that came close to the Oscar but failed to secure the nomination. You came through with more than 800 votes on each of our polls and the feedback seemed quite positive. Your choices were the against-type star turn of Cameron Diaz in Being John Malkovich and Joan Allen's incandescent fury in 2005's The Upside of Anger. Not only that, but the runners-up of the new to streaming poll, Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler, were also written about.

Because of such good results, we're repeating that experiment. This time, we'll be focusing on movies that are newly available to stream in September as well as flicks from 1938, our sidebar theme thanks to the Supporting Actress Smackdown. 

First up, here are some possibilities from different streaming services:

survey tools

Secondly, here's a selection of 1938 performances. While it's difficult to discern who had awards buzz on those early Oscar races, we believe all of these folks were in the conversation: 

survey services

You can vote on each poll, once a day, until Saturday, September 5th. We can't wait to see who you choose!

Horror Actressing: Barbara Crampton in "Re-Animator"

by Jason Adams

Why's it so hard to put the work of H.P. Lovecraft on the screen? Over 80 years since the writer died it's real weird (an appropriate word in this context) to me that there's never been a truly grand-scale adaptation of his begging-for-just-that work, especially given how timely they do feel here in the 21st century as reality seems to morph into madness. Guillermo Del Toro notoriously tried for a decade to get At the Mountains of Madness off the ground to no avail, but that's the closest Hollywood has as yet come. Before theaters shut down in early 2020 we did get an unofficial HPL turn with Kristen Stewart in Underwater (which I truly dug) and we're now right this minute three episodes into the HBO series Lovecraft Country, which... well I'm waiting to see how that goes. Situating Lovecraft's profound racism against American race relations is hella smart, so I keep hope alive it will find its footing. (This latest episode felt like a tentacle squish in the right direction.)

In my talk there of notable Lovecraft adaptations I purposefully skipped over the hilariously disgusting 80s works of writer-director-madman Stuart Gordon though, in order to bring us to the subject of this week's edition of our "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" series, which is Scream Queen and Horror Icon Barbara Crampton's turn as the "bubble-headed co-ed" Megan in 1985's Re-Animator...

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The New Classics: Drive

By Michael Cusumano 

Scene: Elevator
When people talk about missing the communal experience of movie theaters, it’s moments like the elevator sequence in Drive, Nicolas Winding Refn’s neon-bathed synth-noir, that come to mind. I can vividly recall the total silence as time slowed down to let Ryan Gosling’s never-named Driver live in his stolen kiss with Carey Mulligan's Irene a few moments longer, just as I can recall the sound of the oxygen rapidly exiting the screening after the gut punch transition back into real time, when Driver dispatched his would be assassin and then just. kept. stomping...

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Showbiz History: Richard Farnsworth, The Women, Shirley Maclaine's daughter and more

8 random things that happened on this day in showbiz history...

1920 Richard Farnsworth, the very talented actor (Comes a Horseman, The Grey Fox), who started in film as a stuntman, was born on this day 100 years ago in Los Angeles. Happy Farnsworth Centennial.  Sadly he died 20 years ago, shortly after delivering his tremendously moving Oscar-nominated performancee in The Straight Story...

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