How Emma Got Her Groove Back

by Jason Adams

Oh thank the heavens, a leading role for Emma Thompson! It's been too long since we've seen one of those (does Late Night count? I never saw Late Night) and this one sounds like a doozy -- Dame Emma will be starring in a comedy titled Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, which will have her playing a recent widow who decides to spice up her life with all the things she missed during her long marriage, chiefly among them some high quality sexual intercourse. So she finds herself a "sex therapist" in the form of a young man in "his early twenties for a night of bliss." These are Variety's words, not mine -- I would be much, much more vulgar.

As I have no doubt Dame Emma would and perhaps hopefully will be! Her boozy bawdy real-world presence, the one we get to see on red carpets and talk shows, doesn't get utilized nearly often enough on-screen, so the thought of her starring in a proper sex comedy sounds like, well, a, dare I say, "night of bliss." The film will be directed by Austrailian director Sophie Hyde, who made Animals with Holliday Grainger and Alia Shawkat last year -- no word on other casting yet, but of course our minds turn to the young actor playing the sex worker. Who'd you like to see play opposite this grand Dame?

1987: Veronica Cartwright in "The Witches of Eastwick"

Before each Smackdown, Nick Taylor looks at alternates to the Oscar ballot...

Happy Halloween!! God, I missed writing these pieces. And I’m so excited to finally discuss a horror film performance, even if The Witches of Eastwick isn’t anyone’s first example of "horror". Probably the purest element of horror in the film - and its best element period - is Veronica Cartwright’s unforgettable turn as the devout, unraveling selectwoman Felicia Alden. An actress possessessing an uncanny ability to give plausible, full-bodied expressions of terror to films as frightening and atmospherically rich as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Alien, her gifts are put to the test in an equally ambitious but more tonally inconsistent film. Felicia surely ranks among the most showcased roles she’s ever had, which is all the more exciting given how different she is from Lambert, though I can’t fathom why her career didn't explode with juicy offers thereafter. Regardless, what she accomplishes here might be the crown jewel of her vivid, horror-cult career...

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Doc Corner: S&M Lesbians, Oscar Winners and Queer Theater — classic restorations of 2020

By Glenn Dunks

We tend to focus on new release documentaries around here, covering the gamut of titles premiering in cinemas, on streaming and VOD, and occasionally—as you’ll see over the next few week—festivals. What I rarely have the pleasure of doing is review classic docs, which is probably rather silly since the boom in popularity for the form has meant distributors and exhibitors are getting more confident in not just re-releasing classics documentaries, but restoring them, too.

As I found when researching my top 100 docs of the decade list, even titles from as few as four or five years ago become increasingly hard to find. And if they never received a US release? Even harder. Hopefully that starts to change and all the more reason to celebrate when older works do appear. So, to celebrate the Film Society at Lincoln Centre’s season of films by gay icons Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (until November 5, so get on it!) I wanted to highlight some of the absolute rippers that have come along lately.

There’s everything from S&M lesbians, American cross-country road trips, nuclear bombs, and one Chantal Akerman masterpiece...

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Abe’s NewFest Wrap

By Abe Friedtanzer 

Saltanat Nauruz stars in "Welcome to the USA"

There are so many film festivals going on right now, and I’m very glad that I was able to screen so many selections from NewFest. I had the chance to watch fifteen films from the  32nd edition of the New York LGBTQ Film Festival, which took place online this year, representing more than a third of the feature slate. I had already seen Uncle Frank at Sundance, and I would definitely recommend that Alan Ball film, which comes to Amazon Prime on November 25th.

Here are NewFest’s jury prize winners for this year... 

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The Furniture: Finding the Fear in "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

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

Watching The Picture of Dorian Gray as a horror film in this, its 75th anniversary year, is a bit of a puzzle. It’s almost unrecognizable within the genre, though director Albert Lewin does treat the revelation of the deformed painting itself as something of a jump scare. But the overall vibe is more akin to a period drama or a film noir than anything we would consider spooky today.

That is, until you think about it a little more closely.

 The Picture of Dorian Gray is an atmospheric horror film about things that don’t necessarily scare us nearly as much anymore: arrogance, beauty and the simple fact of sexuality. In this way it does actually resemble the great horror films of its time, monster movies that make much out of giant laboratories and cavernous castles, unnerving the audience through the use of production design. Dorian Gray’s home is of a piece with Dracula’s castle and the Mummy’s tomb...

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