"French Exit" News and Enthusiasm

by Nathaniel R

In case you haven't yet heard the New York Film Festival has selected French Exit, starring Michelle Pfeiffer, as its closing night film this October. Key positioning at film festivals is generally a sign of confidence by movie studios though it naturally doesn't always mean anything. But we're very excited nonetheless.

Since four and half months of quarantine or social distancing has us exhausted of streaming movies and television we've thankfully branched out for entertainment. We've read a few books during this COVID summer, too. One was French Exit which we read in anticipation of the film.

La Pfeiffer has appeared in a number of adaptations but only two novels before French Exit had us screaming 'MICHELLE PFEIFFER WAS BORN TO PLAY THIS ROLE. MICHELLE PFEIFFER WILL SLAY THIS!'...

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Horror Actressing: Anna Massey in "Peeping Tom" (1960)

by Jason Adams

The adage goes that curiosity kills the cat, but in Michael Powell's 1960 shocker Peeping Tom it's only half true -- curiosity kills one while saving the other. Mark, the deranged killer camera-man at the film's heart (played with shy finesse by Karlheinz Böhm), finds Helen (Anna Massey) by perching on her windowsill and peering in at her birthday party -- she's his downstairs neighbor and full of life as irrepressible as her vast array of bright monochromatic dresses. They seem an odd match from the start but Helen can't seem to get Mark off her mind -- there's something curious about that upstairs man, and she's going to find out if it... well you know.

Is Helen film's very first Final Girl? 

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Almost There: Cameron Diaz in "Being John Malkovich"

by Cláudio Alves

We asked you to choose the next two subjects of the Almost There series, and you came through. After more than 800 votes overall, Cameron Diaz won out from the new-to-streaming batch. Her against-type supporting turn in Spike Jonze's 1999 Being John Malkovich conquered around 24% of your votes, with Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind coming in as a close second. So, for now, let's focus on Diaz and her frizzy-haired Lotte…

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Review: An American Pickle

by Juan Carlos Ojano

Seth Rogen has built a career mostly composed of comedies of all kinds, from stoner films to dysfunctional family dramedies. In his past decade of work only Take This Waltz and Steve Jobs  can be considered dramatic. In An American Pickle, directed by Brandon Trost and written by Simon Rich, Rogen does not leave his comedy roots but instead, digs deeper with the humor and comic storytelling.

An American Pickle is about Herschel Greenbaum (Rogen), a Jewish man from 1919 Russia  who moves to New York with his wife Sarah (Succession’s Sarah Snook) in search of a better life after an anti-Semitic attack on their hometown. However, an accident in a pickle factory causes him to be brined for 100 years. After waking up in 2019, he connects with his only living relative Ben (also Rogen)...

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Review: The Tax Collector

by Tony Ruggio

I’m not certain I’ve ever seen a movie fall apart so much, so quickly, and so late as The Tax Collector. What begins as an intense, well-crafted, gangster picture -- almost a twisted buddy movie really -- eventually devolves into a poorly constructed revenge film.

The first half, at least, is chock-full of intriguing little details, and workday nuances that could’ve only been culled from real-life experience on the mean streets of East Los Angeles. David (Bobby Soto) is a mid-level collector for his imprisoned ringleader father (Jimmy Smits) and connected uncle (George Lopez). He’s a monied, family man in a wealthy enclave, running the day-to-day errands for their neck of the woods, which mostly involve collecting gang taxes from the neighborhood shops and shopkeepers. His enforcer Creeper, a well-dressed white man and friend he clearly grew up with, is played by a riveting Shia Labeouf...

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