May Retrospective: “Mikey and Nicky” (1976)

by Cláudio Alves

All of Elaine May's films explore questions of masculinity, usually centering around toxic men whose perspectives may define the narrative but are also skewered by the canny mind in the director's chair. Brittle and pathetic, her broken men expose themselves and their venality through spectacles of emotional evisceration, often letting us see into the darker depths of their souls even when they act as if they're conquering heroes.

Consequently, there's often an aspect of cruelty to the humor of May's funny pictures, a comedy born out of disdain that's wielded like a scalpel by a master surgeon. Through our uncomfortable laughs, the director dissects her characters most mercilessly. Because of that, it seems obvious that Elaine May would have no trouble doing calcinating dramas with the same ease with which she did incise comedy. After all, in hercinematic universe, every comedy is also a tragedy.

Such is the case of her third feature, 1976's Mikey and Nicky…

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Japanese cinema and the Best Costume Design Oscar

by Cláudio Alves

The Academy has always had a certain difficulty in recognizing excellence from films made in any language other than English. When it comes to Asian cinema, that is especially true. Parasite's recent grand victory may be a sign that times are a-changing, but there are still branches of AMPAS that remain quite closed-off and insular.

Thankfully that hasn't been the case with thee design branches. For a long time they were the only place where you could hope to find any sort of honor given to the works of masters like Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi. Japanese cinema, in particular, has found success in the Costume Design category. Overall, five pictures from Japan have been nominated for the prize and two have won. Since all those films are currently available online, most of them streaming on the Criterion Channel, it's a good time to take a look at this peculiarity of Oscar history…

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"The Landlord" at 50

by Mark Brinkerhoff

50 years ago today the one and only Hal Ashby, then an Oscar-winning film editor (In the Heat of the Night, The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!) made his directorial debut with the release of The Landlord. Based on a 1966 novel and starring an almost inconceivably baby-faced Beau Bridges, its plot is fairly run-of-the-mill today but must’ve seemed quite daring for the time: A young man named Elgar (?!), who comes from wealth and lives with his parents at their Long Island estate, decides to buy a “rundown” tenement house in the dicey, gentrifying neighborhood of Park Slope. (Imagine!)

The tenants are black, he’s white, and his scheme is to evict them all so he can convert the property into something posh—a vanity project, if there ever was one. 

Things do not go according to (his) plan...

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Doc Corner: 'Asian Americans' and 'First Vote'

By Glenn Dunks

Some facts will be long remembered.

Others won't be much remembered.

And then will be forgotten.

These are words spoken at the end of Rithy Panh’s stark 2011 documentary Duch, Master of the Forges of Hell. Not a happy film by any stretch, but these words at least partially explain why we need documentaries about the traumas of the past and why we should watch them.

I thought of this quote when I sat down to write about the new five-part PBS documentary series Asian Americans. Every five-minute stretch of this remarkable series comes with a story or anecdote or remembrance that could be lost to the greater history. It all but stunned me. Every episode ought to be a veritable blueprint to smart Hollywood producers and entrepreneurial independent film financiers.

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May Retrospective: “The Heartbreak Kid” (1972)

by Cláudio Alves

After many years redefining the paradigms of American comedy along with Mike Nichols on the New York stage, Elaine May made the jump to the movie business when she appeared as an actress in some late 60s cinematic endeavors, including Mike Nichols' The Graduate. It wouldn't take long for her to branch out and, by 1971, she was writing, directing, and starring in A New Leaf.

In our last piece about this intrepid artist, we looked at that movie and how May's genius was able to transcend the interference of pushy producers and remain a near-masterpiece. This time, we'll be looking at the picture May directed after that flick, a production that suffered much less interference from panicky executives. It's also the only picture May directed she didn't also write and the single one of her movies to ever be nominated for the Academy Awards.

We're, of course, talking about the Neil Simon-penned The Heartbreak Kid…

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