The Furniture: Visual Rhyming in Babyteeth

Daniel Walber's series on Production Design. Click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

This week we’re keeping it brief. Is it because I’m tired? Is it because this year isn’t the best so far in terms of production design? Is it because Hurricane Isaias is really dampening the mood? Who can say?

It’s also because Babyteeth is a movie with admirable graphic simplicity. Director Shannon Murphy and her design team (Sherree Philips, Bil Goodes, Ishtar Cavagnino and costume designer Amelia Gebler) use a limited color palette to express their themes, a concise visual language built upon the clashing personalities of their characters. It speaks for itself.

The frequent textual incursions, for example, might become grating in another film. Here, they fit in among the other accents. This one rhymes with Anna’s (Essie Davis) dress, which then underlines the fact that she sticks out like a sore thumb against Henry’s (Ben Mendelsohn) dull office - and his dull clothes.

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Introducing the Smackdown Panelists for '05

The Supporting Actress Smackdown season is roaring along. Up next on August 20th, in two weeks time we'll talk 2005.  Let's meet the panelists!

PLEASE WELCOME (IN ALPHA ORDER)... 

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Mulan for $29.99

by Nathaniel R

The Mouse House is tired of waiting for movie theaters to open. They've announced that Mulan will be going direct to Disney+ for Labor Day Weekend. It will also be in movie theaters that weekend in some regions. The catch is that it won't be free on the streaming service that you already pay for. It will cost $29.99 to watch (for an undisclosed length of time). This is bad news for those of us who love to go to movies and watch epic things on big screens in dark cavernous rooms with strangers and hate the motion smoothing on modern televisions. It's good news for parents (at least at this shut-in moment in history) who would likely spend more than $30 to take their kids out to this movie in a normal year. 

Given that Mulan cost hundreds of millions to make and Disney's "event" movies normally make $1 billion plus at the theatrical box office globally they'll need a lot of $29.99 purchases to reach that number. What do you make of this news? End times (as some exhibitors think) or just a minor shifting of the sands?

Almost There: Reader’s Choice Edition

by Cláudio Alves

Over the past few months, in the Almost There series, we’ve explored many performances that were at the threshold of an Oscar nomination but, for one reason or another, ended up without that golden hosanna. The choice of subject for each episode has been up to me. In an attempt to avoid negativity, I always went with performances I greatly admire. Why not try a more reproachful assessment or, even more difficult, an ambivalent review? So, the next two performances to be dissected in the series won’t be chosen by me. That’s where you come in…

First up, a selection of performances, new to streaming, making for a timely lineup of potential study objects. Which one do you choose? 

bike trails

Secondly, we have another field of possibility, all from the year 2005, our theme this month as we approach another Smackdown. Which will it be?

surveys

You can vote on each poll once a day until Saturday, August 8^th. If you like this initiative, we might repeat it in the future. As always, your feedback is appreciated.

Horror Actressing: Greta Gerwig in "The House of the Devil"

by Jason Adams

When I wrote up last week's entry in our "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" series, about the latest greatest entry in what I dubbed the "Horror Movie Funny Friend Hall of Fame," I didn't intend to make a series-within-series out of it... even though I did name-check several other favorite performances that fit within this kind of role, up to and including today's entry. I didn't intend it but why fight it when today is the great Greta Gerwig's birthday, and her work in Ti West's 2009 low-key Satanic Panic shocker The House of the Devil is one of its finest examples...

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