1991: Judy Davis in "Barton Fink" and "Naked Lunch"

Before each Smackdown, Nick Taylor looks at possibilities for an alternate ballot...

Barton Fink and Naked Lunch are two 1991 films with more in common than you'd expect. Both follow writers - one a lifelong devotee of the trade, one quite new to it - who are suddenly plucked from their old lives and dropped into entirely alien worlds, with few reliable sources to guide them. Both tackle the incredibly mundane ache of loneliness and toil of their work, albeit against obstacles like axe murderers and global drug conspiracies. Both are directed by major auteurs and styled to the fucking nines, making their settings as accessible as they need to be while fulfilling some impenetrably strange narrative conceits. And both serve as vivid showcases for the talents of Judy Davis, 1991’s NYFCC winner for Best Supporting Actress, who unfussily acquits herself to two very different, aesthetically demanding milieus. Her brainy, abrasive persona and preternatural expressiveness are cannily utilized in both films, and Davis emerges as an essential element of their respective successes despite her minimal screen time...

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Doc(?) Corner: The boozy brilliance of 'Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets'

By Glenn Dunks

Sometimes you just know. You can just feel it. You know? When a film isn’t just good, or even great, but one that will percolate in your mind for ages. When it offers that true gut feeling you get when watching something that just sings to every part of you. And so it is with the docu-fiction curio whatsit Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets from directing brothers Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross which is set in a Vegas dive bar —bear with me, I think this is accurate—that is actually a stand-in for a New Orleans dive bar of the same name populated with real life people, some of whom have acted although none of whom would call themselves actors (maybe), They represent real life personalities who have come together to mourn the triumph of capitalism that isn’t really happening.

I know, I know, I’m lost too, but what a way to get lost! It’s like Robert Altman making an episode of Cheers if he gave his cast an open bar and its theme song was Sophie B. Hawkins’ “Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover”...

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Born in '91 Fun. Who will get an Oscar nomination first?

by Nathaniel R

It occurred to us this morning, since we're celebrating 1991 this month, that no one born in 1991 has yet been nominated for an acting Oscar! Which begs the question: who will be first among them? The following actors are all turning 30 next year and the early 30s is a GREAT time for movie star ascendancy if you have the skill and magnetism and also happen to get the opportunities and have some good luck (three of the four are required!). We narrowed it down to a dozen options for you (in random order) though of course the first to get there could be someone we haven't even heard of yet getting a late start. Make your case for which of these actors it'll be in the comments...

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The Furniture: First Cow and the Architecture of Settlement

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

First Cow is a mossy and melancholy tragedy. Kelly Reichardt makes the failure of her protagonists clear from the start, showing us their skeletons before introducing them in the flesh. There’s a morbid air to everything that follows, though it’s softened by an atmosphere of tremendous beauty. It’s the best ASMR video of the year.

Cookie Figowitz (John Magaro) and King-Lu (Orion Lee) clearly think that they are in a land of endless possibility: Oregon Country in the 1820s. Decades before a settled border, the USA and the British Empire “jointly occupied” the Pacific Northwest, in accord with an 1818 treaty agreement that did not even acknowledge the presence of indigenous people.

This is the context for King-Lu’s utterly false observation:

This is still new - more nameless things around here than you could shake an eel at… History isn’t here yet.”

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Tweetweek

The aliens in Arrival when they found out the Oscars snubbed Amy Adams. https://t.co/RQHpOd775g

— Catt (@ChicCattLady2) July 7, 2020

More after the jump including Mad Men memories, West Side Story reduced, cancel culture, and other observations and silly bits that amused us including some responses to that "cake" meme.

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