Halfway Mark Links

A Must Read
• Tom & Lorenzo "One Iconic Costume" a fascinating funny and poignant piece on Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz

More Links
• Paper terrific piece on the new generation of queer comedy: Matt Rogers, Grace Kuhlenschmidt, Alex English, Cole Escola, and many more. 
• Cartoon Brew despite Academy efforts toward gender parity the animation and visual fx industries are still struggling with inclusion of women. (Only 1 in 8 people invited to join the visual effects Academy branch are women this year.)

More after the jump including Hamilton, Netflix hit 365 Days, best of the first haf of the year and more...

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Aussie Cinema Spotlight: 'Relic' and 'Babyteeth'

By Glenn Dunks

Did you see Letterboxd’s highest-rated film list for the first half of 2020? The film database site used by cinephile types to log and rate everything they see noted that this time last year the comparative 2019 list was topped by Avengers: End Game, none other than the highest-grossing movie of all time. This year’s top title on a newly lockdown affected list? Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles’ Bacurau! Quite a change of pace to intergalactic superheroes, you have to admit. And followed by titles like And Then We Danced, Corpus Christi, First Cow and Vitalina Varela? As the kids say, you love to see it.

As audiences cannot rely on a regular stream of American content to plug into their necessary expanded viewing schedules, it is encouraging to consider that some people’s eyes may have been newly opened. I thought of this when watching two new Australian releases: Natalie Erika James’ haunting generational horror Relic, and Shannon Murphy’s perversely entertaining cancer drama Babyteeth...

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Would you rather?

We haven't played our dumb instagram game in a while. So here are celeb pics we felt the need to share (*sharing is not endorsement). Would you rather...?

• barbecue with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II?
• take allergy teests with Mark Wahlberg?
• receive flowers with Nicole Kidman?
• have a comfort food moment with Pierre Png?
• play with Jai Courtney's puppy?
• spend hammock time (in the 50s) with Natalie Wood?
• find positive energy with Cynthia Erivo?
• cosplay woodland creatures with Amanda Seinfried
• make Alec Baldwin mow your lawn?
• snake charming with Elle Fanning?
• dance on a mini-tramp with Goldie Hawn?
• pretend you're at a private nightclub with Kate Beckinsale?

Pictures are after the jump to help you decide. 

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Bergman in '57

by Cláudio Alves

Ingmar Bergman is my favorite filmmaker of all-time. That being said, I'm aware of the difficult reputation his cinema has earned over the decades. As Nick Taylor wrote in his fabulous piece about Harriet Andersson, few directors have so masterfully captured the overwhelming pain of unhappiness as Ingmar Bergman did. In his films, God is either dead or a giant stony-faced spider, a monster intent on causing suffering to everyone, making for a cinematic cosmos where agony is the most universal experience of all. It's heavy stuff which justly earns the fame of depressing art, though I'd argue that there's more to Bergman's cinema than constant unbearable ache.

Just look at his 1957 masterpieces, The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries…

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FYC Outstanding Main Title Design

by Nathaniel R

Will Hollywood get nominated for its storytelling symbolic use of the iconic sign?

142 shows will be competing for the nominations in main title design. You know, those parts of a show that Netflix lets you ignore with the "Skip Intro" button. It is our humble opinion that the title design is part of the show and should never be skipped. It sets the mood like, say, and overture would for a musical. One of the reasons we like this Emmy category is that shows don't tend to stay eligible year after year after year. Generally it's only the first season though shows which significantly alter their opening imagery can compete again -- i was surprised to see Succession in the list again.

Which main title designs did you love this year? Here are 15 random intros from those 142 that could find their names called...

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