Review: Military Wives

by Chris Feil

Much of the newest film from The Full Monty director Peter Cattaneo, Military Wives, follows the mold of that effort that made him an Oscar nominee. It’s an emotionally effective ensemble portrait of blue collar Britain, with unseasoned performers finding a renewed sense of community through performance. Good times, neatly plotted setbacks, and reconciliation within family units are had by all. It even ends on an iconic disco track, but this time with even more charmingly awkward dancing.

However, Military Wives is more defined by its modesty than its showmanship, lovely and satisfying but without much in the way of complication or embellishment. Even as it follows the formula, it downplays much of its musicality and emotional grace notes when you expect it to soar. Comfort classic status is sadly averted due to its lower register, and yet it still fulfills most of what you crave in a film such as this.

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1947: Agnes Moorehead in "Dark Passage" and "The Lost Moment"

by Nick Taylor

One way to search for great performances outside of Oscar's history books is merely to check in on what the great character actresses of their day were busy doing besides not getting their due. In 1947 just to cite a few examples, You couldn’t go wrong with Mary Astor, warm and sympathetic as the mother of sickly Liz Taylor in Cynthia, and even better at nimbly flipping through the morally compromised history of a saloon-owner afraid her daughter will run away with a dangerous man in Desert Fury. There’s also Elsa Lanchester as the housemaid in The Bishop’s Wife, so piquantly observant in a role that often invites stooging. But if we’re talking supporting actresses, surely the first stop for anyone seeking out the heavies of Classic Hollywood is Agnes Moorehead. Moorehead’s performances n Dark Passage and The Lost Moment were my first stops after completing Oscar’s lineup in preparation for the Smackdown. 

The more famous of Moorehead’s two films in 1947 was Dark Passage, best known as the third of four films Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made together...

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Emmy Watch: Supporting Actor in a Movie or Mini-Series

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

Tim Blake Nelson is surely a shoo-in for Watchmen

This category is arguably the weakest of the acting races in the limited series or TV movie fields this Emmy season, but that’s only because this TV season was filled with so many fantastic female characters. That’s a reason to celebrate, surely, but it does means that this particular category is wide open. Still, it's a good bet, in the absence of a strong field of performances, that multiple nominees will come from the most widely watched or admired shows. You'd have to go back to 2012 to find a lineup that didn’t feature at least one series or TV movie with multiple nominees in this particular category....

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Vintage '47: What was going on in showbiz that year?

by Nathaniel R

Let's look at some cultural background on the year 1947 before we reach the new Smackdown event in exactly one week (have you voted yet?). Light entertainments were very popular but Post-War America and by extension Hollywood was feeling a dark undertow and anxiety. Cinema went deep into noir territory (men really didn't know who to trust or what to make of women after they'd becoming working girls during the War and the anxiety definitely showed onscreen) and offscreen things were treacherous. The infamous witchhunt for Communists began in Hollywood, cutting off the careers of many talented actors and filmmakers who wouldn't 'name names', beginning with "The Hollywood Ten". 

Great Big Box Office Hits:
A now long-forgotten picture, Welcome Stranger (reteaming the Oscar-winning stars of Going My Way) was one of the year's very biggest attractions. The best-seller turned rom-com The Egg and I was also a huge success. Other light entertainments that were audience favourites included all star comedies like Life with Father (currently streaming!) and The Bachelor and Bobby Soxer, and the Betty Grable musical Mother Wore Tights. But Oscar drifted towards more serious fare... 

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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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