Horror Actressing: Sadie Frost in "Bram Stoker's Dracula"

by Jason Adams

Are you wearing the dress or is the dress wearing you? That is the question, the one every fashionista asks -- it's not just comfort but confidence; the former might assist with the latter but if you've got enough of the latter you can overcome any obstacle, good taste be damned. Like how exactly does one give a performance for the ages encased inside a neck ruffle that could be captured on the cameras of satellites orbiting the Earth? Don't ask me, ask Sadie Frost, who yanked those satellites out of the skies and stared 'em down into submission with her take on the character of "Lucy" in Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 re-imagining of the classic vampire tale.

Nobody save Gary Oldman with his prosthetics parade was asked to do more inside of Eiko Ishioka's Oscar-winning kabuki-inspired outfits than Frost was...

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Almost There: Madeline Kahn in "What's Up, Doc?"

by Cláudio Alves

There's a generalized belief that the Oscars are allergic to comedy. While that's not completely accurate, there's a kernel of truth in the statement. The Academy tends to prefer weighty dramas that signal their importance instead of light comedy. Considering the inherent subjectivity of humor and the way people tend to rile against any comedic Oscar champion (Birdman, The Artist, Shakespeare in Love, etc.), it's easy to understand why so few funny pictures get the most desired golden statuettes in Hollywood. Even this very series has been guilty of overlooking great comedic performances and focusing mostly on heavyweight drama, preferring tears to guffaws.

Well, it's time to change that and there's no better way to do it than by examining the hilarity of one of cinema's funniest women in one of New Hollywood's greatest farces. We're talking about the inimitable Madeline Kahn in What's Up, Doc?…

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West Side Story... is forever.

by Nathaniel R

Rita Moreno, still sensational at 88 years young.It occurred to us last week while looking at photos from Steven Spielberg's 2020 remake of West Side Story that a huge swath of the original cast members from the 1961 Best Picture winner are still with us today. It's not just the legendary trailblazer Rita Moreno though she's the liveliest of the bunch despite being the oldest at a spritely 88. 

So after the jump all the surviving cast members!

We honor their contributions to an indelible piece of film history even though there are a great many of them that didn't say in movies thereafter. Anyway, thiis is us doing our small part to suggest and hope that they get a bit of attention when the new iteration of the greatest musical ever written arrives. Invite them to the December premiere at least, Spielberg, won'tcha?

Here they are...

Character names in white = the actor is still with us today

THE JETS

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Beauty Break: The Celebrity Portraits of Victor Skrebneski (1929-2020)

by Nathaniel R

One of the most celebrated fashion and celebrity photographers of the 1960s-1980s, Victor Skrebneski, has passed away at the age of 92.  Above you'll see a self portrait and next to it one of his most iconic images, Vanessa Redgrave shot in 1967.

Skrebneski's heyday was a smidgeon before our pop-cultural awareness dawned (we grew up during the heyday of celebrity photographers like Herb Ritts, David LaChapelle, and Annie Liebovitz), but we knew Skrebneski's images before we ever learned his name. He did amazing portraits of Bette Davis, Dolph Lundgren, David Bowie, Diana Ross, Kathleen Turner and more. His black and white work was often extremely sexy and there are a few NSFW images after the jump. He shot movie stars masterfully, you must agree...

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Stilted Humanity: Acting Lanthimos

by Cláudio Alves

Since his third feature opened at the 2009 Cannes Film festival, Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos has been something of an international sensation. Dogtooth, that masterpiece of perverted domesticity, even conquered a surprising Academy-Award nomination along with its sterling reviews. From relative obscurity, Lanthimos thus became a household name for cinephiles all over the world and his next projects were followed with breathless anticipation. The formalistic precision, violent nature of his scenarios and the unsettling horror of the stories enchanted many and disgusted even more.

All of these choices are transgressive as it's fitting of the cinema of the Greek Weird Wave. However, such elements aren't as uncommon as many suppose. If you look hard enough through the wilderness of festival offerings, it's easy to find many similar aesthetic and narrative propositions. Yorgos Lanthimos does them with rare perfection, but that doesn't mean they are radically rare. Much more off-beat and idiosyncratic is the way this provocative filmmaker works with actors…

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