Deneuve on Criterion

by Cláudio Alves

Catherine Deneuve is one of the most beautiful people to ever step in front of a camera. Since the 60s, she has dazzled moviegoers in projects that span from conventional fare to the craziest experiments. While it's true she may not be a performer of astounding tonal flexibility or chameleonic aptitude, many directors have known how to utilize Deneuve's ice queen persona to great effect. Demy made her into a paragon of youthful romance, Buñuel captured a dangerous masochism in her eye, Polanski made her sing rhapsodies of madness while Téchiné gave Deneuve opportunity to modulate her expression into painful naturalism. She is a muse to many an auteur and it's easy to see why – her face must have been made for the big screen by the cinema gods.

If you want to peruse her cinematic glories, The Criterion Channel is currently streaming a marvelous collection of 16 Deneuve films. Here are five highlights from the collection…

Click to read more ...

How Had I Never Seen... "Splash"

by Cláudio Alves 

From time to time, there's talk of creating new Oscar categories. Just this year, Brad Pitt spoke about the need to give stunt coordinators some love and appreciation during his acceptance speech. Maybe he's right, maybe there should be a stunts category. Another arguably necessary addition is a casting award that reflects that job's importance in creating the movies we love – it's much more crucial than original songs, for instance. Casting is not just a matter of hiring good actors, but the challenge of getting the right people for the right roles. It's knowing how to capitalize on a star's persona and energy, the performer's fame, the tonal register they bring and the audience's perception of them. In the right circumstances, a limited actor can be a better choice than a consummate thespian with a greater range.

Ron Howard's delightful Splash (available on Disney+) is a pertinent example of the importance of good casting for a movie's success, humor, and dramatic functionality. With different performers, it probably wouldn't work half as well as it does…

Click to read more ...

Toshiro Mifune @ 100: Stray Dog

Team Experience will be celebrating the Centennial of Japan's great movie star Toshiro Mifune for the next five nights. Here's Lynn Lee...

It’s impossible to think of Toshiro Mifune without thinking of Akira Kurosawa—and vice versa.  Their partnership was unparalleled in its cinematic impact, spanning 16 films between 1948 and 1965 that included stone-cold classics like Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, and Yojimbo.  While Mifune and Kurosawa did significant work independent of each other, it’s not exaggerating to say they made each other; both men would acknowledge as much even after their falling out.  In Mifune, Kurosawa found the perfect player to convey the outsize emotions and imposing physical presence of his most memorable protagonists—typically men of strong passions and even stronger will, whether turned to honorable or horrible ends...

Click to read more ...

Review: The Hunt (2020)

by Tony Ruggio

Blumhouse’s much-ballyhooed American political satire has finally seen the light of day after postponement due to a mass shooting last August, only to meet an unprecedented global pandemic this spring. With multiplexes closed nationwide, it’s one of a few major motion pictures to release early on VOD. Eschewing anything resembling subtlety or a desire to make a cogent point, The Hunt is a glib quasi-horror romp designed to prod and provoke, but dips into irrelevance by trying too hard for that sweet spot of zeitgeist...

Click to read more ...

Desperately Seeking Link

THR Insightful piece about experimentation of studios and Hollywood's post-coronavirus future
Vulture "are the celebrities okay?" a funny piece about the bizarre social media of stars during quarantine
Awards Daily Contagion (2011) reframed
Boy Culture a huge celebration of Madonna's "Vogue" as it turns 30

More after the jump including showbiz obituaries, Marvel's What If?, and the cinema of 1962...

Click to read more ...