A Marilyn Monroe Top Ten

by Cláudio Alves

In June, we don't just celebrate Pride. For those in the know, it's also the time to honor the immortal memory of Marilyn Monroe, born in the dying breaths of spring, June 1926. As a birthday present to her fans, the Criterion Channel organized a sampling of the actress' best films, making a delicious collection everyone should check out. Inspired by that list, here's my own selection of Marilyn's peak, her ten most excellent performances in a career, a life, cut tragically short. After all, one mustn't confuse the iconographic impact with a lack of substance beyond the surface. Too many have done that already. 

Marilyn Monroe was a tremendous thespian, so seamless that people, in her time and our own, still assume character and interpreter were one and the same. In any case, let's forego defensiveness for joyful exultation. Without further ado, here's the Marilyn Monroe top ten, in chronological order, unranked…

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Oscar Trivia: Three Nominated Actresses

By Ben Miller

I'm sure you've already read Nathaniel's awesome breakdown of the films with double acting nominations.  I love that specific type of Oscar trivia.  Along those same lines, what if all three West Side Story's actresses all end up nominated?  How many times has a film nominated three actresses from the same film?  Not very often.  But that wasn't always the case.

The Supporting categories were added in 1936 and it only took three years for the first three-actress set of nominees.  Both Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel won Oscars, while Olivia de Havilland earned a nomination for Gone with the Wind. That 1939 triple set off a trend...

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Gay Best Friend: Addison DeWitt (George Sanders) in "All About Eve" (1950)

A series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope
SERIES FINALE (for now)

She's the bitch who always has the tea... Addison DeWitt.All good things must come to an end (or extended hiatus). Over the past year, we’ve covered 42 examples of the gay best friend spanning from 1955 to 2021. Don’t worry, I’ll be starting a new column very shortly, so you haven’t seen the last of me. However, we are going out in fabulously bitchy style with our final entry. Not only is this our oldest entry, but it’s also the only Gay Best Friend that earned the actor in question an Oscar statue. Needless to say, George Sanders’ Best Supporting Actor win for the gossip columnist Addison DeWitt in All About Eve is one of the best wins in the category.

The central premise of All About Eve is a tale as old as time. Aging Broadway star Margot Channing (Bette Davis) meets an adoring fan one night named Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter). Margot bonds with Eve over her favorite topic… herself. She eventually giving her employment in the theater. Soon, the much younger Eve starts to get greedy, taking some of Margot’s spotlight as the new, younger face of the theater...

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All About Link

My New Plaid Pants Jake Gyllenhaal accepts Tom Holland's challenge to put on a shirt while doing a handstand (everyone is bored these days!)
IndieWire Pedro Almodóvar and Spike Lee will both curate exhibits for the new Academy Museum. Great choices, right? 
Film School Rejects a psa "what's on Quibi and what can I watch on it" good question!

Artemis Fowl, ever-shifting release dates from Marvel and otherwise, The Prince of Egypt, Ryan Murphy's Hollywood, All About Eve and more after the jump...

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Pedro Party: All About My Mother

It's a Pedro Party all week. Here's Lynn Lee on her introduction to Almodóvar...

To all actresses who have played actresses.  To all women who act.  To men who act and become women.  To all the people who want to be mothers.  To my mother.”

All About My Mother was the first Almodovar film I ever saw, and as it happens, I saw it with my own mother.  I don’t remember why I picked it for us to see together.  It certainly wasn’t because of the title or because I thought it would be something she’d particularly like.  In fact, if I’d thought about it more, I might have been anxious that she would find it too outré.  Or for that matter, that I would; as both a movie lover and a young adult, I was just beginning to learn what was out there and how far it stretched beyond my own personal experience.

To our credit, or rather to Almodovar’s, there was no reason for such trepidation...

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