Almost There: Marilyn Monroe in "Some Like It Hot"

by Cláudio Alves

September started with the Venice Film Festival where Andrew Dominik's controversial Blonde premiered and closes with its arrival on Netflix. As a Marilyn Monroe fan who tried and failed to get through Joyce Carol Oates' doorstop of a novel, I had early apprehensions about this production and its fictionalized account of the star's troubled life. However, the combination of a gorgeous-looking trailer and moralistic backlash online led me to anticipate the movie with bullish optimism. Yet, having seen the thing, I'm afraid I can't sincerely take on a contrarian positive take nor defend most aspects of the misbegotten mess.

Worst of all, I'm stricken by the picture's puddle-deep purview of stardom, image-making, and Monroe herself as a person and phenomenon. Considerations of her as an actress are similarly shallow, verging on nonexistent. This is especially disheartening because, above all else, she was an amazing actress whose talent is often overlooked, either obfuscated by the glare of tragedy or dismissed by those who can't see beyond media objectification. So, to combat both narratives, let's remember Marilyn Monroe, the actress, in one of her best films – Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot…

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Best Actress Predictions and that Michelle Williams kerfuffle

by Nathaniel R

As you have undoubtedly heard by now, Michelle Williams has opted for a Lead Actress campaign for Steven Spielberg's memoir film The Fablemans. This shocked both the armchair and professional pundit community a good percentage of whom had already handed her the Best Supporting Actress statue a week ago. This despite it being a full six months until Oscar night (March 12th) with other movies yet to screen when everyone decided to call it.

Some people are angry because they feel the role is clearly supporting but most seem angry because they thought they had it all figured out already. But opinions vary (like they always do) about what constitutes a leading role versus a supporting one. Consider...

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TIFF: Austria’s Oscar entry ‘Corsage’ starring Vicky Krieps

By Abe Friedtanzer

Actress Vicky Krieps, who was introduced to American audiences in a big way in a performance that should have earned her an Oscar nomination for Phantom Thread, is getting a lot of work lately. She had a prominent role in M. Night Shyamalan’s Old and stars in Mathieu Amalric’s Hold Me Tight, which is now playing in theaters. Most notably, she tied for the best performance prize in the 'Un Certain Regard' section at Cannes this summer for Corsage. It's a movie she both conceived of and executive produced, and now it's become Austria’s official Oscar entry.

Krieps plays Elisabeth, the Empress of Austria in 1878. The popular royal figurehead is turning forty, and she’s also watching her life slip away as her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister), relegates her to uninteresting duties that don’t serve any true purpose...

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Almost There: Nancy Kwan in "The World of Suzie Wong"

by Cláudio Alves

Arthur Dong's documentary Hollywood Chinese, about the complicated history of Chinese and Chinese American lives on the big screen, serves as a starting point for one of the Criterion Channel's new collections. Spanning over a century of American filmmaking and 24 films, this curated program highlights issues of representation, racism, erasure, and more. At the same time, it serves as a chance to illuminate the cinematic contributions of marginalized artists who found unlikely success in Hollywood. They were people like the Chinese-American cinematographer James Wong Howe, Taiwanese director Ang Lee, and Hong Kong-born American actress and dancer Nancy Kwan.

In 1960, Kwan made her film debut in Richard Quine's The World of Suzie Wong, became an overnight star, and surely came closer to that elusive Best Actress Oscar nomination than most performers of Asian descent…

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Almost There: Myrna Loy in "The Thin Man"

by Cláudio Alves

A story of revisits and returns. The Criterion Channel's current Myrna Loy Collection provides us with an ideal opportunty to discuss the the Old Hollywood star. This marks her as the first performer to have three episodes in the Almost There series. So it's time to delve into two of my favorite subjects: The Thin Man franchise and the chaotic Best Actress category of 1934. For the latter, you can check out the analysis of Bette Davis' historical snub in Of Human Bondage. For the former, I once reviewed the first Thin Man movie, describing its star power and alluding to the sequels' decreasing merits, all eminently entertaining despite their drop in quality.

After reading those pieces for some added context, come back to explore the specificities of Myrna Loy's rightfully legendary turn as Nora Charles…

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