Q&A: Best 'Best Actress' Decade? Gay for Play as Actorly Rite of Passage?

Four more reader questions to kick off the weekend. Wheeee. As ever, I'd love to hear your answers to these questions thrown my way.

MATT ST CLAIR: Is there an unseen awards contender this year that you are hoping doesn't fail?

NATHANIEL: My "please let this be successful" hopes reside with Blade Runner 2049 (because the original's reputation being tarnished would be such a pity), The Greatest Showman (because musicals MUST continue to thrive) and Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (because it's infinitely annoying that Annette Bening doesn't have an Oscar yet and didn't even get nominated for such gorgeous work in 20th Century Women). While we're well- wishing please let Wonderstruck, How to Talk to Girls at Parties, and The Florida Project could be bigger hits than usual for Todd Haynes, John Cameron Mitchell, and Sean Baker, since they're three of our most distinctive American auteurs. I could go on but I'll stop as no genie grants unlimited wishes.

CATBASKETS: I've been thinking a lot about straight actors getting their starts or big breaks playing gay roles--Hugh Grant in Maurice, Guy Pierce in Priscilla, DDL in Beautiful Launderette, Charlie Hunnam in Queer as Folk, Eddie Redmayne in Savage Grace, etc. etc. Do you think this was/is a major rite of passage for actors? Do you think this will slow down now that there's more awareness/active demand for gay actors to play these roles?

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Revisiting "Crimes of the Heart"

In honor of Diane Keaton’s AFI Lifetime Achievement Award tomorrow, here’s Eric Blume with a look back at Crimes of the Heart (1986)

Beth Henley won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 for her play Crimes of the Heart, and five years later it was retooled by Henley herself in a film version directed by Bruce Beresford.  The film teamed three of the biggest actresses of the 80’s:  Diane Keaton as the oldest spinster sister Lenny, Jessica Lange as saucy middle child Meg, and Sissy Spacek as spacey youngest Babe.   

Keaton is forced to carry the film for the first ten minutes out of the gate, and she’s strapped with some clunky exposition.  She feels tentative, which is partly aligned with her character, but in a way where she feels not fully assured, like she’s finding her way into the role.  Her Southern accent doesn’t come easily to her, and it takes her a while to learn how to make the accent soar to funny dimensions. 

But then ten minutes in, she has her first scene with Lange, and the film starts to find its groove...

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Cannes: "You Were Never Really Here" and Palme d'Or Predictions

Previously: Day 1, Days 2-4, Days 5-6, Days 7-8, and Days 9-10
Fashion: French Divas & Kidmanifestations 1, 2, 3

Joaquin Phoenix, an antihero saving girls from sex slavery, in Lynne Ramsay's thriller "You Were Never Really Here"

Cannes wraps up Sunday with the closing ceremony which means the Palme d'Or! The last competition film to premiere (tomorrow officially is Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here  and as is sometimes the case in the more dramatic Cannes festivals, many critics are proclaiming that the festival saved the best for last. Variety's Guy Lodge loved it calling it a "a stunning return," The Guardian compares it to Taxi Driver in its "nightmarish psychological drama" 

Does that mean it will win the Palme d'Or or that Joaquin Phoenix has Best Actor wrapped up? Not really. It's foolish with Cannes to ever assume you know what will win but let's make some tentative predictions for fun after the jump shall we? 

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Thomas Vinterberg returns with "The Commune"

This review originally ran in September 2016 from the Toronto International Film Festival. With the film finally in theaters in select cities starting today (and available to rent on Amazon), we didn't want you to miss it...

Thomas Vinterberg first came to fame with the Dogme 95 masterpiece The Celebration (1998) which was an international success reaping Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for Foreign Film. Oscar famously snubbed it during their long stretch of controversial years in the 90s and 00s where they regularly ignored major critical darlings eventually prompting reforms to the selection process in the late Aughts. Vinterberg was eventually nominated with another international success The Hunt (2012) and after his English language sleeper success Far From the Madding Crowd (2015) it's safe to say he's on quite a roll currently. 

For years people had suggested to Vinterberg that he make a film about commune life since he had grown up in one as a child in the 70s...

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Stage Door: "Six Degrees of Separation" Revived

Stage Door bringing you intermittent theater reviews when we manage to get there. Here's Nathaniel R

It's so basic to binge plays during Tony season as opposed to a more sensible and committed once-a-month diet of live theater. Alas, just as the more familiar mainstream obsession of the Oscar circus encourages studios to backload their releases to the last quarter of the year, most of the "big" theater shows open as late as they can for Tony consideration. This makes April and May a madhouse of theater-going for those who care about such things. Because most of the musicals are too expensive, I've been catching up with the plays. We've already covered The Little Foxes (a must see) and the Pulitzer-winning economic tragedy Sweat. So let's talk Six Degrees of Separation nominated for 2 Tonys: Best Revival of a Play and Best Leading Actor (Corey Hawkins).

"Chaos, control. Chaos, control. You like, you like?"

That's Stockard Channing's most sweetly funny line reading (among thousands of exquisite ones) in the 1993 movie adaptation of this stage classic. That was also, roughly, my reaction to the Broadway revival with Allison Janney, John Benjamin Hickey, and Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton), taking over the roles Channing, Donald Sutherland, and Will Smith played onscreen...

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