Familiar Faces: The P.T. Anderson Players

We're celebrating PTA this week for his 50th birthday!

by Nathaniel R

Famed auteur Paul Thomas Anderson is not, perhaps, the creature of habit we expected him to be after his first three films made him a legend-to-be and suggested a steady stable of actors shifting guises with each film like a Scorsese or an Altman or an Allen. Since that magnum ensemble opus Magnolia (1999) his films have shifted closer to the traditional one or two man focal point employed by most auteurs even as they've gotten more experimental in other ways. It's as if he was purposefully shaking off the Altman-progeny tag.

That's a wee bit disappointing since auteurs who are particularly genius at assembling a whole mess of actors and watching the idiosyncratic group dymanic spark are few and far between. With PTA's next project set to be a drama about a famous child actor in high school, it's unlikely we'll see many repeats from his troupe, though there's always a possibility one or two of them show up as a teacher or parent or co-star on set.  Let's look at the actors he's used the most in his filmography thus far...

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Interview: Joker's Costume Designer Mark Bridges

by Nathaniel R

Mark Bridges with Joker costumes

Mark Bridges film career began, as so many have, rather inauspicously. His debut was a now forgotten horror film called Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992) but there's no keeping talent like his down... though it never hurts to attach yourself straight away to a future god-level auteur like Paul Thomas Anderson. Bridges was on board for Anderson's feature debut Hard Eight (1996) and the celebrated auteur wisely never let go of him thereafter. Inbetween Anderson films (and on them in point of fact) Bridges established himself as a world class costume designer of tremendous versatility, with a gift for not just memorable clothing but character-building.

His latest film, Joker, became his most widely viewed work and then an Academy favourite. We had a chance to talk to the two-time Oscar winner (Phantom Thread, The Artist) this past week about his design process, his favourites from his own filmography, and why he loves his job so much...

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Happy 50th to Heather Graham

Happy half century to the one & only Rollergirl!

We were so obsessed with Boogie Nights when it came out that the characters were as real to us as the stars playing them. We haven't seen much of Graham lately -- she was sadly missing from the Twin Peaks reunion series despite her character (Annie Blackburn) still being officially alive and in a mysteriously non-aging catatonic state when last we heard news of her --  but she has three movies in post-production currently including the thriller Wander (2020) with Tommy Lee Jones and Aaron Eckhart. 

What's your favourite Graham role from the 90s... and were you a fan of Annie Blackburn on Twin Peaks? 

99¢: Boogie Nights, First Reformed, Heathers, A History of Violence

Heads up on these great deals for four truly awesome movies on iTunes. iTunes deals expire quickly so if you've always wanted to see or revisit any of these they're only 99¢ this week.

• First Reformed - The nomination leader at the Gotham Awards and we still think Ethan Hawke could nab a Best Actor Oscar nomination for it. 
• Boogie Nights - The film that made Paul Thomas Anderson famous, and delivered Julianne Moore 'the foxiest bitch in the whole world' her first Oscar nomination (which she should've won). 
• A History of Violence - David Cronenberg's masterful adaptation of a graphic novel nabbed two Oscar nominations for its screenplay and for William Hurt's late film curtain chewing but it started the season with lots more Oscar buzz. It should have been up for everything, especially the big four: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress. It did really well at our own Film Bitch Awards that year winning several medals including the gold for the frankly scorching sex scene between Viggo and Maria Bello in her all time best screen performance. 
• Heathers - 'Fuck me gently with a chainsaw...' it's the high school black comedy wherein Winona Ryder's  'teen-angst bullshit has a body count'.

Burt Reynolds (1936-2018)

by Nathaniel R

Burt Reynolds in his iconic breakout role in "Deliverance"Burt Reynolds passed away today of a heart attack. He was 82 years old. Though he lived a long blessed life, it's always a bummer to lose a bonafide movie star. It was particularly exciting recently to learn he'd been cast in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) since Quentin Tarantino has proven so skilled in the past at reviving talent whose heyday had passed and making us think about them differently or just think about them a lot again. Sadly, from our understanding he hadn't yet begun work so though the picture is currently filming they'll have to recast his supporting role. in the picture so it will need to be recast. 

Did you have any feelings about him?

I personally had to grow into Burt Reynolds. When you're a little kid you accept that whoever is a star is a massive star,  even if you don't know why, their origin story being firmly in the past.  When I became interested in movies (the mid 80s) he was already "over" and then when I did start seeing him I didn't get it at all, at least not at first...

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