April Showers: Blue Jasmine

A final April Showers for the month. Here's Ilich on Blue Jasmine (2013).

Blue Jasmine takes on the narrative of Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire and removes it from its intended New Orleans setting to soak it in the San Francisco coastline. It's there that Jasmine (formerly Jeanette, always Cate Blanchett) reluctantly calls her sister's place home after her socialite life in New York City less than gently escorts her out. Water and cleansing are only a couple of the elements used to contrast her former, generously sponsored life in the city—shown in abrupt flashbacks throughout—against her less sophisticated past and current unraveling.

It's a paralyzing shower that sets Blanchett's Jasmine up for her last scene, but both mean little without the context provided before that give us an insight into Jasmine's aspirations and self-destructive habits. The film is as fascinated with its lead's denial as we are with Blanchett's performance...

Click to read more ...

Beauty Break: Cannes 2018 Jury

by Nathaniel R

"Avengers Cannes Jury Assemble!" Australia's champion actress Cate Blanchett, as you know, is presiding (and only the 9th actress to have the honor) but who will be joining her on the Croisette? The beautiful people are after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Cate Blanchett only the 9th Actress to Preside over Cannes!

by Nathaniel R

Pedro Almodóvar was always going to be a tough act to follow. So surprise, Cannes went with an actress instead of a director to head its 71st annual event (May 8th through 19th, 2018). We're sure Pedro would approve, being the big Actressexual that he is. Actresses are more common than actors for this honor but the bulk of the Main Competition jury presidents are famous auteurs. Cate the Great will only be the 9th actress to preside (for the tenth such occurence). She's also only the second Australian after director George Miller reigned in 2016.

The only actresses to have previously presided over the main Cannes jury

• Olivia de Havilland (UK) in 1965
• Sophia Loren (Italy) in 1966
• Michele Morgan (France) in 1971
• Ingrid Bergman (Sweden) in 1973
• Jeanne Moreau (France) in 1975 and 1995
• Isabelle Adjani (France) in 1997
• Liv Ullman (Norway) in 2001
• Isabelle Huppert (France) in 2009

This is a smart move on Cannes part given the criticism they often receive about their exclusionary nature. Now if they could only address that problem within their actual lineup. Other A list festivals have definitely made greater strides about including female directors in their competitive lineups. At Cannes they're still often relegated to "Un Certain Regard" or whatnot.

Year in Review: 17 Wigs From 2017

Each day a new "year in review" angle. Here's Chris Feil...

Perhaps it's the return of RuPaul's Drag Race next month or the fact that we finally have Greta Gerwig in the Oscar race, but we've got wigs on the brain. While Oscar has nailed down the potentially nominated wiggery for the Makeup and Hairstyling category, it's worth reflecting that this year gave us far more glorious wig moments than can be captured in a single Oscar category.

From Michelle Williams's subtle 70s waves in All the Money in the World, the white trash extravaganza of I, Tonya, to The Greatest Showman's candy confections, the movies had us shouting "WIG!" all year long.

Here are 17 memorable moments in wigs in 2017...

Click to read more ...

"Ocean's Eight" Awaits

Chris here. While the world is continually bad, one of our sustaining mantras has been the promise of female ensemble heisting with Ocean's 8. The main refrain of this meditation / mindfulness exercise is obviously its stars - say their names with me and feel renewed: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Sarah Paulson, Mindy Kaling, Rihanna, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, and Awkwafina.

Well done.

We've got a new poster and a photo of the assembled crew to distract ourselves, but even this is just a hint of the fun to come (you can expect a trailer to come very soon, impatient readers). Bullock will be playing Danny Ocean's equally conning sister Debbie, so the opportunity remains for some fun crossover with Steven Soderbergh's trilogy. The film's big heist will take place during the Met Gala and juicy cameos should be expected. Ocean's 12 already made a "Julia Roberts pretending to be Julia Roberts" gag, but it would be amusing to revamp the bit here. Rihanna is queen of the Met Gala, after all.

But our new looks are decidedly less fussy than that red carpet extravaganza, with the poster giving us coats and shades mystique and the image below has the team mid-planning. What is Debbie Ocean's octad looking at in their projector? The endless news cycle? Something from the screener pile? The trailer they're keeping from us? Hmmmm.