Links: Spike Lee, Denise Cronenberg, Amanda Seyfried, etc...

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The Guardian has a really fun Spike Lee interview in which he answers questions from famous actors and directors. Spike always brings joy and we couldn't be more pleased about the career resurgence. People, I personally saw Girl 6 and Bamboozled and Chi-Raq in movie theaters. They all flopped but my ticket $ was in there! So naturally it's been thrilling to watch this recent return to prominence / audience goodwill. Though I admit I was surprised when raves started pouring in for Da 5 Bloods since his last (and only other) war picture (Miracle at St Anna) did not go over well at all.

More links after the jump including a tragic Cronenberg loss, a Bollywood suicide, Dick Tracy budget overrages, Little Women in Japan, and more...

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How Had I Never Seen... "But I'm a Cheerleader"?

by Cláudio Alves

To celebrate Pride Month, the Criterion Channel has chosen to highlight several works of queer cinema as well as various films featuring LGBTQIA+ characters. The selection is varied, spanning from Ettore Scola's Oscar-nominated A Special Day to the avant-garde work of Chantal Akerman and Cheryl Dunne. It's not all high-brow artistry -- there's space for kitschy entertainment, too. Such is the case of 1999's But I'm a Cheerleader directed by Jamie Babbit, a cult classic looking at gay conversion therapy through the prism of outrageous farcical humor. It's a movie I had never watched before, making it a great subject for this particular series…

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Introducing the Smackdown Panelists for '02

Are you enjoying our super-sized Supporting Actress Smackdown season? We've already discussed 1947 and 1981. Because you were all clamoring for 2002 to be covered this season we're pulling out the razzle dazzle with a panel as merry as those murderesses of Chicago. Yes, in the upcoming Smackdown we'll be talking about that musical as well as Kathy Bates in the hot tub in About Schmidt , Meryl Streep stoned in Adaptation, and the saphhic literary-triptych The Hours. So start rewatching those flicks. Now, let's meet the panel.

PLEASE WELCOME IN ALPHA ORDER ... 

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Review: "The Great" on Hulu

by Cláudio Alves

Most dramatizations of history have a difficult, often unbalanced, relationship with facts. Reality is notoriously devoid of narrative structure, which makes taking departures and creative license into an essential crime. The troubles arise when the parameters of adaptation aren't clear, when fiction dresses itself as truth, and confusion blooms from pretension. Hulu's biographical series about the early years of Catherine the Great in Russia is unencumbered by such issues, sidestepping them with irreverence. At the start of each episode, a title card points out that this miniseries is only occasionally based on things that really happened.

The rest of it is hilarious fantasy, a play on history that turns the rise of Russia's empress and reformer into the stuff of romantic comedy. It's a black-hearted farce that's unafraid and unashamed of being silly…

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May Retrospective: "A New Leaf" (1971)

by Cláudio Alves

A master comedian of immense historical importance, a Tony Award-winning stage actress, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, and one of the greatest American directors of the 1970s. Those are portentous descriptors, each of them difficult to earn individually during a lifetime. For someone to deserve them all is astounding, but astounding is an ever-appropriate word to categorize Elaine May.

She remains a genius through-and-through and, despite her career as a movie director having been abruptly halted in the late 80s, many are devoted to the celebration of her directorial legacy to this day. If you need any proof that Hollywood has little respect for the talent of female directors, look no further than the example of Elaine May whose filmography we are here honoring. After all, what better time to sing the praises of May than during the merry month of May?

First up, we have 1971's A New Leaf…

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