Cannes at Home: Day 7

by Cláudio Alves

Last year, while the Cannes Film Festival did not occur, the organizers revealed a list of titles selected. Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch was among them, and, unlike many other films slotted for the 2020 Croisette, it rescheduled all release plans so it could still premiere at the festival. After a one-year delay, it's finally upon us, and the reviews skew positive. Let's hope it's worth the wait. Another main competition title to take its bow today was Kirill Serebrennikov's Petrov's Flu. It's the Russian director's second film to compete for the Palme d'Or and his first release since a controversial conviction for embezzlement. Still banned from leaving Russia, he attended the festival by FaceTime. More on that later. For now, let's look back at these directors' previous successes – a bittersweet comedy on dysfunctional families and a galvanizing political allegory about modern Russia…

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Horror Actressing: Gwyneth Paltrow in "Se7en"

by Jason Adams

The glimmers of hope that shine through the dank squalor of David Fincher's serial-killer masterpiece Se7en, which is turning 25 today, are so few and far between that we find ourselves clinging to them like life-rafts bobbing down a turbulent sewage drain. One of the library's security guards says, "We got culture coming out of our ass," and then they do, as the gentle strings of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Air Suite No. 3 In D Major" fill the golden-hued dungeon where Detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) does his dark research. Similarly Brad Pitt's Detective Mills finds some peace at home playing with his beautiful lively puppies, all locked into a small room lined with newspapers where the dogs do their own important business. Happiness looks like it smells bad!

This nameless city is torrential rain and moldy wallpaper most of the time -- when it's not simply carved-up bodies rising to the surface -- and so Gwyneth Paltrow, ever-chic and resolutely blonde as sunshine, she stands out the first second we see her, coming as she does nuzzled up against Brad Pitt's wall of themselves golden abs. Now this, this right here...

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How Had I Never Seen..."Hard Eight"?

by Cláudio Alves

Paul Thomas Anderson turns 50 today, making this a good time to remember how his film career began. Weirdly enough, despite being a longtime fan of the director, I had never seen his first feature, a little indie by the name of Hard Eight, which hit Sundance and Cannes in 1996 but would only get a commercial release the next year. That made 1997 quite the occasion for Anderson. In February, he opened Hard Eight to good reviews and, in October, Boogie Nights made him one of the most critically acclaimed directors of the moment. The latter movie went on to conquer him his first Academy Award nomination, for Best Original Screenplay. What's fascinating and what most surprised me about the pair is how distinct they are, showing two very different sides of their director's craft…

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Podcast: Quarantined with "Emma" and "Cactus Flower"

with Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl

Everyone's a shut-in so we'll be watching the same movies at home.

Index (33 minutes)
00:01 Updates on health and the NYC self-quarantine 
04:20 Cactus Flower (1969) is a delight, though crazy sexist. We both fell hard for Ingrid Bergman and enjoyed Goldie Hawn's Oscar winning debut, too. It's streaming on Criterion Channel. We also talk briefly about our reader's choice series thus far and what's next.
17:38 The latest adaptation of Emma starring Anya Taylor-Joy. Murtada really loves Bill Nighy and Nathaniel loves the look but we both think it's not as strong as the 1996 Gwyneth Paltrow version. 
26:30 Bonus randomness - two perfect leading lady star vehicles: Rita Hayworth in Gilda and Cher in Moonstruck.
31:00 Wrap-up

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Cactus Flower, Emma, Quarantine

The Emmas of Yore: Miramax's "Emma"

by Cláudio Alves

Following the Jane Austen cinematic frenzy of 1995, the author was Hollywood's it-girl. At least, as far as classic writers were concerned. The following year nobody could get enough of Emma, with Clueless being adapted into a sitcom, and two other adaptations of the book being produced on both sides of the Atlantic. Today, we're here to talk about Miramax's lavish Emma starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeremy Northam, Toni Collette, and Ewan McGregor, among many other wonderful thespians. It's one hell of a cast.

Still, despite its enviable collection of actors, this isn't the best screen version of Emma. For one, the project could have used a bit less fidelity to the source material and a lot more narrative ingenuity…

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