I'll Link to That

TODAY'S MUST READ Self-Styled Siren debunks myths surrounding John Wayne and Sacheen Littlefeather at the Oscars in March '73. Really interesting piece as it shows you how press and stars speak about charged incidents, how incredible stories get started, how they change over time, and how often they're accepted as gospel once enough time has gone by. (P.S. Personally speaking I have always disliked John Wayne but even so, I have had trouble believing this story)

More after the jump including a biography of an Almodóvar regular, funeral screenings for Batgirl, the cult of A24, Black Panther toys, and a couple of remakes. Question: why does the entire internet call all remakes (and even some sequels) reboots now? The three separate words actually do mean three separate things... 

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Monty @ 100: Instant Stardom & Queer Masculinity in "Red River"

by Nathaniel R

I watched myself in Red River and I knew I was going to be famous, so I decided I would get drunk anonymously one last time."
- Montgomery Clift to the novelist James Jones (From Here to Eternity)

Cliff is an arrogant little bastard."
- John Wayne to a Life Magazine reporter.

While The Search (1948) was the first chance for moviegoers to see the rising actor Montgomery Clift on the screen, it was actually the second movie the young actor shot. His trial run in Hollywood came shortly before his 26th birthday, as he ditched Broadway to head to the Arizona desert for a John Wayne western. The film was Howard Hawks' Red River. It's possible that Hollywood didn't know that the film would prove to be a sensation with audiences, but word quickly spread that Wayne's debut co-star would.

By most accounts John Wayne and Montgomery Clift didn't get along but sometimes that works for a picture rather than against it...

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What's streaming from 1947?

We're having a 1947 sidebar party for the next two weeks as we build towards the Smackdown.

One of the great f***over moments in our world of sophisticated search technology is the lack of interest in content providers giving us extensive search options. Over the years we've watched the capacity to search by film year dwindle until its practically non-existent across the web. Netflix used to have it (many years ago) when they were a DVD company. Hulu has never cared about such things. Amazon Prime still sorta has time-interest searches but makes them very difficult to find and has altered their once somewhat easy "by decade" search into a clunkier system; they now only allow you to differentiate decades once you've hit 1960. This makes self-curated spontaneous movie-watches difficult if, say, you'd like to investigate a particular film year. And, you guessed it, that's something we here at TFE like to do. Criterion Channel, at least and bless them, has a way to search by exact year.

But, as ever, we're here to help. If you'd like to indulge in the 1947 film year before we reach the next Supporting Actress Smackdown here are a dozen noteworthy movies that are currently available to stream for free...

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50th Anniversary: The 42nd Academy Awards

by Cláudio Alves

Here we are again. After revisiting the Oscars of 1994 for their 25th anniversary, it's time to go further back to the 1969 Oscars, whose ceremony was celebrated 50 years ago today. Unlike the Forrest Gump year, when the Academy Awards were pretty much business as usual, the 1969/70 awards season was part of a transitional period. The tension between the decomposing corpse of the studio system and the brats of New Hollywood was on full show for these Academy Awards. Each victory represents a prickly negotiation between the new and old guards. On one hand, we have the only X-rated movie to ever win Best Picture. On the other, John Wayne is our Best Actor for True Grit.

Speaking of the Duke, there's no better way to understand the singular contradictions of these Oscars than to look at the cowboys of 1969…

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Podcast: Cannes + Oscar + Listener Questions

by Murtada Elfadl & Nathaniel R

 

With the weekend bringing so few movies to theaters we opted for an all listener questions episode of the podcast. You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. We hope you enjoy our answers and provide some of your own in the comments.

So many good questions, thank you. Comment party in 3...2...1... Go! 

Listener Qs: Cannes, Oscar, More