Showbiz History: France loves KStew, and infamous 'Chicago' trials, real and fictional

5 random things that happened on this day, February 20th, in showbiz history...

two Oscar-winning Roxies, Ginger Rogers & Renée Zellweger

1939 A shameful moment in US history: an American Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden. Footage from this event became the basis of the recently Oscar nominated doc short "A Night at the Garden". 

1942 The film Roxie Hart adapted from the play "Roxie" opens with Ginger Rogers playing the murderous showgirl. Roxie would go on to pop culture immortality with the long running musical adaptation of the play and its Oscar winning counterpart, called simply Chicago...

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Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana

That's the first shot of Kristen Stewart as Diana in Pablo Larraín's next film Spencer, one of our presumed Oscar hopefuls for 2021 though the release plans aren't at all firm yet. Let's hope it goes better for Kristen than it did for Naomi Watts! (Not that it won't by default, but still). So we might be looking at our first Best Actress nominee of the new film ye -- No, we can't get into that yet; we're still in this season.

There's no word yet on who is playing Prince Charles but the film takes place over a single weekend (the best kind of biopic!) and we trust Larraín to make this totally interesting since his films (Jackie, No, Neruda) always are, even the ones that are totally filled with hard-to-watch hatefulness (Tony Manero, Ema, The Club). Larraín's films are always exquisitely put together and this one will be no exception with the cinematographer of Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Claire Mathon), two time Oscar winner Jacqueline Durran (Anna Karenina, Little Women) on costumes, and Oscar nominee Jonny Greenwood (Phantom Thread) on score duties. 

20:20 (Pt 4) Contrarian takes, gay comedies, and a KStew double

Part One | Part Two | Part Three 
We're occassionally surveying the films of 2020 that are already streaming, whether they're great, terrible or anywhere inbetween in case you're looking to get caught up on the film year before December/January's "year in review" style media mania. We're freezing them at the 20th minute and 20th second just for streaming roulette kicks. How many of these twelve 2020 pictures have you seen?

-What are we getting?
-Uh... nothing good.

UNDERWATER (William Eubank, US)
20th Century Fox. Original release date: January 10th. Streaming on HBOMax

KStew's dialogue right there is suddenly how I'm feeling about the cinema of 2020. I know I know we're supposed to be saying it was rich. Well, I was feeling like it was rich until I started drafting up the annual Film Bitch Awards and realized it was a wasteland once I removed all the festival titles that don't have distribution in 2020. Still have to get through another 20 pictures though and if half of them are wonderful the problem will be solved?  I promise that I'm not just in a grumpy mood though the following text might suggest otherwise as I had an entirely lovely Thanksgiving. How about you? 

They were actually hillbilly royalty because my pawpaw was related to the guy who started the Hatfield-McCoy feud.

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Review: Happiest Season

by Eurocheese

Yes, it’s that time. Even in this, the strangest year of most of our lives, there’s something comforting about knowing that holiday season always rolls around and we can put on our favorite holiday songs and movies to keep us company. Clea DuVall’s new film Happiest Season not only understands that we need this escape, but manages to find humor in a season that can also be high pressure and exasperating for those who don’t adore it.

Abby (Kristen Stewart) is one of these people. While her girlfriend Harper (Mackenzie Davis) seems over the moon for the holiday, it’s always been a tough time for her, connected to the loss of her parents. In a romantic moment, Harper impulsively invites Abby back to meet her family for Christmas. Abby jumps on the opportunity, and doesn’t pick up on Harper’s hesitance the next day… or her nervous vibe as they head out on the trip…

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The moment I fell for Kristen Stewart

by Cláudio Alves

Ten years ago, Floria Sigismondi's The Runaways was released. The film's a rock biopic and literary adaptation of Cherie Currie's autobiography - Neon Angel. It portrays her life in the late 70s when she became the vocalist for the all-female rock band for which the film is named. Influential and memorable, the Runaways burned too bright and too soon, dissolving after two years of fame, a modicum of success and a whole lot of controversy. Joan Jett, a rock icon and the Runaways' guitarist, helped produce the film and, maybe because of that, Sigsimondi's script makes her a coprotagonist.

Matters of shambolic narrative structure aside, I'm glad The Runaways is so entranced by the mythos of Joan Jett. Otherwise, I might have never woken up to the genius of Kristen Stewart…

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