YNMS: "Suspiria" Teaser Kills, Making Lots of "Widows"

Chris here, reeling from the trailer feast happening this Monday. As teased in previous days, we get our first look at Luca Guadagnino's grisly Suspiria rehash and Steve McQueen's heist thriller adaptation Widows. Both films have a host of elements to bring our anticipation to a fever pitch (Suspiria: intriguing director/genre pairing, Widows: the powers of McQueen matched with author Gillain Flynn on writing duties) but that doesn't mean they don't also have their question marks. Do both films find the auteurs reaching for mainstream sensibilities? Is there any Oscar play here? And what of the sizeable female ensembles in both?

Both films are heavily speculated to launch at the Venice Film Festival, since both filmmakers have previously debuted films there. If you haven't already gorged on both (or need a second watch, third, fourth, etc). check out the two fantastic trailers after the jump and we'll break down the Yes No Maybe So)...

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"Suspiria" First Look is Dakota Looking

by Chris Feil.

We've steadily been getting tidbits of late for Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria remake (or reimagining, as the director would prefer) - stories of the filming sending Dakota Johnson to therapy, Cinema Con attendees losing their lunch over the first body-breaking footage, and a reported sprawling 2.5 hour running time. What once sounded like a potentially dubious project is sounding more and more like something worthy of standing next to Dario Argento's original masterwork...

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James Ivory & the controversy that won't go away!

by Murtada

If you thought that after the Oscars you’d never hear about Call Me By Your Name, think again. The movie is now out on DVD but that is not why it’s in the headlines once again. Oscar winning screenwriter James Ivory would just not let his displeasure with the non-nudity in the film die. We are all for a true legend like Ivory to say whatever the fuck he wants, whenever he wants. So we are all in for his recent interview that's making the rounds now.

In the CMBYN cultural wars of last Oscar season there are two camps. The first think that it lessens the power of its story by shying away from explicit nudity in its sex scenes. The second think that was the right aesthetic choice for the story and that the film is not “coy” because it shows Armie Hammer wiping cum from his chest. This is a short and reductive way of briefly explaining the different POVs; each camp of course has more nuance...

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Soundtracking: "Call Me By Your Name"

by Chris Feil

Luca Guadagnino has become one of our top cinematic sensualists, making films built to be felt in the mind, body, and soul. Music is one of the key tools in his arsenal, particularly for how he uses rock music in ways that feel unburdened by music video tactics. Call Me By Your Name is no exception, with both classical and more electronic music highlighting the internal struggle of its protagonist Elio.

The film begins with a John Adams composition, projecting a similar personality to what Elio thinks is expected of him...

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Call Me With Kindness

by Jason Adams

Call Me By Your Name is turning out to be the sort of success none of us saw coming sixteen months ago when it was first announced that the director of I Am Love was tackling a little gay love story. It just broke the 2017 record for per theater average over the weekend, and its reviews have been unanimously stellar. It won Best Feature at the Gothams Monday night, it topped the Independent Spirit nominations, and it’s expected to stick around racking up such prizes all awards season long.

And yet there’s been one complaint that’s nagged at the movie from a determined bunch of folks (including the film’s own writer, legend James Ivory) since it first screened at Sundance in January – a supposed shyness about nudity and gay sex. Ivory told Variety it’s a “pity” there's no full-frontal nudity in the film, while The Guardian called the movie “coy” and Slate called it out for a “lack of explicit sex.” One shot in particular has rankled these folks the most – a seemingly old-fashioned pan out the window just as the characters finally approach their erotic consummation.

The film’s director Luca Guadagnino, who probably had to look up the word “coy” in the dictionary the first time it was lobbed at him for this, is nonplussed by the reaction – he told Vulture:

“It’s really something I don’t understand. It’s as if you said there are not enough shots of Shanghai. I don’t understand why there has to be Shanghai in this movie.”

I’m inclined to agree with him. Not only because I found the film sexy as hell, erotic in languorous, voyeuristic ways that movies don’t really approach anymore. Its sense of tactility, for sweat and fabric and skin, and its often-prurient stares – up the legs of swimming trunks, for example - are a welcome shock to the system that makes the forbidden seem commonplace, easy...

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