Gay Best Friend: Jack Hock in "Can You Ever Forgive Me"

by Christopher James

What fun it would be to sit with Melissa McCarthy's Lee Israel and Richard E. Grant's Jack Hock in Julius.

After covering Victor/Victoria last week, we got to thinking about that great sub-section of the “gay best friend” trope - The Gay Accomplice. Often a personal friend, the Gay Accomplice loves to come up with big schemes and be at the center of mischief. The friendship between the protagonist and the Gay Accomplice can exist before the scheme, but often times the friendship starts to revolve around their shared grift. Immediately, Richard E. Grant’s recently Oscar nominated performance as Jack Hock in Marielle Heller’s brilliant Can You Ever Forgive Me? lept to mind...

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Streaming Review: "What the Constitution Means to Me"

by Christopher James

One of my favorite theater going experiences ever was seeing What the Constitution Means to Me off Broadway last fall. Writer/performer Heidi Schreck had such a knack for involving the audience in her exhilarating look at the role of the Constitution in our lives. By the end of the show, it felt like we were working with her in devising a new and more perfect solution. This level of intimacy and audience engagement seemed almost impossible to replicate with the remove of film. Luckily, director extraordinaire Marielle Heller was tasked with recording the production during its final week at the Helen Hayes Theater on Broadway. Heller continues her impressive streak, delivering another hit...

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Directing Actors to Oscar Nominations ~ Updated Stats!

by Ben Miller

Power couple Noah and Greta moving up the "Directed Actors to Oscar Nominations" charts

The Oscars are so stat heavy, it’s difficult to keep up with the information. Especially since each season there's yet more of it. One of the stats that gets perpetually lost in the noise is the complex area  of 'acting nominations by director'. If you’ve read my previous piece last year, I am somewhat of an expert in this field, and this year’s set of nominees and winners provides some interesting stats.

First Timers

With nominations for Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Laura Dern, Noah Baumbach does what Guillermo Del Toro did with Shape of Water and Martin McDonagh did with Three Billboards, going from zero to three acting nominations from his filmography in one year.  A few directors have gone from zero to four, including but not limited to...

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Once Again All Male Director Nominees at the Golden Globes

by Murtada Elfadl

It looks like it’s time to call on Natalie Portman to present the best director award at the Golden Globes again. Somebody needs to shade the Hollywood Foreign Press Association again. Here’s who got nominated this morning:

• Bong Joon Ho, Parasite
• Sam Mendes, 1917
• Todd Philips, Joker
• Martin Scorsese, The Irishman
• Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time....in Hollywood

None of the 10 nominated films in the Drama and Musical/Comedy were directed by a woman. Only in the foreign film category did female directors make an impact...

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Podcast: A Beautiful Day, Knives Out, Waves, Atlantics

with Murtada Elfadl & Nathaniel R 

Index (61 minutes)

• 00:01 Happy belated Thanksgiving
• 02:01 Marielle Heller and Tom Hanks offer catharsis with A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
• 14:30 Knives Out and that yummy cast: Chris Evans, Toni Collette, etc...
• 21:30 Film Bitch Awards / Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers tangent
• 23:00 Exciting new voice: Senegal's Mati Diop and Atlantics
• 29:20 Waves divides people, including Nathaniel and Murtada, and we also discuss the rush to judgment on first screenings among pundits
• 38:00 Spirit Nominations - What did we make of them?
• 48:20 Best Cinematography - Roger Deakins for 1917... but who else? 
• 59:00 Can you believe it's December already? 

Related Reading
Murtada's interview with Mati Diop
Monica Castillo's Knives Out essay

 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? 

A Beautiful Day for Podcasting