Review: King of Staten Island

by Tony Ruggio

The King of Staten Island is both typical Judd Apatow and a pretty subtle departure from the world he knows and has often depicted on screen. Make no mistake, it’s an overlong, meandering coming-of-story about a slacker who can’t get his head on straight until he does (very familiar), but it also features a deeper psychological profile than we’re used to seeing in Apatow's films. 

Much like many of Apatow’s big-screen efforts, his latest uses the particular talents of a gifted comedian and crafts around them a semi-autobiographical tale of love and loss. Pete Davidson’s father was a fireman who tragically perished in the ashes of 9/11, and so it goes that Davidson is portraying a wayward 24 year-old named Scott who lives with an exhausted mother (Marisa Tomei) and his college-bound sister (Maude Apatow), and is still dealing with the loss of a fireman dad he knew only as a saint... 

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Would you rather?

Our excuse to share fav celebrity instagram posts of the moment. Ready for the new poll? Okay. Would you rather...

• befriend tiny creatures with Drew Barrymore?
• enjoy dumplings with Millie Bobby Brown and Dacre Montgomery?
• stroll through Rome (heels on cobblestone required) alongside Zendaya?
• eat a pie with Kristen Schaal?
• try the 'bottle cap challenge' like Lewis Tan?
• climb the walls with Mena Massoud?
• get glam in Paris with Marisa Tomei? 
• recline with Morena Baccarin?
• take photos with Allison Janney?
• visit the Tian Tan Buddha with Shu Qi? 

As ever, pictures are after the jump to help you decide...

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Smackdown '01: Connelly, Tomei, Winslet, and the Dames

A bohemian novelist, a longsuffering wife, a snobbish Lady, and a supremely competent housekeeper were the Oscar-honored roles in the Best Supporting Actress competition of 2001. 

The shortlist that year was a veritable who's who of this very category, most of the actresses had been nominated before / would be again. One was already a two-time winner and Dame of the British Empire in fact (Maggie Smith... Helen Mirren wouldn't become a Dame until 2003). The anomaly / party crasher was Jennifer Connelly, who had been a teenage star and was receiving her first taste of awards glory as an adult, building on the momentum of a critically well-received turn the previous year in Requiem for a Dream with a borderline leading role in on of the year's biggest hits (A Beautiful Mind made an incredible $170 million at the US box office, believe it or not). 

THIS MONTH'S PANELISTS   

Here to talk with your host Nathaniel about these five nominated turns are (in alpha order): Erik Anderson of Awards Watch, freelance critic Valerie Complex, This Had Oscar Buzz's Joe Reid, and Shane Slater from Awards Circuit. Now it's time for the main event...

2001
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN + PODCAST  

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Would you rather?

Our silly celebrity-gawking weekly poll. Would you rather...

...hit the opening of new hot spot "Best Friend" in Vegas with Marisa Tomei?
...wait for a train with Henry Golding?
...take a swim with Salma Hayek?
...get a new trendy facial with Audra McDonald?
...spend some quality time at the piano with Mindy Kaling?
...do yoga with Rossy dePalma?
...take up a retro hobby with Alex Borstein?
...geek out over Angela Lansbury cast recordings with cabaret star Molly Pope?
... build a snowman with Milla Jovovich?
... makeout with seals with Ben Platt?
     ... OR harmonize in the hot tub with Ben Platt?

The pictures are after the jump to help you decide.

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"Slums of Beverly Hills" Revisited

Chris Feil is looking back at the films of Tamara Jenkins...

Tamara Jenkins doesn’t get nearly the love she deserves as one of the most rich voices in contemporary American comedy. Though maybe we could blame that on her short filmography that nevertheless remains pristinely unimpeachable. Or maybe it’s because she leaves us wanting for painful lengths of time between films, and makes it worth the wait. Her newest, Private Life, arrives Friday on Netflix after more than a decade since she gave us The Savages. And before that there was another decade gap following her 1998 debut Slums of Beverly Hills.

The film is most notorious for being the breakthrough role for Natasha Lyonne as the film’s hilarious teenage heroine Vivian. She belongs to another of Jenkins’ dysfunctional but affectionate family units, carted around 1970s California with her shifty father Murray and two dumbass brothers. Hers is a summer of firsts - her first bra, her first period, her first lay and first orgasm (separate, of course) - but Jenkins and Lyonne make it not-so-typical compared to less sharp coming-of-age tales. Opposite Alan Arkin as the father and Marisa Tomei as her fuckup aunt, Lyonne is a natural, exhaling comic brilliance by simply existing in Vivian’s restless malaise.

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