Jacqueline Durran: From Kubrick to Barbie

by Cláudio Alves

Two-time Academy Award winner Jacqueline Durran is undoubtedly on the path to another Oscar nomination, maybe even a third victory. The British costume designer brought the pink paradise of Barbie to life, delighting audiences with a mixture of archival recreations sized-up from doll scale and original creations in line with Greta Gerwig's reality-hopping narrative. The movie is a delight for costume lovers everywhere as soon as its first scene when it contrasts the graphic modernity of the 1959 swimsuit-clad Barbie with the attire of midcentury girlhood, their look defined - perchance shackled - by domestic aspiration. Then comes a series of classic Mattel outfits, a flurry of rosiness, and our welcome to BarbieLand. It's a colorful explosion of femininity as understood by kids' imaginations... 

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Almost There: Lesley Manville in "Another Year"

by Cláudio Alves

With The Crown's fifth season comes a new opportunity for the world to bask in the glory of Lesley Manville. As Princess Margaret, she's a charismatic scene-stealer, indulging in all the melodrama thrown at her whilst brandishing a cigarette holder like a conductor's baton. Though a fair share of high-class glamour characterizes both her new Netflix gig and the role that earned her an Oscar nomination, that's not always the register within which Manville moves. You could even argue that she built her career on playing the opposite sort of people, working-class characters like the titular Mrs. Harris in this year's Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris – another outstanding performance.

Another example is Mary in Mike Leigh's Another Year. Prior to Phantom Thread, that 2010 drama surely marked the closest the actress had ever come to Oscar gold…

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Mike Leigh on Criterion

by Cláudio Alves

One of the Criterion Channel's newest and most enticing additions is a Mike Leigh collection that includes 11 of the director's films. His is a cinema of compassionate observation that finds beauty in the bleakest settings, the wildest characters, and most complicated psyches. From Thatcher-era social realism to lavish period pieces, passing through farcical character studies, we can find much variety in this director's oeuvre, though some things remain constant. For one, we have Leigh's social preoccupations, a humanistic mindset that bleeds into every aspect of his productions. For another, there's his methodology when working with actors…

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Watch at home: Strange things to tell the bees during the Peterloo massacre

Nathaniel R giving you the heads up on what's newly available to screen at home.

DVD/Blu-Ray/Rental
• High Life - In which Dr Juliette Binoche gets nasty with her patients and Robert Pattinson mopes around in outer space while caring for an infant.
• Tell It to the Bees - In which Dr Anna Paquin seduces her new friend Holliday Grainger (fine performance!) in a small homophobic British town in the 1950s. But it's actually a sentimental family movie of sorts. Watch out for the unintentionally hilarious killer bees! 

Also newish on blu-ray and/or DVD: Pet Sematary, The Best of Enemies, Little, After, Mojin: The Worm Valley, and Gotham (the complete series). 

iTunes 99¢ Deals
Titles you can rent on the cheap this week include the orgiastic French film Climax, 2016's Best Picture winner Moonlight, 2017's very best film Lady Bird, the new horror classic The VVitch, Bong Joon-ho's popular South Korean monster movie The Host, and the charming Eighth Grade.  They're also offering up Don Jon & Under the Skin in a stealth attempt to remind you of what a genre-hopping ridiculously talented and versatile actress Scarlett Johansson is. Be happy that she shakes off the Marvel shackles very soon (Black Widow is currently filming). Who knows what pleasures await when she can step out of that one genre and into all genres again!

Streaming this week

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The New Classics - Happy-Go-Lucky

Michael Cusumano here to discuss a scene I find myself thinking about all the time.

 

Scene: Scott's meltdown
When you pause to consider how mundane the actual events of Mike Leigh’s films usually are, it’s funny to think how many moments from them lodge permanently in the memory.  Barely a weekend goes by that I don’t see some kind of world-ending cataclysm portrayed in expansively budgeted detail and what does my brain return to over and over again? Lesley Manville in Another Year retreating to her glass of white wine or David Thewlis in Naked stalking a security guard through the dark to harangue him about the meaning of life.

The famous Mike Leigh technique of crafting screenplays from extensive improvisations yields scenes that unfold with the convinction of real life...

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