SXSW didn't have a festival. But they do have winners.

Shithouse (2020) was the big winner at the phantom SXSW festivalA not so secret secret about film festivals: many juries are watching their category on screeners before the festival due to tight schedules, scads of programming, and the general chaos of actual festivals. So, though SXSW didn't actually happen this year, their juries DID give out prizes. Yes, it feels like new movies are but figments of our imagination but that's always the case to some extent with festivals, isn't it? Like Saint Frances which won big at SXSW a year ago only to finally emerge just in time for the Coronavirus to strike it down in theaters, a couple of weeks ago. So maybe in a year's time we'll see these movies!

Their winners and what the juries said about them....

Click to read more ...

"Get Into It...Queen"

This week we had the good fortune to be a Club Cumming (Alan Cumming's bar here in Manhattan) when Miss Natalie (formerly of Broadway's Kinky Boots) performed. She's an incredibly dynamic live performer, with a huge voice and screen-ready comic timing. I expect big things. After an amazing 80s medley, she performed this hilarious original which might well be our choice for 'Song of the Summer' or, at the very very very least, an essential song for everyone's Pride playlists. 

Get into it, queens!

[YouTube | Spotify | Apple Music]

60 Reasons Cinephiles Should Love Madonna

Happy 60th birthday to the coolest bitch in the world since 1958.

Because we are first and foremost a film site, here are 60 reasons you should love Madonna that are at connected to the cinema.

They're listed in no particular order, numbered only so we can keep count because when the subject is Madonna we tend to go on...

1. She makes a perfect animated character in the credits sequence of Who's That Girl  (1987)
2. She's been close friends forever with one of film & television's secret actress weapons, Debi Mazar
   
   
3. Dick Tracy (1990) is awesome.
4. As is Desperately Seeking Susan (1985).
5. She deserved a Best Original Song nomination for "Into the Groove" from Desperately Seeking Susan
6. She loves movies
7. "Greta Garbo, and Monroe..."

Click to read more ...

Links: The Wife, Anika Noni Rose, Kiss the Boy

• Oscilloscope Musings Interesting piece about Zach Snyder's Suckerpunch and how it reflects various old movies, especially the musical Gold Diggers of 1933
• Cartoon Brew on the making of a new animated feature Big Fish & Begonia, now in select cities
• Deadline Jumanji (2017) broke a long held record just barely toppling Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002) to become Sony's all time biggest domestic hit

lots more news and entertainment tidbits after the jump including Omar Sharif, Glenn Close, Melissa McCarthy, Anika Noni Rose and Keiynan Lonsdale...

Click to read more ...

RPDR All Stars 3: Finale - Everybody Say Love! Please!

by Chris Feil

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars has brought one of its most embattled seasons to an appropriately controversial conclusion. This season has been rife with drama onscreen and off that has made championing the show come with several asterisks and addendums. The show has dug itself into a hole of too many twists, an overestimation of its need for drama to excite us, and a mounting disinterest in the art of drag itself. And yet it remains one of the biggest platforms to showcase the glorious breadth of the queer experience, blessed with an audience that demands it approaches its own shortcomings.

And this week’s finale brought a twist that may have broken the fandom’s resolve in how much they can accept: the final four would be whittled down to 2 by a deciding vote of a jury of the eliminated queens. Once again, subjectivity became the season’s foremost battleground and unsurprisingly this makes for frustrating television when a competition is involved. How would a consensus shake out when every queen has already shown a different perspective on what makes a competitor worthy of the crown?

Click to read more ...