Marie Antoinette Week: The Musical Stylings of Sofia Coppola's Biopic

Editor's Note: On this very week in 1793 the Queen Consort of France Marie Antoinette (born Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna von Habsburg-Lothringen -whew) stood "trial" and was guillotined during the French Revolution. She's haunted popular culture ever since. On this very week ten years ago in 2006, Sofia Coppola's undervalued and unconventional biopic Marie Antoinette began its trip to movie theaters. We're celebrating every day at 3 PM EST for a week. Party.

Lynn Lee looks back at Marie Antoinette's (2006) controversial use of music...

First come the fast, bracing guitar chords, followed by the almost-too-on-point Gang of Four lyrics - “The problem of leisure, what to do for pleasure?” - as the opening credits roll in bright hot pink against a black background.  We catch a quick shot of a reclining Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst), tasting one of an array of sumptuous cakes as she tries on a shoe and gives a saucy sideways glance into the camera as if to say “Let me eat cake.”  It’s our first tip-off that this isn’t going to be your standard historical costume drama...

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Drag Race All Stars E5: RuVenge is a Dish Best Served With Love...

By Nathaniel R

How is RuPaul's Drag Race doing it this season? Eight years into the RuVerse and despite a trainwreck of a first attempt with All Stars, All Stars Season 2 is arguably earning its rather instant rep as "Best Season Evah, Yaaaas." The first season, an ill considered 'doubles' event was echoed if you will in Episode 5's "Ru-Venge" narrative in which the eliminated queens were brought back and chose comedy partners from the remaining queens. Somehow even this unmistakable reminder of Season 1's slog of watching divas drag basic bitches around like dead weight behind them transcended the concept.

It helps I think that RuPaul is playing with the format more than ever. Usually when stars have nothing left to prove they coast. Ru did win a long deserved Emmy recently and dont you forget it. (Logo won't let you, bless.) But America's favorite Drag Superstar is making fun of coasting itself while pushing her own envelope playfully.

RuPaul scrapbooking instead of working. Hee.

The funniest meta bit in each episode is hearing what RuPaul and the judges will be doing while the competition Queens deliberate who should be sent home (since they've taken over the judging duties) -- this week it was scrapbooking. Ha! It's a delightful inversion of the "work" of a reality show panel with the open secret being that the Queen Mother and her Squirrelfriends have always been having a fucking ball. What is "work"? Oh, yes, you mean "WERQ!" 

awkward hugs, villain edits, and NSFW Alaska after the jump...

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Links: Brangelina Kaput, Broadway Blockbuster, Festival Afterglow

Brangelina No More
Vox looks at the parallels between Liz & Dick and Brangelina
EW Madame Tussaud's already separated Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's wax counterparts. Nathaniel wept. (Seriously, I'm not doing okay with this. I don't care if anyone thinks its silly. Double star wattage couples of this magnitude happen only a few times a century.) 
Slate ranks the remaining A list power couples

Brangelina, smack dab in the middle of their storied romance

Liz and Dick were only divorced for 16 months before they got back together so if I may put in an early request for 2018 Wishes. Lots more (and not just Brad & Angie) after the jump.

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"Colossal Spectacle!"

Happy Labor Day, all! To mark this occassion I will be working very hard today because I have much to accomplish before I leave for TIFF, the best film festival on the planet, according to me, for its ease, it's breadth, and the quality of its movies. Any big plans today, whether or not its Labor Day where you live?

On this day in history as it relates to the movies...

1916 One hundred years ago today the other über famous and influential D.W. Griffith epic, the one its OK to care about, opened. Intolerance, sometimes subtitled "love's struggle throughout the ages," was three and a half hours long and prominently advertised its then insane budget of $2,000,000. Wouldn't it be funny if today's movies were all "we cost $300,000,000 to make" (and all you get is a glossy commercial for merchandise / sequels)" on the posters? The epic stretched from Ancient Babylon through the Christ story and on to 1914 in its quartered parallel storylines to paint a morality story for audiences. The sick cosmic joke in retrospect was not that Griffith was apologizing for his own racist intolerance in The Birth of a Nation but offering a rebuke to people who he felt were intolerant to him because of that picture.

SIGH (Dir. Nathaniel R, running time ∞)

Other debuts on September 5th
Outlaw Jesse James who has been played by a gazillion actors, Old Hollywood titan Darryl F Zanuck, the inimitable prolific auteur Werner Herzog, charmed and outspoken Rose McGowan, Reigning Oscar good luck charm Michael Keaton (Birdman, Spotlight), Dan Gilroy's sick gripping Nightcrawler with Jake Gyllenhaal, 60s sex goddess and Myra Breckenridge herself Raquel Welch, Jack Kerouac's On the Road is published, Disney's pre-Mickey Mouse character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit premieres in his first short, one time Bond George Lazenby, and Black Book/Game of Thrones sensation Carice Van Houten.

And we'll close out our birthdays in history list with the iconic Freddie Mercury (remind me again why the Queen frontman STILL doesn't have a biopic?). This music video was chosen because it felt like something D.W. Griffith would approve of in all its "subtlety" and largesse...

Happy birthday / anniversary to all!

Movie News in 4 Questions and a Video

by Murtada

Today's movie news offered questions and head scratchers more than usual. So I’ll present you with the questions and maybe you can help me with the answers. Or just join in the bewilderment:

• Why would David Fincher want to direct the sequel to World War Z? Obviously Pitt is a favorite of his but a sequel, really? Is this related to the fact that HBO passed on the two series he was developing for the past couple of years?

• How will Margot Robbie play 4 foot 9 trapeze artist  Lillian Leitzel in Queen of the Air? Will they employ the inverse of whatever they did to make Meryl Streep taller in Julie and Julia (2009)?

• Do we care about the feud between The Rock and Vin Diesel? And doesn’t “candy ass” sound like a euphemism for something?

• What was the extent of Tony Kushner’s involvement in the script for Fences? It was always known that they were working from an August Wilson penned screenplay that both Kushner and Denzel Washington worked on polishing.

• And finally, if you've googled "Who is Awkwafina?" after the news broke out about the cast for Ocean's 8, here's a clue:

 Take it away, dear readers!