Soundtracking: Yentl

by Chris Feil

Some might reduce it to simple star vehicle, but Yentl does something quite uncommon within the musical genre: through song, it places us in the mind and isolation of exclusively one character. All of the songs belong to Barbra Streisand’s protagonist Yentl, locked in the chamber of her mind, until it triumphantly breaks out in her reality. It might seem criminal to have the likes of her costar Mandy Patinkin going songless despite being at his Evita and Sunday in the Park with George-era peak, and maybe more condescending viewers would chalk this up to ego on the part of Streisand. But the effect gives us something that quietly defies musical convention, turning song into metaphor and providing richer payoff to the character arc. It’s only a musical inside the head of our heroine, a way of reflecting the strictures that limit her voice.

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Over & Overs: "Sister Act"

Please welcome new contributor Kyndall Cunningham...

As a churchgoing kid with a fairly good singing voice, choir took up a big chunk of my adolescence. I attended weekly rehearsals, went to my choir mates’ houses to practice and woke up at the crack of dawn on Sunday mornings to perform for the congregation (and God). I had a strong affection for gospel music, but my intense involvement in ministry at such a young age felt deeply uncool at times, if not isolating from the rest of the world. It wasn’t until I picked out Sister Act from my family’s VHS closet one day that I saw that part of my life tied to pop culture in an exciting way. Needless to say, I began screening the film religiously. 

Sorry. 

Like a lot of stories about women turning a new leaf, Sister Act begins with a breakup and ends with a love story...

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Banderas, a 'singular sensation'

by Nathaniel R

Campaigns for hotly competitive Oscar categories require a good deal of presence on the circuit. Which makes Antonio Banderas's journey to a first Oscar nomination a bit of a question mark at this writing. After a Best Actor win at Cannes for his indelible turn as a famous Almodóvar-proxy director named Salvador Mallo in Pain & Glory, an Oscar nomination was clearly a target worth investing in and aiming for. In fact, it was arguably the stuff of a slam dunk barring the subtitles: aging gorgeous actor (everyone knows they make the pretty men wait), long uncelebrated-by-Oscar career meets meaty role with intertwining "narratives" (a triumph with the director who discovered him nearly 40 years ago and his own recent heartattack dovetail superbly with the role). It's a potential nomination that the media, industry, and fans could all get excited about. But as the season began to heat up all sorts of viable options for the Best Actor shortlist have emerged. This coveted nomination feels like a 'will he or won't he' coin toss now.

If you've been wondering why Antonio hasn't been quite as ubiquitous on the campaign trail as you'd expect given the heavy competition, look no further than his hometown of Málaga, Spain where he's in the process of playing another iconic director...

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Soundtracking: Judy Garland Takes Over The Criterion Channel

by Chris Feil

Forget Disney+, this month we have Judy+. For those of you not already subscribers to the streaming platform, The Criterion Channel has (in addition to a slew of other old studio musicals) added seven classic Judy Garland musicals to the platform for the month of November. Spanning a decade of Garland’s film career, it’s a treat from more famous titles like Meet Me In St. Louis to other oddities such as The Pirate. To entice you to binge as I did, let's run down one of Judy's songs from each of the films available...

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(You're Gonna) Love it Again - Rocketman!

by Nathaniel R

Kudos to Paramount to beating the Rocketman drums again with a screening and performance in Los Angeles yesterday. Early releases require this sort of care and attention from their home studios, come awards season. Rocketman emerged in the giant shadow of Bohemian Rhapsody this past May, and though it is vastly superior to the Queen picture in every way, shadows are shadows and sometimes they obscure the light...

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