"The Crown" S3: An Acting Showcase

by Cláudio Alves

Why do we, as an audience, love to see celebrities playing other celebrities? Just look at the acting categories of the Oscars to see this love in full bloom. Every year, they are invaded by biopics with famous actors imitating the look and feel, the ticks, the sound and the accents of other figures in the public consciousness. Perhaps it's got something to do with the juxtaposition of two famous personas, none of them fully erasing the other. It’s a palimpsest of acting.

We know the Queen of England, how she sounds and how she looks.  When an actress plays her, their transformation becomes obvious because it calls attention to the art of pretending, but also to what is specific about the pretender in the first place. By watching Olivia Colman play the Queen in The Crown, it becomes obvious what makes Olivia Colman so special.

Of course, in this instance, the comparison isn't just to the Queen herself, but also Claire Foy's version of the role…

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"Klaus" is (half) a masterpiece...

Our resident animation expert will be looking at several of the movies vying for a nomination in Best Animated Feature. First up, a Christmas movie.

by Tim Brayton

The new animated feature Klaus is being pulled in a lot of directions. It's the directorial debut of Sergio Pablos, a former Disney animator who splits time between Hollywood projects (as screenwriter, he created the Despicable Me franchise) and nurturing his own company, SPA Studios, based in his hometown of Madrid. It's also the first animated feature produced by Netflix, which has been making sure to emphasize that fact in all of its marketing efforts. And it's not just any old Netflix production: this is part of the streaming service's increasingly deep bench of Christmas-themed movies.

It's hard not to think about this while one is watching the movie. Depending on how you approach it, Klaus is either a masterpiece, or a frankly irritating collection of tin-eared dialogue, odd casting choices, and dated clichés of kids' movie screenwriting...

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Austria's "Joy" is out of the Oscar race

by Cláudio Alves

...And then there were 91...

As we predicted back when Nigeria's Oscar submission was disqualified from the Best International Feature race, the same fate has befallen Austria's Joy. Despite some German dialogue, most of the film is in English, due to the fact it tells the story of Nigerian immigrants living in Europe. After all, Nigeria's official language is English. Once again, such news makes us ask ourselves if this is a fair predicament. One thing's for sure – it's ridiculous that the Academy doesn't vet the country's submissions before announcing the list of eligible films. It'd certainly avoid a great deal of scandal.

Even if it's amply justifiable, such disqualification is unfortunate, even a bit sad, because Joy's an achingly poignant triumph. The sort which deserves to be celebrated by the Academy, but seldomly is…

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Streaming Roulette, Nov: The King Lives by Night

As is our practice we've selected a handful plus of new-to-streaming titles and frozen them at utterly random moments without cheating (whatever comes up comes up!). What should you queue up for NOVEMBER 2019 ? (★ means we definitely recommend catching) 

Let's get started...

-Meet me in the garden tomorrow

The Thief of Bagdad (1940) on Criterion Channel
This fantasy adventure based on The Arabian Knights won 3 Oscars in its year (Special Effects, Cinematography Color and Art Direction Color). Fill in those Oscar gaps! Weird trivia note: NONE of those categories it won had the standard 5 nominees. It took the Academy awhile to settle on the "five per category" rule that dominated the Oscars for decades. There were 14 films nominated for Special Effects that year -- the visual effects category in particular has had multiple strange incarnations and volatility. 

I'm going to ask you to deliver this message to France given your... familiarity with its recipient.

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Could The King Be a Contender

by Jason Adams

It's a big day for Netflix's 2019 Oscar slate, with Martin Scorsese's The Irishman opening in eight theaters in New York (one of them being the famed Broadway theater the Belasco) and Los Angeles -- you can read my thoughts on the movie when it screened at NYFF right here. It's a great film, worthy of all the praise it's gotten and will continue to get. That Marty guy can direct a movie!

But if you're not near those eight theaters (or if you are, even) there's another choice from the streaming giant that I recommend you get your eyeballs on -- David Michôd's The King starring Timothee Chalamet has now hit their online service after its own brief theatrical window, and I suggest you find the biggest screen you can find for it...

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