The New York Times' Great Performers' Shorts, Ranked

by Ilich Mejia

Every year, The New York Times Magazine picks their greatest performers of the year. This year's top ten each got to star in their own silent, "Horror Show" themed short. Italian-Canadian photographer Floria Sigismondi directed the group as characters that wouldn't be out of place in Beyoncé's haunted house. Hopefully next year, the magazine will branch out and recognize some of television's equally terrific performances. Check out the spooky standouts after the cut...

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Jose Gives Thanks ♥︎

by Jose Solis

 

Jose here. Perhaps more than any other year, I'm grateful for the fact that we made it. We survived! Despite of the government, natural disasters, the news, and especially the white patriarchy, we are still around. So this year I won't take the turkey and trimmings for granted. Every bite of pumpkin pie will feel like a blessing.

So this year I'd like to give thanks for the following:

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Hug it Out!

🔥 Look, it's Nicole and P!nk at the American Music Awards this weekend. We must forever express thanks to Keith Urban for insuring that Nicole Kidman didn't just show up at acting awards shows, but music awards shows, too. To celebrate this lovely hug a truly unecessary list.

10 P!nk Song Titles That Could Be Mistaken For Odes to Kidman

1. Fuckin' Perfect
2. Just Like Fire
3. Beautiful Trauma
4. Trouble
5. Glitter in the Air
6. Lady Marmalade
7. You Get My Love
8. M!ssundastood
9. Split Personality
10. Do What U Do

Nicole Kidman Honored by Los Cabos & Glamour Magazine

By Ilich Mejia

As if being Australian wasn't celebratory enough, this past week has forced Nicole Kidman to vacate two more spots on her already-crowded mantel.

First, she was honored at Los Cabos' 6th Annual Film Festival with a Lifetime Achievement Award. There representing Yorgos Lanthimos' The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Kidman accepted her award on behalf of all the filmmakers and film festivals that have supported her career. While in Cabos, Kidman also lamented the industry's dearth of working female directors and joked about how some certain Mexican directors keep turning her down (the nerve!). This is only the second year the Mexican festival gives out a Lifetime Achievement Award. The honor was first given out last year, during the festival's fifth celebration, to Italian actress Monica Bellucci.

Only a day after picking up her silver whale at Cabos, Kidman was off to New York to receive her next shiny thing... 

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The Furniture: A Plaster Haze in The Beguiled

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled is no sprawling epic of the Civil War. The Farnsworth Seminary for Girls, where Miss Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman) presides, is no Tara. There are no ballgowns or battlefields. There is only a big lonely house, the seat of a plantation that has decayed into an isolated finishing school for an especially isolated handful of girls.

Corporal John McBurney (Colin Farrell) is thrust into this setting, his leg wounded and his uniform bloodied. The resulting tension simmers for days, weeks even, before exploding in nocturnal chaos and violence. All the while the house stands silent, forcing these emotions up and down the stairs and into small, dimly-lit corners. There is a forever haze about this place, though never quite hot enough to break into a sweat.

This tightly-knotted mood owes a great deal to production designer Anne Ross, a frequent collaborator of Coppola’s, as well as art director Jennifer Dehghan and set decorator Amy Beth Silver...

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