Noirvember: L.A. Confidential (1997)

It's Noirvember. Here's Lynn Lee...

For a film set in the ’50s, L.A. Confidential (1997) looks and feels surprisingly contemporary.  Maybe it’s because so many of its themes still resonate today: police brutality (especially against racial minorities), broken Hollywood dreams, and the addictiveness of celebrity and power.  Maybe it’s because so much of the film is shot and lit in a more naturalistic, less stylized manner than your typical hardboiled crime movie, which makes the more obviously noir-ish sequences really pop by contrast.  But I think what distinguishes it most from its classic forbears is that it ends up being less memorable for its atmosphere or its plot twists than its character development of not one detective-protagonist but three, whose parallel narrative lines end up converging over the course of the film.

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Swing Tarzan Swing: Disney's 1999 Animated Take

We've reached the penultimate episode of our Tarzan series. Now sailing into Disney wilds...

by Nathaniel R

For over half a century in film and television storytellers didn't think Tarzan needed an origin plot but when the movies told it (Greystoke, 1984), it was as if everyone had always wanted to. Why not Disney then? Disney hadn't quite run out of classic fairytales to adapt by the mid-nineties but they were shifting their focus to boys. This was arguably due to their gargantuan back-to-back biggest-ever successes of Aladdin (1992) and The Lion King (1994), two animated features that deviated from their princess focus. Enter Hercules and then Tarzan. Neither were girly fairytales but both were still firmly embedded in fantasy and heightened enough for musical numbers.

Sort of.

By the time Tarzan rolled into town, Disney executives had clearly begun to wonder if audiences were done with the musical part of their Animated Musicals because Tarzan is only a musical in the sense that non-diegetic adult contemp ear worms keep popping up. They arrive without warning, with all the subtlety of a slasher movie jump scare.

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Tweetweek: ABBA in a White Room, Carrie Gifs, 1999 Supporting Actress

In today's tweetweek, the 1999 supporting actress race, mindy project A+ joke, ABBA, Lindsay Lohan's new accent, and the last few days of political anxiety (in this phase at least). It's all after the jump...

For Toni Collette's birthday, I broke into Angelina Jolie's home and retrieved her Supporting Actress Oscar. It's the very least I could do.

— Matthew Eng (@Eng_Matthew) November 1, 2016

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Oscar Horrors: The Makeup of "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992)

Boo! It's "Oscar Horrors". Each evening we look back on a horror-connected nomination until Halloween. Here's Chris Feil on Bram Stoker's Dracula's makeup...

Bram Stoker's Dracula is as drenched in blood as it is in design excess. Nearly 25 years on, the film is surely one of Francis Ford Coppola's strangest in his filmography. Opulent while utilizing practical effects, the film is smartly-made eye candy that flashes both its brain and budget. Imagine a lavish and gruesome horror film for adults being dropped on today's audiences during the holiday/awards months - stranger yet, imagine it being a hit and nabbing some Oscars too, including for it's makeup design.

Part of the film's goal is establishing a vision somewhat closer to that gothic romance of Bram Stoker's original novel, including that of the titular monster...

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Oscar Horrors: Flatliners (1990) Sound Editing

Boo! It's "Oscar Horrors". Each evening we'll look back on a horror-connected nomination until Halloween. Here's Sean Donovan on an atypical player...

I miss Joel Schumacher. Aside from two episodes of House of Cards in 2013, the man who brought bat-nipples, bat-codpiece, and lots of bat-ass to the original Batman film franchise has been largely distant from our screens today. Say what you will about Schumacher’s ability to craft fine cinematic art; his movies are fun. And for me, Batman & Robin and the gorgeously camp vampiric coming-of-age tale The Lost Boys more than earn him a spot in Hollywood’s gay hall of fame (do we have one of those?). Is there a more gloriously queer gesture than taking the Batman franchise, one of the sacred cows of straight male comic book fandom, and lathering it in trashy homoerotic leather daddy gear? 

Flatliners, Schumacher’s 1990 near-horror falls inbetween The Lost Boys and his Batman era...

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