Barbie Prep: Letterboxd, Watchlists, Oh My!

by Cláudio Alves

We're in the home stretch, less than a week until Barbie arrives in theaters like a shock-pink supernova. The promotion has been near manic in intensity, with the cast showing off their best Mattel cosplay worldwide and Warner Bros. pulling no punches. However, it's not all red-carpet glamour and real-life dream houses, with writer-director Greta Gerwig doing much to excite the global cinephilia by hinting at her Barbie's debt to great cinema of yore. She's been very vocal about the cast and crew watch parties, studying the hyper-artifice of studio classics, and even getting on the phone with Peter Weir to get some tips relating to The Truman Show.

In a recent Letterboxd interview, Gerwig went into a personal watchlist she curated, starting with 29 titles that eventually expanded to 33 during the conversation. It's a vast collection of titles, from 1930s screwball to modern Almodóvar…

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Horror Actressing: Anna Massey in "Peeping Tom" (1960)

by Jason Adams

The adage goes that curiosity kills the cat, but in Michael Powell's 1960 shocker Peeping Tom it's only half true -- curiosity kills one while saving the other. Mark, the deranged killer camera-man at the film's heart (played with shy finesse by Karlheinz Böhm), finds Helen (Anna Massey) by perching on her windowsill and peering in at her birthday party -- she's his downstairs neighbor and full of life as irrepressible as her vast array of bright monochromatic dresses. They seem an odd match from the start but Helen can't seem to get Mark off her mind -- there's something curious about that upstairs man, and she's going to find out if it... well you know.

Is Helen film's very first Final Girl? 

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1947: Kathleen Byron in "Black Narcissus"

by Nick Taylor

Ah, 1947. Back when the Golden Globes only announced their winners and neither NYFCC (age 12) nor NBR (age 2) had supporting acting categories. Searching for alternatives to Oscar’s lineup -- as we like to do when approaching a new Smackdown --  is appealingly open-ended. There are ways to find other options without awards bodies, though. The simplest is to call upon decades of film history to see which of any year’s most durable films have noteworthy female performances. For instance, has any other 1947 film so formidably established itself in the canon as Powell & Pressburger’s Black Narcissus... particularly as an offering of great actressing?

Centered on a group of Anglican nuns instructed to open a school on a Himalayan mountainside already infamous for scaring off other settlers, the film maintains the directors’ penchant for overripe atmosphere and jaw-dropping spectacle... 

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The Furniture: Black Narcissus's Maddening Matte Paintings

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber...

In movies, if perhaps not in life, people can be driven mad by mountains. In films by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, they can be driven mad by paintings of mountains.

Black Narcissus is the story of a group of Anglican nuns who trek up to an abandoned cliffside palace in the Himalayas to establish a new convent. Deborah Kerr, cinema’s most consistent nun, is Sister Clodagh, the young mother superior. Her mission is doomed from the beginning, of course, though not necessarily because the locals reject their presence. Rather, it is the landscape that overwhelms their emotions and breaks their faith and their vows.

Powell and Pressburger did not shoot on location in India, however. The set was built at Pinewood Studios. [More...] 

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Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "The Red Shoes"

Before we begin, the beginning...

Is this not one of the cinema's most exquisite title cards? It's presentational, theatric, classic, colorful, and bears the distinct mark of handmade craftsmanship. That's all perfectly emblematic of the film itself, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's highly theatrical, deeply colorful look at obsessive artistry, possibly the greatest film of 1948, our Year of the Month (the Smackdown is Sunday)

Before we get to my choice, I'd like to share the others from around the web, since I was running late to my own series like some selfish prima ballerina whose 45 minutes late to rehearsal.

THE RED SHOES
Cinematography by Jack Cardiff
10 BEST SHOT(s)
As chosen by these participating blogs. Click on the photos for corresponding articles.

 Waves crashing on the shore of the stage. It's such a perfectly impressionistic moment...
-Dancin' Dan on Film

The film approaches this theme of obsession in some rather surprising ways...
-The Entertainment Junkie

 

Love and obsession are two sides of the same coin...
-Film Actually

 

If you haven't seen The Red Shoes, rest assured that it's the biggest gap in your film education, and you should make it a short-term priority...
-Antagony & Ecstasy

 

If you think about it, The Red Shoes,is just an incredibly artsy examination of the “Can women truly have it all?” question...
-Pop Culture Crazy

 

(Vicky. Her Relationship. Dancing). This love triangle of sorts dominates the latter half of the film... 
-Sorta That Guy

He holds them up to the camera...daring us to take them.
-Coco Hits NY 

Showcasing the cinematic artifice and especially the psychology. It's super overt, but why not?
-Movie Motorbreath

 

In a way watching her dance reminded me of the movie Ed Wood (I know strange comparison but hear me out).  He is so happy making his terrible movies.  The smile on his face never leaves."
-54 Reviews 

They're all great beauties and I considered some of them. My pick after the jump...

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