Beauty vs Beast: The Spy Who Stabbed Me

Jason Adams from MNPP here, continuing our little Pride Month run of LGBT-centric "Beauty vs Beast" contests -- we're turning our eyes towards the small screen this week for one of our favorite on-going queer series, Phoebe Waller-Bridge's fabulously twisted sapphic spy versus spy series Killing Eve. Deserving all of the awards we can violently fling at them in one corner we've got Sandra Oh as Eve, the hyper-capable but darksided intelligence officer, and in the other there's Jodie Comer as the psychopath but don't call her that Villanelle (god that name is so good), who's spotted a little something inside Eve she can't wait to dig her fingers around in.

survey services

PREVIOUSLY That low-cut tank-top on Brad Davis proved too tough for us to resist, tilting last week's Querelle poll perilously in his favor with a broad-chested 82% of the vote. I would shed a tear for Franco Nero but... he's Franco Nero, he's more than okay. Said FrenchToast:

"Team Brad Davis all the way!What a brilliant actor he was. Was it too much to ask for him to get Oscar nominated in 1979? I remember reading Genet's novel in high school and being mesmerized (and probably aroused) by his poetic writing. Even if Fassbinder's movie has its flaws, it's a daring and terrific adaptation."

Beauty vs Beast: Sailors Moon

Jason Adams from MNPP here using this week's "Beauty vs Beast" to memorialize a sad anniversary -- the great German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder died of an overdose on this day in the year 1982. Unsurprising given his extraordinary output over the course of his 37 years on Earth Fassbinder's projects outlived his days, and one finished film came out a few months after he'd passed -- his gorgeously gay and strange Genet adaptation Querelle, starring Brad Davis as a sailor entangled in lusty criminalities in port, and that's where we'll rest our eyes today (since we're also covering LGBT films all June to boot). Much like Lieutenant Seblon (a perfectly mustachioed Franco Nero, awash in long eroticized pauses) can't keep his eyes off his charge, neither can we all these years later...

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PREVIOUSLY The first week of Pride Month took us to sweet Translyvania, where Tim Curry's Dr. Frank N Furter easily swanned off with 0ver 80% of your Rocky Horror votes. Said kris01:

"Brad and Janet are cute and everything, but Frank n Furter can create life. Iron Man has a million suits to jerk off too, but can he make people!?"

Beauty vs Beast: No Doubt

Jason from MNPP here ready to label this place "The Amy Adams Experience" for the day, because not only are we discussing the latest episodes of Sharp Objects but we're wishing her a happy 44th birthday while we're at it with this week's edition of "Beauty vs Beast." Specifically we're looking back at her Oscar-nominated role as the watchful Sister James opposite her Oscar-nominated co-star some-Meryl-lady in John Patrick Shanley's 2008 film Doubt. Can you believe this movie's turning 10 in December? It doesn't seem that long ago, does it? Does the movie hold up, you think? (I mean besides Viola Davis, obviously.) But even besides that I need you to, heaven forbid, brush away your doubts long enough to come down with a vote on...

online polls

PREVIOUSLY My favorite Fassbinder was the subject of last week's poll and my favorite Fassbinder performance therein won - Margit Carstensen's TITULAR ROLE in The Bitter Tears of Perta von Kant sashayed off with about 3/4s of the vote over Hanna Schygulla's user-loser Karin. Said Jordan:

"Just caught this film for the first time recently thanks to a mention about it on this site and had one of those WHERE HAS THIS MOVIE BEEN ALL MY LIFE??!! moments. Stunning across the board. What Fassbinder, Ballhaus, and these women accomplished in a single room is really movie magic."

Beauty vs Beast: Fashion, Disasters

Jason from MNPP here with another edition of "Beauty vs Beast" -- the year 1972 is the "Year of the Month" at TFE for August and coincidentally I'd just listed my favorite films of 1972 over on my own site recently. There I chose five fave films but it's not hard for me to narrow it down further and choose my absolute favorite from that bunch - Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant is my favorite Fassbinder (which is saying quite a bit given my love for Fassbinder) and it stars my favorite Fassbinder actress (I'm Team Margit from way back) in a lesbian bed death match with Everybody Else's Favorite Fassbinder Actress (Hanna Schygulla as the beautiful user Karin)... which makes it perfect for one of these polls!

bike trails

PREVIOUSLY We wish The Fugitive a happy 25 last week and y'all tossed your lot in with the man accused, unlike the Oscars, giving Harrison Ford's Dr. Kimble a 63 to 37 percent edge over Tommy Lee Jones and his Oscar statue. Said Suzanne:

"Only one of these men has Ralph Fiennes's Oscar for Schindler's List, and it isn't Harrison Ford!"

The Furniture: Leering Through Querelle's Erotic Architecture

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

by Daniel Walber 

The films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, though they are many and varied, almost always have striking production design. The obvious examples include the ‘70s scifi chic of World on a Wire and the opulent apartment of Petra von Kant, but it's true of his whole catalogue. The design of Querelle is as bold as it is aroused. And as of this week it’s new to FilmStruck, a place where you can find tons of design classics (like La Ronde and Great Expectations, two of my favorites).

Querelle got terrible reviews when it opened in 1982. It’s often considered an oddity of excess at the end of a career built on precision, an oversexed and underwritten mess with little to say and too much to show. 

That’s nonsense. Sure, it's a lot, including the work of production designer Rolf Zehetbauer and art director Walter Richarz. But what most of the reviews seem to have missed is that Querelle isn’t just about sex. It’s about power, and the way that sex between men can be as much an exchange of control as it is an exchange of fluids.

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