NYFF: Pedro & Tilda & "The Human Voice"

by Nathaniel R

Green. Black. And of course, glorious Red. These are just some of the bold colors worn by Tilda, hanging not just from her body in a true fashion parade, but spilling from her tight mouth. Pedro Almodóvar's first English language project, The Human Voice (2020), a swift 30 minute monodrama "freely" based on Jean Cocteau's play, makes perfectly expected use of Tilda's much-celebrated fashion iconicity. More crucially it doesn't forget her acting gift. The actress repays the auteur with primal colors of jealously, nihilism, and fury in her line readings...

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"Nomadland" wins TIFF's People's Choice

by Nathaniel R

This year's TIFF has wrapped. Normally we cover it extensively, as you know, but they cut out a big swath of press this year including us... *cries*. Hopefully we'll return next year and if not we'll have to find a new favourite festival to obsess over. Herewith the winners and some Oscar stats, and if we've already discussed the movies, there's a link...

AUDIENCE PRIZES

People's Choice: Nomadland dir. Chloé Zhao.
(First runner up: One Night in Miami... dir. Regina King; Second runner up: Beans dir. Tracey Deer.)
People's Choice, Documentary: Inconvenient Indian dir. Michelle Latimer. 
People’s Choice, Midnight Madness: Shadow in the Cloud dir.  Roseanne Liang. 

That's right ALL of the audience prizes this year went to female filmmakers! Even the runners up were directed by women. The People's Choice Award is major bragging rights since it often signals kind Oscar fates down the road. Basically it would be a shock if Nomadland misses the Best Picture nomination at this point afterwinning TIFF and Venice though One Night in Miami has less convincing stats on its side. The stats go like so... 

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Showbiz History: Sophia Loren, Emmy Nights, and Female-Driven Hits

13 random things that happened on this day, September 20th, in showbiz history...

1941 The Porky Pig short "Notes to You" was released. It's sometimes credited with introducing Sylvester the Cat but that's erroneous. The confusion probably stems from the fact that this short was remade as "Back Alley Uproar" seven years later with Sylvester, by then an official character who looks not unlike this cat, and Elmer Fudd in the roles. 

1975 "Fame" hits #1 in the US, the first David Bowie record to do so... 

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Round 7 for Penelope & Pedro with "Parallel Mothers"

by Nathaniel R

Given the elegaic tone of Pedro Almodóvar's brilliant autobiographical Pain & Glory (2019) we worried that it might be his last film. We're so pleased to be feeling paranoid about that now. The 70 year-old master is already writing again or perhaps has finished writing something new. And not just one new project, but three! His next feature (which will shoot in early 2021) is a melodrama called Parallel Mothers, which will star his muse Penélope Cruz. The film will follow the lives of two mothers who give birth on the same day but whose lives take different courses (no word yet on who will play the other mother or if this is a dual role for Cruz). This will be the director and actress's seventh collaboration...

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Eric Rohmer Centennial: Six Moral Tales

by Eric Blume

Last weekend marked the 100th birthday of one of France’s greatest directors, Eric Rohmer, and we here at TFE figured that a nice way to celebrate him would be a look back at the six-film series that launched his career, the Six Moral Tales, which were released between 1962 and 1972.  

These films basically have the same plot:  a man obsessed or in love with one girl finds himself distracted by another woman, only to return to the first girl.  Rohmer uses this framework to examine the stunted male psyche, the rationalizations of behavior, and the mystery of love...

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