Late But Not Forgotten: Shelley Duvall (1949-2024)

by Cláudio Alves

Shelley Duvall behind the scenes of her last film, THE FOREST HILLS (2023).
First of all, preemptive apologies for the solipsism. 

For the past few weeks, I've been struggling with a mounting number of celebrity deaths, each deserving of a tribute. Yet, with every single one comes the need for research, and then, when I think I'll be able to write a good obituary, another loss hits. For a while, I considered doing a giant post, built from essential information on each dear departed artist. It wouldn't be akin to that extensive Donald Sutherland homage - to give an example - but it'd be something. Still, the work dragged on, the pressure mounted, and the delay was reaching absurd proportion. I can only say sorry, dear reader. 

This past Wednesday, as I celebrated my 30th birthday, such affairs still haunted me. And maybe because I was surrounded by friends, basking in sincere affection, perchance a self-pitying reflection or two on the passage of time and getting older, a new approach materialized. Instead of trying to encapsulate a world-class artist's entire history in a write-up, I shall instead ponder what they mean to me personally. Earnestness is the way to go, and hopefully, you'll share what these people mean to you in the comments, too. These pieces will be relatively brief but heartfelt, and they'll start with a star I loved like few others – the inimitable Shelley Duvall…

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Happy Birthday, Shelley Duvall!

by Cláudio Alves

Shelley Duvall is one of a kind. Upon seeing her work in Altman's 3 Women, Andrew Sarris compared her to "a young Katharine Hepburn," while Pauline Kael said she was the "closest thing we've ever come to a female Buster Keaton." And yet, the critic would also inevitably arrive at the same conclusion that she was unique. "There are no forebears or influences that would help to explain Shelley Duvall's acting; she doesn't seem to owe anything to anyone." And so, it's a tragedy that, nowadays, she's mostly remembered as the woman broken by Stanley Kubrick during The Shining's grueling shoot, a pop psychology misreading that's spread through social media despite Duvall's own words on the matter.

Infuriating, it's condescending to a great multi-hyphenated artist whose independence and ambition defined a decades-spanning career in entertainment. Let's keep the wonders of Duvall's work alive and bright, let's remember and honor. I invite you to celebrate the iconoclast on this special occasion, the actress' 74th birthday in a year marked by her return to cinema in The Forest Hills…

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Horror Actressing: Shelley Duvall in "The Shining"

by Jason Adams

Why isn't the face of "Cabin Fever" that of Shelley Duvall's? Why isn't it her Wendy Torrance huddled behind that bathroom door holding a knife that we see, instead of Jack Nicholson's Jack peering through the broken slats? I mean we all know the answer -- it rhymes with "Fuctural Fisogyny" -- but maybe we should start to do something about that. All of the news stories we've seen over the past few weeks about the victims of domestic abuse being quarantined at home with their abusers feels like a good start to having that conversation. Losing your mind trapped in a single location is scary, but being trapped in one place with a person you love who has lost theirs is scary tenfold.

For all of the abuse that Shelley Duvall suffered as an actress at the hands of her director Stanley Kubrick in the making of The Shining it feels just, and way overdue, to re-situate the film as that of Wendy Torrance's story of survival...

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Horror Actressing: Rebecca Ferguson in "Doctor Sleep"

by Jason Adams

(As the year marches towards its conclusion we're using our weekly "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" series to take a look at the best of what the genre's given us in the past 12 months, actress-wise. Here's our latest fave 0f 2019.) It's an exciting time to watch Rebecca Ferguson on-screen -- you still get the feeling of discovery every time she shows up, like we haven't got an inkling still of what she's capable of tapping into. She's reminding me of Andrea Riseborough in that way...

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Netflix in October: Big Mouth, The Shining, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Time to play Streaming Roulette. Each month, to survey new streaming titles we freeze frame the films at random places with the scroll bar and whatever comes up first, that's what we share! 

What does Netflix offer us for free viewing this month? Let's survey...

Well, personally I think teaming up with a Chinese-American was good for the department's image.

The Dead Pool (1988)
Not to be confused with Deadpool. It's Clint Eastwood in his fifth and final Dirty Harry movie, this time paired with Evan C Kim. This line reading is really weird though out of context. I've never seen this but there are lots of stars before they were big: Jim Carrey six years before superstardom, Patricia Clarkson ten years before her critical breakthrough, and Liam Neeson just as he was breaking out. Weirdly even though this movie was a hit it didn't budge the needle on Eastwood's screen partner Evan C Kim's career. He did lots of TV guest spots before it and lots of TV guest spots after it. 

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