How Had I Never Seen . . . . "Lust, Caution"?

by Nick Taylor

Happy Venice Film Festival, y’all!! While Nathaniel and Elisa are off in Italy enjoying some of the season’s hottest potential offerings, I figured it’d be fun to play along at home and finally watch some noteworthy Venice prizewinners I somehow hadn’t seen yet, or have been prioritizing for years but never gotten around to viewing.

And among the most urgent films for this tour was 2007’s Golden Lion winner Lust, Caution, Ang Lee’s story of espionage in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong across several years of World War II, dramatizing on-the-ground political stakes with an eye towards contemporaneous cinematic flourishes and the defining grit and elegance of ‘40s noir. The 1979 novella by Ellen Chang was infamous for supposedly extrapolating story elements from the life of Chinese spy Zheng Pingru. Lee’s film reignited those controversies while drawing some of its own, facing confusion about its country of production and earning an NC-17 rating that put it in hot water with numerous censorship laws.

Click to read more ...

Yes No Maybe So: "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings"

by Nathaniel R

The Marvel Cinematic Universe stands alone among franchises in that it may well reap great benefits from the pandemic. Avengers Endgame had brought the franchise to a world-saturating record-breaking close in the spring of 2019 followed by the digestif of the much smaller scale Spider-Man Far From Home in July 2019 (though smaller scale with these gargantuan budgeted action movies is relative). And then just as a new wave of heroes was set to emerge, an unexpected intermission;  Kevin Feige couldn't have timed the pandemic better. Not that we're starting any daft conspiracy theories!

With Black Widow's release pushed to July 2021, moviegoers have essentially had a full two year break from the MCU (apart from recent Disney+ tv shows). We think this will actually benefit the MCU (which was at an oversaturation point culturally and bound to begin to falter) as demand is now theoretically pent-up to Endgame heights again without the studio having to do any of the narrative work to get there...

Click to read more ...

Marvel Studios: The Next Three Years

by Nathaniel R

Angelina Jolie, Simu Liu, and Scarlett Johansson the stars of "Eternals", "Shang Chi", and "Black Widow"

Over the weekend Comic-Con was in full swing so Marvel Studios took the well-timed chance to share their "Phase Four" schedule now that Avengers: Endgame provided the behemoth finale to their first dozen years. Spider-Man Far From Home was its after dinner feast mint...

Click to read more ...

"I only need one of you to help me"

...please decide between yourselves."

Welcome to the Academy (2017 Invitee List)

The Academy continues its diversity push this year with a record 774 new invitations for membership including people from all over the world. The youngest this year is Elle Fanning and the oldest is Betty White. The list is 39% female this year and 30% people of color.

Chinese superstar screen partners Maggie Cheung & Tony Leung Chiu Wai are finally invited!We must also note that AMPAS's diversity push is also doubling as a major expansion. They're not just inviting differently (i.e. less white men and more women and people of color) but MORE in general. If all of the invitees accepted the invites from this year and last that's 1400ish new members in two years for an institution that previously kept its ranks steady around the 6,000 member mark. 

Everyone's gagging over Gal Gadot being invited but that's obvious. She's in a phenomenon sized hit at the moment and timing is everything -- see also Riz Ahmed whose career is also white hot at this very second and who is also invited... 

Click to read more ...