Hello, Gorgeous: Best Actress of 2014

A returning series by Juan Carlos Ojano

Nice to be back doing this series after last year's Oscars.

One fascinating thing about this group of nominees is how, in medias res, they provide a lot of context as to what their respective arcs will be: a depressed worker being awakened, a mother on the verge of isolation, a mysterious wife to be cracked open, and an injured traveler hitting a roadblock. Only one of the nominees gets a traditional introductione, and even that is already in establishing her dynamic with her male co-star. It’s a fun lineup of first moments with key details sprinkled in from the get-go.

Are you ready? The year is 2014...

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Jean-Marc Vallée (1963-2021)

by Nathaniel R

We are shocked and saddened to report that Oscar-nominated and Emmy winning director Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club, Big Little Lies), who was only 58, died yesterday at his cabin outside Quebec City. No cause of death has been revealed. 

The Quebecois filmmaker began making movies in the 1990s but first came to international fame wih the queer coming of age drama C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005) which was submitted to represent Canada at the Oscars that year...

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Blue @ 50: Joni Mitchell's Music in Film

by Brent Calderwood

The Kids Are All Right (2010)

“Songs are like tattoos.” That’s according to “Blue,” the title track on Joni Mitchell’s fourth album, which turns 50 this month. A half century after Mitchell wrote and recorded those words, it’s clear that Blue has made an indelible mark on the culture. Songwriters from Bob Dylan (“Tangled Up in Blue”) to Prince (“So Blue”) to Taylor Swift (Red) have acknowledged the influence of Blue’s achingly autobiographical lyrics on their own work. Just last year, Rolling Stone declared Blue the third greatest album of all time. And thanks to scores of cover versions over five decades, two of Blue’s torchiest tracks—“A Case of You” and “River”—have become American Songbook standards. 

No wonder, then, that filmmakers have frequently tapped into Blue, especially for their characters’ most vulnerable moments. While plenty of ink has been spilled over who the songs on Blue are about (James Taylor, Graham Nash, Leonard Cohen), screenwriters and directors often look deeper, mining the songs for what they are about: love, desire, loss, travel, California, Christmas, and much more. 

In honor of the classic album's 50th anniversary, here’s a look at the Top 5 times that songs from Blue appeared in movies… 

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Wonder Women: Cheryl Strayed

Let's get Wild, everyone, and start cheering on "wonder women" in our lives! 

By Spencer Coile

As writers we are told to write about what we know. For many, this includes film, television, or anything pop culture related (hello, everyone). For Cheryl Strayed, what she knows best is her own life. Growing up in a home with her two siblings, mother, and abusive father might have been enough, but it was only after her mother's death in 1991 (as Strayed calls it, her "genesis story") and eventual spiral into drugs and promiscuous sex that she chose to trek from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail, a journey of 1,100 miles. 

Fear not, for those wishing to experience this quest with Strayed! It is all detailed for us in her masterful 2012 memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail and its 2014 film adaptation film starring Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern...

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America's National Parks are Vital Film Treasures

The American motion picture industry owes as much to its National Parks as the government who keeps them awe-inspiring, safe, and pristine; had President Lyndon B. Johnson never designated the Redwoods as federally protected land, who knows if there would even be an Endor for Return of the Jedi’s Ewoks to jam out on “Yub Nub." As our current presidential administration continues to show a combative inclination to incinerate their importance, it’s more important than ever to appreciate these wild lands as not just rugged pockets of natural splendor but a playground of our imaginations captured through film.

After all, a visual medium demands a compelling backdrop and it’s not just our science fiction stories – your E.T.s, your Planet of the Apes adventures – that respectfully depend on our country’s organic back lots. America the Beautiful has historically doubled as a treasured resoure and favorite filming locale for its national (and international) film industries. Thelma & Louise shot its climactic send-off in Canyonlands National Park, countless westerns called the Monument Valley of the Colorado Plateau (which is chocked full of federally reserved land) home, and even comedies like ¡Three Amigos! have used Arizona’s Coronado National Forest as milieu for its many jokes.

I keep returning to Jean-Marc Vallée’s Wild as an exhibition of all that the diverse West Coast wildnerness has to offer along the Pacific Coast Trail. Without the National Parks and Forests there wouldn’t even be an Oregon mountaintop for Reese Witherspoon to thrust her malfunctioning hiking boot off. This is where the stakes get personal when we don’t support our National Parks: less empassioned actressing. 

What are some of your favorite movies - domestic or international - that hike upon America’s purple mountain majesty or weave through its amber waves of grain?