YNMS: Mary Queen of Scots

by Chris Feil

As promised yesterday, the Mary Queen of Scots trailer has arrived. Think of it like the less demented and much more traditional flip side of an actressy coin to the antics of that trailer for The Favourite. Becauseonce again we've got some heavily costumed fireworks on our hands.

And what take does this version of the oft rehashed history have to offer? The film jumps off from the amicable relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, played respectively by last year's Best Actress nominees Margot Robbie and Saoirse Ronan. Then begins a rivalry for the throne, but this film plays handily with the underpinnings of affection both women have for one another and the men underneath their power forcing their hands. As your middle school history books will tell you, it doesn't end well for all parties.

This is one of our more anticipated Oscar players of the season, so all eyes are on what Ronan and Robbie have in store as their awards stars continue to go upward. But will the movie have the goods? Take a look at the new trailer and we'll break down the Yes No Maybe So...

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Months of Meryl: Adaptation. (2002)

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep. 

#28 — Susan Orlean, a New Yorker writer drawn to the eccentric orchid poacher she is profiling.

JOHN: “Why can’t there be a movie simply about flowers?” asks perspiring screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) to film executive Tilda Swinton from across a table at a posh Hollywood restaurant. “I don’t want to cram in sex or car chases or guns.” One could imagine that Meryl Streep, who has resolutely avoided nudity, drugs, and violence throughout her career, has contemplated this same question. As Susan Orlean, Streep’s outwardly demure and professional demeanor is irreversibly shaken by the oddly captivating John Laroche (Chris Cooper), a Florida orchid hunter, nursery owner, and part-time porn site operator. To watch Streep, at age 53, fire guns, appear nude (read: blatantly Photoshopped) on Laroche’s site, straddle him, and, most incredibly, snort an orchid-based narcotic, getting high and humming along to a phone dial tone, is to experience a dizzying yet satisfying whiplash.

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The Furniture: Theatrical Magic in "Fanny and Alexander"

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, our weekly series on Production Design returns for Season 3! Kicking off with an episode of our Ingmar Bergman Centennial Mini-Series.

There is so much to say about Fanny and Alexander. It has the visual density of The Age of Innocence, the spiritual ascent of Berlin Alexanderplatz, and Ingmar Bergman’s remarkable way with character. These elements gather together to form a benevolent and mystical dome, one which will define the young Alexander’s relationship to his family and his world. The film is built with a free sense of reality, leaping across time but lingering in resonant moments. Bergman casts the Ekdahl family as practitioners of a magical humanism, which which whisks the audience through these many hours as if in a dream.

Much of this atmosphere depends upon the film’s Oscar-winning production design. 

Its furniture magic takes center stage in the first act, late into the early morning hours of Christmas. Oscar Ekdahl (Allan Edwall), Fanny and Alexander’s father, spins a fantastical yarn about an otherwise unremarkable wooden chair. Its long history and hidden power, he says, make it the most valuable in the entire world. Between the flickering gas lights, the holiday atmosphere and the mood of childlike wonder, we are all taken in...

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Fantasia, Straight Ahead

by Jason Adams

Tomorrow marks the opening of the 22nd annual Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, which runs all the way to August 2nd - the fest focuses in on genre films from around the world, with titles ranging from Indonesian Cowboy Epics to Christmas Zombie Musicals to Nicolas Cage. It's got everything a growing nerd might want... and then some things you might not think you want but you'll try them anyway and oh look you've got a new kink now, thanks Fantasia.

I'll be covering the fest both here at TFE and over at MNPP (we covered the fest there last year) over the next couple of weeks. There are some big titles screening like Mandy, the by-all-accounts insane bloodbath starring the aforementioned Cage alongside Andrea Riseborough of all people, and Under the Silver Lake, It Follows' director David Robert Mitchell's (recently delayed) flick with Andrew Garfield.

After the jump six smaller yet delicious-looking highlights from the fest's epic programming slate that we're hoping to get our beady little eyes on...

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Saoirse, Queen of Looks

 

Chris here. Two Mary Queen of Scots posters have arrived and the internet has already gone monosyllabic. Saorise Ronan and Margot Robbie are here in vivid primary colors, and honey, they are not here for any of your crap. Given the Ronan has also landed the cover of next month's Vogue, rest assured that Focus Features is hitting the pavement hard and early to solidify one of this year's Best Actress frontrunners. Before the trailer arrives tomorrow and we finally get a glimpse of Ronan's titular role heroine opposite Robbie's Queen Elizabeth, tell us which velvet high collar look is giving you goosebumps!