The Hollywood Read ep. 2

THR LogoSteve McQueen’s new film, Widows, is not performing well at the box office, which could doom its Oscar hopes. It shouldn’t! But it does! Because the Oscars are ridiculous and only getting more so as the Academy tries to find ways to combat the slipping ratings which are still really high. This week Kayleigh Donaldson and Sarah Marrs discuss Widows, the Oscars, that proposed “popular Oscar” category everyone is ready to throw out of a moving car, and how box office and popularity impact award campaigns. So join us for the first in a series of discussions about the upcoming Oscars and how they will be different from any previous Oscars ceremony. Also: GO SEE WIDOWS.

Kayleigh’s Widows review can be found here.

Sarah’s Widows review can be found here.

Yell at Kayleigh here: 

And yell at Sarah here: @Cinesnark

 

The Hollywood Read ep. 1

THR LogoWelcome to The Hollywood Read, a new podcast with me and Kayleigh Donaldson, also of internet fame! We’re discussing celebrity, pop culture, entertainment, business, politics, and how all those things go together. In this first episode we decide who is Best Chris for 2018, and what it means that Hollywood is dominated by four guys named Chris.

 

Episode 1: The Hollywood Chrises

 

Mother-daughter heartbreak in the colorful, tragic Pin Cushion

Coming of age stories are frequently awkward, often painful, but ultimately, usually, hopeful. Pin Cushion is one of those rare coming of age stories that is not really invested in perpetuating the myth that oddballs and weirdoes emerge from adolescence as interesting and functional adults. It is instead preoccupied with the ways that trauma passes between generations, and that no amount of parental love and acceptance can make up for a lack of same from peers. In Pin Cushion, bullying is not the métier of the playground, but is a cycle that perpetuates into adulthood, and bullies don’t always get their comeuppance (or, if they do, it’s just more trauma for the pile). Pin Cushion’s image of adolescence is a candy-colored darkness.Continue reading “Mother-daughter heartbreak in the colorful, tragic Pin Cushion”

The Lodgers is creepy, low-key Gothic horror

A dilapidated estate in the Irish countryside is the setting for Brian O’Malley’s The Lodgers, a Gothic haunted house story set in the days following World War I. Any Gothic film set in a grand country estate immediately calls to mind Rebecca’s Manderley, and The Lodgers certainly has shared DNA with the Gothic films that have come before, including The Innocents and a little bit Picnic at Hanging Rock. It also calls to mind Guillermo Del Toro’s recent Gothic horror-romance, Crimson Peak, though where that film reaches for spectacle (and kind of face-plants in the garden of its own grandeur), The Lodgers is a quieter tale, atmospheric and creepy and full of decay.

The chandelier is an aesthetic choice.

Continue reading “The Lodgers is creepy, low-key Gothic horror”

Sweet Virginia is a tense slice of backwoods life

Three men playing a late-night poker game are interrupted by the arrival of a man demanding the early bird special. The bar is closed, but the patron won’t leave, and the disagreement ends the only way it can, with a triple homicide. From the first moments of Sweet Virginia, the ominous, droning score of Brooke Blair and Will Blair—brothers of actor Macon Blair and collaborators with their mutual friend, director Jeremy Saulnier—set the tone for a white-knuckle thriller that never lets up on the tension and dread.

Someone cast Jon Bernthal in a nice romantic comedy

Continue reading “Sweet Virginia is a tense slice of backwoods life”

Brigsby Bear: Kyle Mooney’s weird love letter to fandom

Brigsby Bear is a piece of weirdo cinema that seems like the kind of fake movie you’d see as a film-within-a-film mocking Sundance. It’s precious bordering on twee, deeply nostalgic, possessed of a quirky synth score (courtesy David Wingo, frequent Jeff Nichols collaborator), and full of actors from the indie comedy scene. It’s practically a checklist of Sundance stereotypes—and it was, indeed, a big hit at this year’s Sundance. But Brigsby transcends its made-for-mockery foundation. It’s a little too sweet for the inherent darkness of its story, but Brigsby Bear is a sensitive and sincere portrait of loneliness and fandom.

Continue reading “Brigsby Bear: Kyle Mooney’s weird love letter to fandom”