Rumored to potentially hit in 2015, Derek Cianfrance’s literary adaptation of The Light Between Oceans has finally released a trailer. It stars this year’s Oscar nominees (and ubiquitous 2015 staples) Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander as a lighthouse keeper and his wife that take in an orphan newborn into their isolated island life. Things become heartbreakingly complicated when their life returns to the mainland.

The source novel is an absorbing weepy that surprises as its themes take hold. The complexities and intimacies of a marriage and also the lingering effects of legacy have been explored soulfully by Cianfrance in previous films Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond the Pines. Here he looks to be just as introspective across a large canvas. With a prime festival season release date, expect this one to pop up somewhere on the fall festival bookings.

The Light Between Oceans opens on September 2!

I’m not just joining the prediction game, but this cat is too! Even our furry friend struggles to figure out some categories, just like the rest of us.

But what does Oscar Cat think is winning Best Sound Editing?

What a night, what a lovely night! And with that, we can put this Mad Max: Fury Road quote to bed.

I’ll be wrapping up everything Oscar for filmmixtape with this post, but be sure to check out my analysis over at The Film Experience over the next few days!

My predictions went 14/24 though the sting of a weak performance is soothed by the Spotlight Best Picture win that I sensed though most others had though cooked. It was also rewarding to see such Fury Road success after a long season of its potential being doubted. My argument had always been its unquestionable craft, even as it felt “too weird” for the Academy and Warner Bros. was hesitant to make the film its top dog.

Happy Movie New Year, everyone! With the Oscars behind us, I’ll try to keep the

Welcome to the 8 Days of RuPaul’s Drag Race! ♫ This is the beginning, the beginning ♫

Never mind that detour – I’m starting things off with a celebration of everything we adore (“party”) in this show despite the speed bumps along the way. That’s right, our not-so-guilty pleasure has some guilty pleasures tucked inside. Let’s run down the moments, queens, and flubs we love despite our better judgment…

The fun begins after the jump…

Nicole Paige Brooks From At-lan-ta, Geor-gia

Perhaps our first queen who was in a little over her head with the competition, this season 2 early out is still memorable for her unintentional quotability. This hoe with a heart of gold may not have been the sharpest, but her unwavering sincerity still wins out. YOU KNOW YOU WANT THE PAH!

Bad Fashion

Whenever there’s a sewing challenge, you can bank on a real doozy – like Jiggly Caliente’s season 4 post-apocalypse ensemble seen here. Sewing challenges have been rarities in recent seasons, but that hasn’t stopped the queens from making major fashion face-splats (see Joslyn Fox’s nineteen bathing suits).

Post-Drag Race Music Careers

Granted there are some actually catchy numbers like what Alaska has produced. However, for every successful Adore Delano or Willam, there are five queens you never realized even released a single. These musical career attempt “why not”s aren’t going away any time soon.

The Season One “Production Values”

It’s almost shocking that the inaugural season is less than a decade old when you look back at its hilariously shoddy production values. From the harsh lighting to the ever-present Vaseline filter, the show was clearly done on the cheap (shh, it still is). Let’s not forget the background ladder like some poor PA did.

Contestants Feigning Excitement Over the Announced Guest Judges

You know not a damn one of those queens had ever heard the names María Conchita Alonso or Rick Fox in their entire life, but they made show that it was a big deal all the same. Witness where there celeb focus lies on an episode feturing both Aubrey O’Day (suspicious oohs and aahs) and Joan Van Ark (ZOMG YAS).

Kennedy Davenport’s “Death Becomes Her” Runway and Explanation

Goddess.

Contestants Sincerely Saying Dumb Things

Joslyn’s “Black Horse”, Kandy Ho’s “on my alley”, anytime Miss Fame gets asked “How’s your head?”. The queens are here to slay, not to form sentences.

RuPaul’s Puns

“Miss Fame. Donatella me that was your best celebrity impersonation.”

DragU

Sure, a great way to capitalize on the growing popularity of the flagship series, but a show about drag queens turning women into… drag queens… what? Still, we got more great quote from the queens we loved most.

Laganja Estranja

“Heyheyheyhey, put your lighters up, Ganja’s in the house!!” The show’s reigning love-to-hate-her champion had the meltdown of the century and grated on every competitor’s nerves, but she made for uproarious and compelling television. She has since cleaned up her act and is still a fiery entertainer. Admit it, you love how quotable she is, okurrrrrr.

8 Days of Rupaul’s Drag Race continues through March 7.

Hey, squirrel friends! The 8 Days of Drag Race continues after yesterday’s Top 10 Guiltiest Pleasures. Today is about something we all need to survive – everybody say “LOVE”!

One of the most important and inspiring elements of the LGBT community is the friendships that bind us – so naturally RuPaul’s Drag Race is creating lasting bonds as much as it is launching careers. Sure, the competition comes first, but the queens are nothing without relying on the support, humor, and shade of one another to carry eachother through.

Oh, but you’re wrong, Lashawn Beyond. Because unless you’re Phi Phi O’Hara, the show proves it’s hard to get ahead without some support by your side. Check out the show’s best galpals after the jump!

Raven & Jujubee

The first besties in the show’s history became so instantly close that it’s surprising to remember that they didn’t know eachother before meeting on season 2. Their tear-filled lipsync against one another to Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own”on All-Stars is an iconic reminder that sometimes the reality show is about more than serving and quipping.

Rolaskatox

The most powerful alliance in the show’s run. The fierce talents of Alaska, Detox, and Roxxxy Andrews meant they never had to resort to strategy or sabotage to get ahead. Their unique talents were complimentary to eachother’s humor, so everyone got moments to shine.

Katya & Trixie Mattel

No one does daffy like these two, and it only becomes exacerbated when together. While we didn’t get much of them together on season seven (and let’s we honest, we didn’t get nearly enough of Trixie, period) they’ve been making up for lost time by touring together and some of the funniest post-show YouTube content.

Raja & Delta Work

These two were like family before the competition (Raja is Delta’s drag mother), and they can gossip the way only true relatives can. The queen bees of the Heathers vs. Boogers rivalry, this hilarious duo had the kind of unexpected chemistry the show thrives upon with Delta’s caustic wit and Raja’s goofy sensibility.

Bianca Del Rio & Adore Delano

As would have to be the case considering Bianca’s tongue, their friendship actually thrives on reading one another:

These two bring out the things we love most in the both of them – Bianca’s heart and Adore’s charm – without sacrificing either queen’s edge. Certainly one of the show’s greatest and wittiest odd couples, they’re also among the most popular.

Yara Sofia & Alexis Mateo

“BAM!” It’s easy to forget how quotable and charming these two were all the way back in season three. While All-Stars brought out the bitchier side in them that was more dormant in their first run, these pageant divas “echa pa’ lante”-d into our hearts from the beginning.

Alyssa Edwards & Alyssa Edwards

Make no mistake – season five gave us Jinkx Monsoon, Rolaskatox, a cast filled with sob stories, and a frenemy story with Coco Montrese, but still every damn episode was about Alyssa Edwards. Dropping about seven quotables before a mini-challenge while being completely dead serious, this unintentional genius is know for feeling her damn self.

RuPaul  & Michelle Visage

How can a friendship so elemental to the show go unmentioned? Their palpable shared love and willingness to poke fun at one another like the best of Judys never tires through even the most scripted of interactions. Michele’s willingness to be the show’s ambassador in Ru’s absence allows her passion for her bestie shine through and Mama Ru is at her most relaxed next to Michele. They’re just two peas in a pod!

The 8 Days of RuPaul’s Drag Race continues everyday until the premiere of season 8 on March 7!

There haven’t been any recent Midweek Mixtapes, so what better time to bring it back for the 8 Days of RuPaul’s Drag Race! This week’s playlist also some wishful thinking for this season’s Lipsync For Your Life showdowns. I tried to steer away from artists that have been performed previously (En Vogue and Robyn being among irresistible exceptions). Can you believe track 1 has never been done??

In case you’ve missed the beginnings of The 8 Days of RuPaul’s Drag Race, catch up!

• The Top 10 Guiltiest Pleasures
• RuPaul’s Best Friend Race – Our Favorite Squirrelfriends

After being chosen for RuPaul’s Drag Race, the first objective on every participating queen’s mind is DON’T GET SENT HOME FIRST. You can read the tea leaves as to which season eight queen gets that unfortunate fate, but judging from the talent pool, the elimination will be brutal no matter which one goes. In the seven seasons thus far, the first elimination has ranged from obvious to unfortunate to downright unfair. Whatever their fate, these gone too soon queens are typically the least heralded, so let’s take a minute to celebrate their part in the Drag Race pantheon.

Onto our underloved girls…

Victoria Porkchop Parker

The show’s first queen to sashay away hasn’t fallen door on that potentially poor notoriety, but instead has used it to her advantage. She’s still constantly improving and is a staple on season finale’s ever since – Mother Ru’s “Hey Porkchop!” is always a kind nod to a vital queen to the show’s history.

Shangela Laquifa Wadley

Her early elimination has since been mostly forgotten since her surprise return on season three led to more memorable and definitive moments for the performance. Shangie has since taken over small television roles and is among the Drag Race elite, going to show the worth in giving some underwhelming queens a second chance. Halleloo!

Venus D-Lite

Her career as a Madonna impersonator didn’t help her get far in the competition (watch out Derrick Barry) and the hungry returning loser Shangela floored her in the lipsync. Venus has since gone on to appearances in numerous reality television shows, including one about plastic surgery obsessions where she talked about changing her face to more resemble the Material Girl.

Alisa Summers

Perhaps the most forgettable first girl sent packing, she’s remembered most for her cheap and tacky breastplate. Her post-apocalyptic outfit creation was in poor taste even for a challenge that called for unconventional materials like paint and aluminum foil, and lipsync assassin Jiggly Caliente worked her ass of to send Alisa home.

Penny Tration

All the love of the Facebook fan vote (where she beat season 6 favorite Adore Delano) couldn’t help save this queen – and Ohio native. While her awkward silhouette and poor padding got her into the lipsync, she could’ve have easily been spared elimination from one of the series’ most reviled queens Serena Cha Cha if she had just learned the words to “Party in the U.S.A.”

Kelly Mantle

Though she had a successful acting career long before Drag Race, it’s her now forever association with pork products that she caries with her after the show. Her Downton Abbey inspired gown was notoriously compared to bacon and sealed her fate against an losing lipsync battle against Vivacious.

Magnolia Crawford

Season six’s split premiere technically means two first queens to go home, and this queen was an easy out for too many factors. Competing against lipsync assassin Darienne Lake, a bellyflop of a hoedown dress, that razor-thin nose contour, and one of the worst attitudes in the show’s history made this one hard to root for.

Tempest DuJour

Last season’s earliest out is the one who had the most left to offer, despite the drab presentation granted to her by the production. Her momentary rift with Kandy Ho felt like the fuel to the fire that caused their lipsync that Sasha Belle somehow evaded. Tempest is a funny and charming queen that continues to surprise with her creativity after her untimely (and unfair) elimination. Sometimes the worst isn’t the one sent packing.

ICYMI Previous 8 Days of Drag Race Posts:

• Top 10 Guiltiest Pleasures
• RuPaul’s Best Friend Race – Favorite Squirrelfriends
• A Suggested Lipsync For Your Life Playlist

The challenges on RuPaul’s Drag Race don’t just serve to eliminate the queens lacking the charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent it takes to be America’s next drag superstar, but they also push the contestants outside of their comfort zones to illuminate new shades to the queens that we otherwise might never see. Today’s installment of The 8 Days of RuPaul’s Drag Race is going to showcase the ones that have been the best at doing just that, with some outstanding favorites thrown in as well.

Recurring challenges like the Snatch Game, Reading is Fundamental (never better than Jujubee’s above performance), and my personal favorite Everyone Loves Puppets are inelligible, though season six had probably the best round of all three.

So what gave the girls the best moments to shine?…

RuPocalypse Now

This post-apocalyptic runway challenge has already gotten a few mentions already here on The 8 Days of RuPaul’s Drag Race, but it is legendary for its highs and lows. It launched Sharon Needles right to the top of all-time favorites with her blood soaked high fashion zombie and, well, you remember Jiggly’s microwaved potato. This is also the kind of challenge where queens can stand out with their own unique reference points, like with The Princess’s vibrant and polished water apocalypse look.

Oh No She Better Don’t!

Sometimes the show just gets the balance right like with this rap challenge. The queens were pushed outside of their comfort zone, had to reference a specific era and musical vibe, and were given enough room to let their own personalities shine. As if Adore Delano hadn’t already charmed the audience into submission, here she took home a win for the challenge perfectly suited to her gifts.

The Money Dresses

Remember when the show had intense design challenges like this? Those days are long gone, but look at the results that came from them. You would think that today’s younger DIY queens would have the spark of inspiration to get close, but the recent sewing challenges have never been this exquisite.

Viva Glam

Ongina’s effervescent charm got her a massive win (one week before going home, unfortunately) in this MAC infomercial challenge to raise HIV awareness. However, it was Ongina’s runway reveal of her own battle with HIV that made her an unforgettable queen (in the most forgettable season, at that) and became the show’s first brush with something deeper than fashion and shade. A benchmark moment for the series, indeed.

Christmas

Because Christmas is the best and Christmas drag queens is even better. If you need a better reason, take a look at the wide range of fashion inspirations and interpretations – especially with Raja and Manila Luzon setting the high fashion bar for season three right out of the gate. A Christmas challenge also allows for a Kwanzaa moment and a Virgin Mary – where’s my Hanukkah though?

Bitch Ball

Puppies!! The end-of-the-season ball challenges are growing less ambitious in recent seasons, but this one threw an exciting element into the mix. The dogs selected were challenging from a fashion perspective to draw inspiration from, and the different categories (including daytime dog park realness) tied together well while showing range for the queens. Also PUPPIES!!

Draggle Rock

Here is one of the best episodes for striking the perfect balance of difficulty, personality, camp, and drama. The children’s show challenge hearkened back to the subtly subversive shows like Pee Wee’s Playhouse (or Spongebob for you whippersnappers) while pushing raunchy humor of its own. The results also give you the prototype of all judges critiques and complaints: boy drag, getting lost behind a character, lack of polish or professionalism.

Death Becomes Her

You’ve probably noticed a lack of season seven challenges and that’s because you probably also noticed that the season seven challenges were abysmal. This runway theme was one of the brightest moments of that season for it’s consistent hilarity and cleverness. It also gave us the Kennedy Davenport “after a long night of hooking...” moment mentioned in the Guiltiest Pleasures post, and for that we are eternally grateful.

Float Your Boat

How we’ve gone so far into The 8 Days of RuPaul’s Drag Race without showing some love to reigning whorespondant Willam remains a mystery. She mightily won this Pride-themed challenge with a heavy hand of self-appreciation and showed off her best asset: that unwavering wit. Having the queens design something other than a piece of fashion always showcases their ingenuity, or lack thereof – we see you, Milan.

America’s Junior Drag Superstar

As if Draggle Rock wasn’t already fabulously jampacked, this mini-challenge (the only one on this list) was also a stunner. Designing children’s mannequins into junior beauty pageant contestants is already loaded with easy possibilities for humor, and the queens delivered mostly. Then you have Lil’ Pound Cake, Alaska and Lineysha Sparks’ foul mouthed and aggressive spawn – one of the most uproarious moments in the show’s history.

ICYMI Previous 8 Days of Drag Race Posts:

• Top 10 Guiltiest Pleasures
• RuPaul’s Best Friend Race – Favorite Squirrelfriends
• A Suggested Lipsync For Your Life Playlist
• Remembering the First Eliminated Queens

The dirtiest secret of RuPaul’s Drag Race is that sometimes winning doesn’t matter. Being the best at a competition and having a storyline primed for reality television doesn’t always equate to being able to sustain a lasting fanbase and keep up with the rigors of touring and generating new content. What the show truly is is a platform to launch each of the queens that they have to run with. It’s on you to keep us interested, kitty girls.

Sure, everyone would love that big cash prize, but even more can be made long term by continuing to draw a crowd. Some girls have even proved that you don’t have to do quite well on the show to be popular. Let’s run through some non-winners that have gone on to bigger success…

Willam

Being the show’s only disqualification was an instant boost to her notoriety, though one could argue she didn’t need it given her shrewd business skills and relentless work ethic. Talk any smack about her pot-stirring and she can respond with her millions of YouTube hits, American Apparel endorsement, and high touring demand, even as she’s tried to distance herself from the show. She’s also the show’s funniest (sorry Bianca) and hardest working queen.

Phi Phi O’Hara

Laying low after becoming the most reviled queen in the show’s history for her nasty attitude on season four, she’s come back into favor in recent years by reinventing herself as a cosplay queen. In 2016, she started an ambitious Instagram project called the 365 Days of Drag with daily drag posts following weekly themes. The results have been jawdropping and unexpectedly charming – the series blew up in the past week thanks to a heavily circulated BuzzFeed article.

Alyssa Edwards

Turning a quick 180 from “love to hate her” queen on season five to an undeniably embraced all-time favorite by the fans, she’s now the franchise’s most YouTube-friendly star. Her quotability and hilarious self-seriousness remains with no signs of the viciousness that never let us root for her during her run on the show. Touring with her House of Edwards sisters Shangela and Laganja Estranga, Alyssa is still one of the series’ biggest draws. *tongue pop*

Latrice Royale

Her fashion performance on season four was the single element that kept her out of the top three and perhaps defeating equally beloved Sharon Needles. This fairy godmother of drag has not only stepped up on the look, but started her own talent management company (managing loads of former Racers, to boot) to complete financial success. She’s not just an adored entertainer, mother is an entrepreneur.

Jade Jolie

Her Snatch Game version of Taylor Swift may have been more cutesy and hilariously accurate, but the photos speak for themselves and created a small stir last year. She’s toured the world with her Swift impersonation and is rumored to join the Vegas Divas act that features Derrick Barry’s Britney and Coco Montrese’s Janet. Eat your heart out, Lisa Frank.

Trixie Mattel

You’d think being unfairly eliminated perhaps the worst season of Drag Race not once, but twice before really having the opportunity to shine would be a set back, but our Barbie girl just won’t quit. Tracey Martel took those knocks, turned it into a punchline, and sold herself on it. She’s in higher demand than any of her season’s top three (though second to bestie Katya) thanks to unflagging pitch black humor and her consistent visual growth.

Adore Delano

Adore may have had a sizable online following before entering the reality competition, but the show allowed that passionate bunch to grow exponentially. She’s received major flak from the Drag Race hierarchy for her less than inspiring fashion choices on the road, but that hasn’t gotten her down – her album Till Death Do Us Party is the first among the queens to chart on Billboard. Her second album After Party drops March 11.

Alaska Thunderfuck

We’ve saved the best for last. Perhaps only second in fan worship to Bianca Del Rio, Alaska got very close to the crown on her season, gaining momentum in the latter half of season five before being swept away by Jinkx Monsoon. She’s never taken a break since and is constantly on the road, creating hilarious web content and music, and was also an American Apparel Ad Girl with Willam and Courtenay Act. Most crucially, after the show she has claimed her rightful thrown as the show’s gorgeous, but witty glamour queen.

*** this list does omit popular queens (such as Raven and Jujubee) that would also fit, but in the spirit of the list, I wanted to highlight those that haven’t received as much mention.

ICYMI Previous 8 Days of Drag Race Posts:

• Top 10 Guiltiest Pleasures
• RuPaul’s Best Friend Race – Favorite Squirrelfriends
• A Suggested Lipsync For Your Life Playlist
• Remembering the First Eliminated Queens
• May the Best Woman Win – Top 10 Challenges

Winner of Best Director at last year’s Sundance Film Festival for former production designer and debut wunderkind Robert Eggers, The Witch is a jaw-dropper about a pre-revolutionary colonial family’s implosion after banishment from their settlement for unspecified contrarian religious practices. The family quickly unravels once hunger, lack of resources, and claustrophobic isolation settles in. Oh and also those satanic forces lurking in the surrounding woods. A nightmare-inducing formalist stunner, Egger’s debut is robust with context and deep with emotion before the scares even take their ruthless hold.

These sentiments are not to discount the chills generated by the film, for they are varied and relentless. The initial tone is like an apparition following you up a flight of stairs or entering an illogically frigid room; something unnatural is making its presence known before fully revealing itself. Once that presence does (and far sooner than expected), the scares run the gamut from moodily vicious to spiritually paralyzing, with a decent peppering of jump scares. The Witch terrifies so deeply by shocking you differently at each turn. Never have barn animals been so demonically unsettling.

Much like the evils of the witch(es?) descending upon the central family unit already rife with its own internal struggles, the biblical terror of The Witch takes over a film otherwise formed around family melodrama. Eldest daughter Tomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) struggles against the family’s religious expectation of piousness, further exacerbated by growing tensions between her mother and the untamable behavior of the younger twins. Younger brother Caleb’s (Harvey Scrimshaw) puberty-incited questionings of faith and growing sexual longings further isolate him from his family – he’s in limbo between both adulthood and youth, but also between belief and faithlessness. The parents are even further lost in the wilderness – father William (Ralph Ineson) struggles to keep the family afloat while suffering the consequences of his pride, while the mother Katherine (Kate Dickie) finds her steadfast faith shattered by rapidly mounting setbacks.

The film’s ensemble is perhaps its greatest asset, creating even deeper emotional completeness than Eggers already solid screenplay allows for on the page. Dickie and Ineson’s performances are so attuned to one another and together they craft years worth of unmentioned marital ease crashing down due to these unforeseen setbacks. Like Nicole Kidman’s work in The Others, here are two rare horror performances that are actually quite moving, especially on second viewing. Dickie particularly is firing on all cylinders,a performance unlikely to receive the attention it deserves because of genre bias. It’s a full-bodied portrayal of faith crisis and conflicted motherly affections that’s uneasy to shake for its authenticity.

Anya Taylor-Joy brings believable youthful defiance to Tomasin’s growing resentment to her parent’s expectations and withholddings, if perhaps anachronistically mannered and without being fully convincing in her final character decisions. Harvey Scrimshaw’s youthful inquisitiveness plays like a bland cipher, which the film uses to its full deceiving advantage in a complete stunner of a second act close. Scrimshaw becomes unhinged, amplifying the moments terrifying heights with an unexpected bit of inspired and frightening acting.

This internal familial conflict only heightens the impact of the frights to come. Taking note from horror classics like The Exorcist and The Shining, Eggers knows that context is key to rattle us on a deeper level. Without the established character blindspots and tensions, The Witch would risk becoming a mild spookfest with a more austere sheen. Thankfully, we’re treated for something more engaging for its emotional resonance and frustrations.

Kudos to Eggers for committing to the ending some might have called absurd. Unfortunately, the final moments are softer than the proceeding film (and scares) as character logic and motivation becomes hazy. One could extrapolate why Tomasin takes the route she does, but the unguided explanations are unsatisfying – especially as its inconsistent with the film’s behaviors of speaking plainly.

However, the film is a technical marvel while never obtrusively overstyled to dampen the story. The immaculate presentation of period details and pristine cinematography (by Jarin Blaschke, utilizing natural light to more impressive effect than The Revenant) are sumptuous, drawing us in against our own fight-or-flight impulses. Like last year’s marvelously lurid genre entry It Follows, the non-stop tension can also be credited to the ghoulish sound design and unique score (by Mark Korven).

This one will be living deliciously on our minds for some time.

A-

More Reviews

The Film Experience’s Hit Me With Your Best Shot is back! Perfectly timed to the release of the reboot trailer, the kick off for the series’ seventh season is comedy classic Ghostbusters. I was positively giddy over the trailer, so this made for an exciting revisit.

Once of my favorite visual elements of Ghostbusters is the way cinematographer László Kovács captures Manhattan. There’s a certain scale that New York City gives the film that’s uncommon for a comedy, even with the monster movie pieces in play. The city is often portrayed on film as alive and bursting with innovation, but here it’s the kind of ancient tome where ghouls can run amok. It’s among my favorite New York movies.

Alternately, not all of its Manhattan panorama is authentic. The film balances a large number of constructed sets against the natural city streets to heighten the scope, with underpraised work from production designer John DeCuir. Leading up to the best shot of the film, I also have to bring up one of Ghostbusters primary sets.

We Need to Talk About Dana Barrett’s Apartment. She is a cellist and can somehow afford that view and square footage? Her home is basically a penthouse palace, featured throughout Zuul’s demonic takeover of Sigourney Weaver’s Dana. It’s our view over the gorgeous city but also into the heart of the monster. It also has hilarious couches.

So what is the best shot?

The demon waits, with the city behind. Those couches deserved it.

The possession sequence features Weaver at her silliest and sexiest, but here she’s actually somewhat terrifying. Having Dana Only Zuul not facing the gorgeous city below suggests a claimed domain – don’t fight me, this already is mine. The shot is an exquisite balance of intimate and expansive, again the kind of sumptuous visual rarely afford to a comedy.

Are you the keymaster? *door slam*

Join us for the rest of the season’s Hit Me With Your Best Shot!

For the penultimate installment of The 8 Days of Drag Race, it’s time to share some love for the queen’s biggest champion: Michelle Visage.

The show may be in RuPaul’s namesake, but Drag Race‘s signature judge is almost its cohost. Though she joined the show in season three (replacing Merle Ginsberg), Michelle Visage was always meant to be an integral part of the show. As Ru prefers more subdued promotional responsibilities, Visage has quickly become somewhat of a spokeswoman for the show on the road and the nurturing coach to the queens dealing with their newfound notoriety.

While Ru’s presence is always the flawless facade we crave from our divas, Michelle finds the sweet balance between the fun drag kiki and the blunt honest realness we demand from a best friend. It’s easier to connect to her ruthless, but heartfelt honesty; she deeply wants each of the queens to succeed, but will put up with no shit in the process.

More love for the Jersey girl, after the jump…

Michelle isn’t just playing mother hen or a reverse version of the gay best friend trope, but she’s also an authentically versed study on drag culture. She doesn’t just know her history, but she comes from it. Don’t forget that she met her future best friend RuPaul back in the New York City ball scene (Michelle’s category was reportedly always Face). Her days of opening for Milli Vanilli with The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. (“Stop relying on that Bodyguard soundtrack”) may provide for Drag Race punchlines, but only further highlight that she knows what she’s talking about.

But she knows it’s not just your knowledge of history that sets you up for success, but how you present yourself. She’s not just helping the queens find their footing in their character after the show, but she’s leading by example while on it by being her full self. She may come from real, but Michelle knows how to turn that realness into a character, a package that we’re all going to consume and fall in love with. Every joke, gesture of love or shade may come from the heart, but it’s another piece that shows us who she is.

Her personality has evolved over her seasons as she’s taken over her rightful thrown. More and more, she’s become aware of what parts of herself best suit the competing queens to ensure their growth. Some complained her harshness in season seven was meant to replace the departed Santino Rice, but I see her reacting to a group that would most benefit from relentless tough love.

Basically, Michelle is every bit as much good television as any of the queens in the show’s past. She even gives good gif with the rest of them.

Her tongue may be acid, but she takes the jokes lobbed at her like the best of them Michelle is always in on the joke, especially gleeful when they come from bestie RuPaul.

But Michelle is a lover, not a fighter. It’s not just the love for her friend and care for his legacy that shines through, but her compassion for each of the queens no matter how busted, immature, or misguided. This kind of love makes it a little odd that Ru is the one the queens bestow with “Mother”, for Michelle is the one ready for richer connection to them all.

It may be Ru’s race, but it’s Michelle Visage’s party.

ICYMI Previous 8 Days of Drag Race Posts:

• Top 10 Guiltiest Pleasures
• RuPaul’s Best Friend Race – Favorite Squirrelfriends
• A Suggested Lipsync For Your Life Playlist
• Remembering the First Eliminated Queens
• May the Best Woman Win – Top 10 Challenges
• Winning Isn’t Everything – Drag Race’s Successful Losers

It’s tonight, kids! I hope this has been a fun lead up to the new season, but be sure to catch up to any 8 Days of RuPaul’s Drag Race posts you may have missed before watching tonight’s premiere!:

ICYMI Previous 8 Days of Drag Race Posts:

• Top 10 Guiltiest Pleasures
• RuPaul’s Best Friend Race – Favorite Squirrelfriends
• A Suggested Lipsync For Your Life Playlist
• Remembering the First Eliminated Queens
• May the Best Woman Win – Top 10 Challenges
• Winning Isn’t Everything – Drag Race’s Successful Losers
• In Praise of Michelle Visage

Now before the fun starts tonight, I wanted to end the series with how some optimism for the show’s future. It’s no secret that the show got off track in the lackluster and uncharacteristically distanced seventh season. The franchise has longstanding traditions that have made it the success that it is, and like any long-lived show shouldn’t be hesitant to refresh itself.

So what changes do we hope for with the new season…

No Performing as Past Contestants in Snatch Game

Let’s just not, shall we? When even low hanging fruit like Madonna, Judy Garland, Liza Minelli, and Barbara Streisand have never been chosen, can you really justify playing it so safe by spoofing one of your own? It’s not like previously underwhelming performances of celebrities like Joan Crawford, Wendy Williams, or Lady Gaga are out of bounds.

No Manufactured Rivalries

You can always guarantee drama with such high stakes, but the producers don’t need to exacerbate or outright create beef that isn’t there – BenDeLaCreme and Darienne Lake being the obvious example that contestants have spoken out against. If all the girls going to be comrades, then find tension rather than inventing it.

More Sewing Challenges

Or just more opportunity for the queens to make something out of nothing. Look at the Float Your Boat challenge- when the queens make something of their own, they highlight their point of view as an artist, but also express their limitations. Remember the highs of season three’s sewing challenges and how we could easily distinguish each queens point of view without the help of a catch phrase?

Make the Lipsynchs Fair and Square

Sure, some queens may perform so abysmally in the main challenge to merit a swift ticket home, but isn’t the point of Lipsyncing for Your Life to prove why you should stay? Therefore, if you are the winner of the lipsync, shouldn’t you stay? The unspoken “three lipsync strikes and you’re out” rule is silly – if Trinity K. Bonet had to slaughter every lipsync to get to the top three, then she would have earned it.

If You Keep a Queen, Give Her Air Time

On the other hand, if a queen makes a compelling enough case to stay, treat her like she actually stayed. Last season, Kandy Ho was barely afforded speech on multiple episodes before the producers remembered she was still there and sent home. Either you want her there or you don’t, but be fair to the queen.

Cool It With the Group Challenges

Season seven gets this complaint across the board, but the show has been naturally progressing to include more and more each season. The thought is it’s an easy way to stir up drama but thrusting the queens together, but in season seven it became repetitive without any major rivalries or frenemies. It’s also much harder to get to know the queens if they’re not given much opportunity to stand on their own.

Give Less Stock to Being Attractive Out of Drag

Everyone loves seeing a pretty face on their television, no problem there. But consistently telling your audience that a contestant’s out-of-drag appearance makes them more interesting in a drag competition makes little sense. Last season, it was one of Pearl’s major selling points, but there are plenty of other victims.

Every Queen Has a Story

We want to know all of these girls. Even with clear audience and producer favorites, one of the strongest aspects of the show is it’s history of showcasing diversity of experience within the gay community. Family self-love issues, addiction, family troubles, trans self-awareness, and more, the show is the single most inclusive representation of the LGBT community in popular culture. Even villains have something that has made them the performer that they are, even if it doesn’t make you love them. Let’s hope that is something the show never loses sight of!

Season Eight of RuPaul’s Drag Race begins tonight!

Thanks for joining us for The 8 Days of RuPaul’s Drag Race! I hope you all enjoyed the premiere as I did! (“I’m going to tell you a story about FLATS…”) – here’s hoping we have another great one on our hands! Catch up to any of the posts you may have missed:

• Top 10 Guiltiest Pleasures
• RuPaul’s Best Friend Race – Favorite Squirrelfriends
• A Suggested Lipsync For Your Life Playlist
• Remembering the First Eliminated Queens
• May the Best Woman Win – Top 10 Challenges
• Winning Isn’t Everything – Drag Race’s Successful Losers
• In Praise of Michelle Visage
• Highest Hopes for Season 8

One day I’ll be able to revisit Joe Wright’s Atonement without losing composure, but not today.

Atonement remains an emotional powerhouse almost a decade after release, its perspective on regret and absolution undiminished by how quickly it has been forgotten. The film was swiftly (and unfairly) categorized on release as standard costume drama despite its hefty dramatic intent and bold construction. It’s a masterful piece of storytelling, with Wright showing his surest directorial hand and most effective risk-taking skills in his career.

2007 was a banner year for cinematography. Atonement skyrocketed director of photography Seamus McGarvey’s profile and landed him his first of two current Oscar nominations. His lensing is so vivid and informative that he could be a slam dunk win in any other year (though he’d be my 2007 winner), but he was among intense competition, including a double dip from Roger Deakins – all losing to the sinister stasis of Robert Elswit’s work on There Will Be Blood.

But McGarvey’s framing and movement aches and yourns beyond the depths of his formidable competition. It’s a complete visual feast, so this time I’m including many of its immaculate visuals before getting to that powerful Best Shot…

The visual world McGarvey creates transcends that simplistic costume drama analysis, for like the narrative itself, nothing can be taken at face value. Everything is filtered through the imagination of Briony’s stunted perspective or complete revisionism – so McGarvey lends everything with a hyperreal sense of drama in time, place, and perspective. It’s all too good, too beautiful, too painful to be true.

The shot that should have earned McGarvey the lion’s share of awards was the one that was granted the most discussion during its release: the five-minute tracking shot through the beach of Dunkirk before the British evacuation. Keep in mind, this shot was done before unbroken takes became the hot trend we see in current cinema. More impressively, Wright and McGarvey didn’t rely on digital trickery to stitch multiple shots into the guise of one, or to enhance the scale by adding people. In this one take, what you see is largely real.

I for one have never made it through the scene without weeping.

The shot does have its fair share of vocal detractors for its perceived side step from the narrative. It’s crucial to remember that this is a moment fabricated by Briony for her audience, a rumination on a spectacle she never witnessed. The elegiac pain on screen is a product of the lifetime of contemplating the anguish that she had caused a man to endure.

The moment make take us outside of Robbie, but it uses the agony of war to magnify the isolation of his own personal anguish. The long shot finally grants us to look away, but then immediately follows Robbie as he evades the crowd, to be left alone with his demons.

My vote for Best Shot features the man utterly alone with his demons, reflecting also the guilt of the author crafting him:

The love story writ large above him like a ghost taunting him – he’s escaped the war outside only to be tortured by the war within. If considering the narrative as entirely a product of Briony, her sense of shame and guilt is right there in Robbie’s diminished posture. A thematically loaded image to punctuate an already emotional sequence.

More of Hit Me With Your Best Shot!

• The Film Experience – Full Series
• filmmixtape Personal Picks

Earlier this week, Robert MacFarlane asked the Twitter void for the greatest performance of this decade now we’ve reached the midpoint to delightful results. Many of these picks came from films without Oscar or box office heights, so there’s also something to be said about how a performance or film can achieve longevity in our minds. It’s about that itch that can’t be scratched, the way the performance evolves over time and reveals itself. With only a small sampling of recurring choices, the selections were exciting reminders that we’re in a new golden age of acting and filmmaking in general.

Close calls were Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty), Michael Fassbender (Shame), Dwight Henry (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene), and Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher). I don’t have any 2015 releases included, sometimes things just need time to take root.

So the conversation has freshly brought up recent performances to my mind, and here are the 10 that won’t go away (though dwindling down is agony). Should I continue onto films? Screenplays? On to the list…

10. Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master as Lancaster Dodd

A tight coil of control and rage, a superego operating both on the film’s nebulous wavelength and on his own steadfast path. One of his highest degrees of difficulty in his career. It’s still so heart-crushingly sad that he’s gone.

9. Matthew McConaughey – Magic Mike as Dallas

The pinnacle of the McConaissance. He plays the crowd, his crew, and filmgoer in different ways all simultaneously. Dallas is every bit a play on the stereotyped McConaughey personawe’ve mocked, but reveals something entirely unexpected – cruel, uncompromising, and entirely controlled.

8. Lesley Manville – Another Year as Mary

She plays Mary as if she never hears a damn word anyone ever says, even in the ultimate tough love moment from Ruth Sheen’s stalwart. For a film about connection and aging in community with loved ones, Manville keeps appropriately on her own field in her own movie. One of the most eerily spot-on portrayals of narcissism in a decade full of them.

7. Brad Pitt – Moneyball as Billy Beane

It’s not just Pitt’s obvious charisma, but Moneyball is a showcase for his deep soul. Without tics or showy emotionality, we click into his passion, rage, and pressure thanks to the under-appreciated gifts that Pitt brings as a natural presence. This performance could skyrocket up this list in time, and it should have gotten him his Oscar.

6. Scarlett Johansson – Under the Skin as The Female

How does an actor play a machine?? At a complete disconnect of body, mind, and soul, Scarlett Johansson in Under the Skin is an almost unhuman performance – devoid of a human toolkit of expression in the extreme. She delivers an original take on alien curiosity and adroit physicality, but also the empty focus of a worker bee. Combined with her vocal dexterity in Her, Johansson is the new superactor of deconstructed performance.

5. Cate Blanchett – Blue Jasmine as Jasmine

An undeniable inclusion. You can feel the actress rushing past even the already enthralling characterization on the page. It takes something rare to rush to the top of all-time Woody Allen performances, but damn. “I saw you, Erica!”

4. Julie Delpy – Before Midnight as Celine

It’s not the accrued time with the character over two previous films or writing of the character that makes her work as Celine in this installment so alive, it’s Delpy’s ability to be present and real in the moment to the point of seeming real. The shed of artifice, of performer/character barriers is unparalleled. She makes us feel Celine’s full life on the fringes filled with regrets, resentments, joys, and passions, with every turn of conversation flowing naturally – you wouldn’t even need the first two to understand her.

3. Oscar Isaac – Inside Llewyn Davis as Llewyn Davis

The music speaks for itself, but it’s also Isaac’s full-bodied explosion of Davis’s aching soul. There are certain emotions only music can express, but it’s not like Isaac’s singer would make much effort anyway. Music may be Davis’s motivator, but is the heart of the song the same one freezing over (or long since frozen) inside the man? Such an enigma would never would without Isaac’s never richer dynamism.

2. Anna Paquin – Margaret as Lisa Cohen

An embodiment of post-9/11 American guilt and the film’s thesis of “America as teenager”, Paquin’s Lisa Cohen is an insufferable loose cannon of good intentions. The infuriating aspects of Lisa are never shied from or excused, but her humanity is never compromised. Paquin’s grasp of the pre-adult mind is terrifying and complex, coherently crafting what is (at least on the page) the most challenging role of more than just this early decade. An intellectual and emotional marathon of a performance that hasn’t evaporated in the slightest since its storied release.

Best Performance of the Decade: Charlize Theron – Young Adult as Mavis Gary

Never is Charlize Theron telling you a single thing about Mavis Gary – everything grimace, every delusion, every frustration projects her pain, her hatred, her need to be loved. This decade has seen golden comedy in depression from Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids to Amy Schumer in Trainwreck, but Theron is not known to be so naturally gifted with comedy. The belly laughs come as deep as the pathos, and she’s served fully by the never-better talents of director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody. A rival to her Oscar-winning turn in Monster that never got her the deserved equal acclaim, Theron’s portrayal of Mavis is every bit as acidic as it is humane. The baby shower monolouge is fire – the full cannon power of Mavis’s hilarious hatred and her heartbreaking lack of self-awareness.

In what feels like a dreadfully long overdue return to comedy, Sally Field is the complete charmer we’ve always known her to be in 2015 SXSW hit Hello, My Name is Doris. Her recent career successes have been as first lady Mary Todd in Lincoln (earning another Oscar nomination) and the television melodrama Brothers and Sisters. Even her superhero entries were on the dour side with the ill-fated Spider-Man reboots having her cast as a sobbing Aunt May. This return to levity is so welcome that Doris, framed squarely around the actress’s winning screen presence, can be forgiven for it’s occasional thinness and sitcom-y predictability.

Doris is like if the Manic Pixie Dream Girl of recent Zooey Deschanel stereotype never found a sad manchild to help “save her from herself.” Her lonely circumstances and hoarding behavior mean she keeps mostly to herself, save a domineering brother (Stephen Root) and a headstrong best friend (Tyne Daly). But Doris is also a dreamer, living more in the fantasies she creates for herself than in the world around her – until she falls for a new man in the office (Max Greenfield) significantly her junior. A fast friendship with the beau brings a gaggle of youthful dimwits into Doris’s fold and her pining brings her out of her shell. The elements here sound ripe for something crushingly sad or slapstick silly, and the film tries to have it both ways.

The film is blessed to have a performer with the smarts of Field at its center. She provides Doris more emotional complexity than is sometimes afforded her my the thin screenplay, and handles the abrupt tonal shifts that the film can’t quite shoulder on its own. It’s something to see her smiling so much in a film again, her infectious personality radiating through Doris’s mousey exoskeleton. Doris’s naiveté is as real as her pain, and the performance is at it’s brightest with the two played in the same hand.

But for all of the predictable notes and sometimes bland presentation, the film itself is quite winning for its straightforward, digestible ambitions – even if it holds itself back. While the film is elevated and energized by the central performance, it could have used some of the soulful ambition that fuels Field’s work. But director Michael Showalter (of Wet Hot American Summer fame) assembles and steers a charming ensemble to witty effect in their own right, but none with the heights of Field’s lovelorn sweetheart.

Sally Field does leave a lasting impression on your heart, finally placed again in a role that serves her full range of gifts to make us laugh and pull the heartstrings. She’s a national treasure, dammit, so give her more opportunities like Doris.

C+

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Well, Happy (early) April Fools Day!

I skipped out on last week’s Daredevil Hit Me With Your Best Shot (you have no idea how behind on television I am) and came back to a bit of an Easter egg. Or just an egg. This week’s entry of John Boorman’s notoriously kooky Zardoz is quite a hoot, both for its batshit vision of a future culture of sexual malcontents and for its psychedelic visuals.

Zardoz is like The Wizard of Oz if Dorothy dropped acid, took up macrame, and got a little kinky. Beyond that, I can’t tell you a damn thing it’s about. Sean Connery’s braided tangerine leather daddy goes through a vortex and descends upon a group of sexless scientists dressed like the ensemble of a slutty barn production of Pippin, and some sex stuff happens?

Oh, yeah and some crystals! “I see nothing inside – except my own perplexity.” SAME.

Jokes aside about the indecipherably strange plot, the visuals are pretty fun – all pastel technicolor and hall-of-mirrors refracted. Shot by Geoffrey Unsworth, the legend behind 2001: A Space Odyssey and Cabaret, the camera consistently builds intrigue where the script prefers confundity. Though the overall effect is lethargic, the film does spark visually when capturing its lead actress Charlotte Rampling.

Yes, that Charlotte Rampling. And she’s actually quite good in the silly movie.

Here her Consuela confronts Sean Connery’s “beast” Zed for his sexual primacy, only to reveal his sexual lust for her. The dancing pulse between them indicates Zed’s *ahem* tumescence at the sight of her, more stimulated than from previously provided pornographic images. But the pulse also draws a literal line attaching the two, a laser beam creating a tense eye-contact between the two that awakens the lustless Consuela.

It’s when we get her fully unhinged that we get the Best Shot:

Consuela is at a literal tugging war at the sexually tense void between her and Zed, the pulse of his lust for her brought to life entangled in her own. Rampling is captured immaculately here, surrounded by vibrant color, but the most alive thing in the frame is her face. It’s powerful, sexual, and unexpectedly aggressive.

More of Hit Me With Your Best Shot!

• The Film Experience – Full Series
• filmmixtape Personal Picks

I’m trying to keep myself accountable this year to catching up to classics that I’ve embarrassingly never seen – The Apartment (swoon), Paths of Glory, The Conversation, more to come that have foolishly slipped through the cracks.

For this week’s Hit Me With Your Best Shot, we’ve been given the option of To Kill A Mockingbird or Roman Holiday to celebrate the 100th birthday of star Gregory Peck. Mockingbird was a childhood staple, so naturally I chose the unseen option from master director William Wyler for a little two bird, one stone. His everyman charm is on full display in Holiday, but Audrey Hepburn’s Oscar-winning princess is the one at center stage. The camera is fascinated by her, capturing every secret and momentary curiosity that tracks across her expressive face – with Peck being the plainspoken foil with secrets of his own.

If Peck takes a backseat in audience focus, it’s because his half of the love story lacks a personal arc that fuels the film like Hepburn’s Princess Ann. He’s falling in love with her, but her falling in love with him is only a piece to the larger puzzle of her self-actualization. It’s easy to imagine cinematographers Franz Planer and Henri Alekan (Oscar-nominated for their work here) relying heavily on the machinations of the star’s face given the quality of the performance at hand. Granted part of a cinematographer’s job is capturing performance, and they certainly know when to hold back and let the performer tell the story. As Ann enjoys the anonymity of Rome and enacts the whims she’d been refused by her position, Hepburn is staged more confidently in the frame while her body language becoming even more complex and nuanced.

However, the city begins to tell the love story.

I mean, who couldn’t fall in love in Rome? But Princess Ann’s Rome of Roman Holiday isn’t just vast architecture and ancient pillars – though make no mistake, the film is pure location porn, grand and alive. Though as Ann journeys through the day, her stops become more intimate and narratively resonant. Her pitstops of gleeful abandon, wish fulfillment, and false pretenses are reflected in the history of the city, with Hepburn projecting everything Ann leaves unsaid.

At each new adventure, the lovers are drawn closer and closer together in the frame, and sharing it with increased frequency. Initially they are diminished by the scale of their grand surroundings, but as their intrigue in one another grows, the scale reverts. The wonder the audience feels for the city is slowly replaced by the burgeoning love affair – leading up to the deceptively simple Best Shot.

Perhaps out of context, this shot seems pedestrian, but there’s a simple power in drawing the lovers closer together over the course of a film (I audibly gasped at this shot, taken with the emotion). The close-up is over-used in current filmmaking to the point that we can forget its impact and value. Here it provides a moment as immediate and heart-catching as the lovers first kiss, a new level of intimacy achieved. The context of the city around them no longer significant, just the pure blinding truth of their attraction to one another.

Again to the point of capturing performance: Planer and Alekan capture Peck and Hepburn at their pure best here – Peck’s straightforward charm finally unfettered, and Hepburn telling a complete story in five seconds with just her eyelids and a few facial muscles. This is how you capture romance!

More of Hit Me With Your Best Shot!

• The Film Experience – Full Series
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Sundance’s most divisive and notorious competition entry from this year’s festival, Swiss Army Man, is coming this summer and just got its first trailer. The film features Daniel Radcliffe as a farting corpse that becomes the companion to a stranded and perhaps delusional Paul Dano. You can see how the concept had some Sundancers scratching their heads and others making an early exit.

The trailer suggests a sweeter and more ambitious film than the early dismissive festival response promised. Music video partners The Daniels took the competition Best Director prize and are at the very least giving us something we haven’t quite experienced. After the career-high benchmark of Love and Mercy (a filmmixtape Best Actor runner-up performance), I’m particularly excited to see if Dano will continue to challenge himself.

If anyone can handle this kind of difficult material and keep the conversation alive, it’s maverick distributor A24. They’ve previously had small scale success with tough sells like Spring Breakers and Under the Skin, though this one will need the passionate reviews of those films to curb the bad buzz.