30 Friday Apr 2021
Posted in Film, Jeanne Eagels
≈ Comments Off on From Jeanne, to Bette: A Tale of Two Letters
Before its restoration in 2013, Jeanne Eagels’ penultimate movie, The Letter (1929), was falling into obscurity. But while the 1940 remake is more accomplished overall, Jeanne’s performance as a frustrated colonial wife more than holds up against Bette Davis in the same role. An in-depth comparison between the two is posted at the Notoriously Nora movie blog today. Continue reading
26 Monday Apr 2021
Posted in Film, Jeanne Eagels
≈ Comments Off on And the (Posthumous) Oscar Goes to…
Tags
Academy Awards, Anthony Hopkins, Chadwick Boseman, Jeanne Eagels, Jeanne Eagels: A Life Revealed, Johnny Oleksinski, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, New York Post, Oscars, The Letter
Last night’s Academy Awards was an unusual event in more ways than one. Firstly, the pandemic made it something of a bare-bones affair. And secondly, the favourite to win in the Best Actor category – Chadwick Boseman, for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom – passed away in 2020, aged 43, after a long battle with cancer. In another change of routine, this award was presented at the end of the ceremony, with winner Anthony Hopkins, in a speech given from his home in Wales, acknowledging his fellow nominee: “At 83 years of age, I did not expect to get this award, I really didn’t … I want to pay tribute to Chadwick Boseman, who was taken from us far too early.”
In her own way, Jeanne Eagels was as much an icon of the Roaring Twenties as Ma Rainey, and as several media outlets have noted lately, she also heads up the select group of actors who earned Oscar nominations posthumously. Continue reading
18 Monday Jan 2021
Posted in Books, Film, Marilyn Monroe, Poetry
≈ Comments Off on Beauty Mark: A Verse Novel of Marilyn Monroe
The front cover image presents – in extreme close-up and suffused in glitter – all the facial attributes of a screen goddess: the bedroom eyes, red lips, and of course her beauty mark (cut into the dustjacket.) And yet, she’s both familiar and strangely not herself: a dazzling mask. Only when the jacket unfolds and the iconic image is revealed in full can we be certain this is Marilyn Monroe, from the same photo shoot that inspired Andy Warhol’s first silkscreens. Beneath this vivid mask, a glossy black hardcover is embossed with a short verse in white font: “No one knows/how it feels/inside my troubled mind/No one wants to.” Continue reading
30 Wednesday Dec 2020
Posted in Books, Brighton, Film, Marilyn Monroe, Non-Fiction, Television
≈ Comments Off on 2020: A Year in Film
Tags
A Year in Films and TV, Andrew Patterson, August Wilson, Beanpole, Billie, Billie Holiday, Brighton, Calm With Horses, Carole Lombard, Chadwick Boseman, David Lynch, Day By Day With Marilyn, Diana Rigg, Duke of York's Brighton, Edward Norton, Eliza Hittman, Eva Riley, Film Noir, George C. Wolfe, Hollywood's Hard-Luck Dames, James Erskine, Kantemir Balagov, Laura Wagner, Linda Manz, Lucky Grandma, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Marilyn Monroe, Michelle Morgan, Motherless Brooklyn, Neo-Noir, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Nick Rowland, Perfect 10, Russia, Sasie Sealy, The Last Interview, The Vast of Night, Tsai Chin, Veronica Lake, Viola Davis
Photo by Curtis Tappenden
This photo was taken in Brighton just two winters ago, but it already feels like a distant memory. Founded in 1910, the Duke of York’s is the oldest operating cinema in Britain, and I’ve been a customer, on and off, for the last quarter-century. The last film I saw there, back in February, was (ironically) Parasite. After four months in lockdown the Duke’s reopened in July, but by October its parent company Cineworld had announced that all theatres would close indefinitely. Now this grand old building is boarded up, a sorry sight – and it’s just one of many venues facing an uncertain future. I’ve really missed the cinema, though streaming has offered an alternative of sorts. As an old friend told me recently, we all need a little glamour in our lives – and so I hope 2021 is kinder to the arts than this year has been. Continue reading
07 Monday Dec 2020
Posted in Books, Film, Non-Fiction
≈ Comments Off on Agency and Imagination in the Films of David Lynch
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Agency and Imagination in the Films of David Lynch, Blue Velvet, Candace R. Craig, David Lynch, Eraserhead, Film Noir, Inland Empire, James D. Reid, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Neo-Noir, Philosophy, The Straight Story, Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart
A beautiful, dark-haired woman flees from a car wreck and wakes up in a stranger’s apartment, suffering from amnesia. When asked her name, she looks at an old movie poster on the wall, and focuses on its star: “Rita.” This pivotal moment from Mulholland Dr. (2001) adorns the cover of a new book about director David Lynch, as it was that film which sparked the interest of its two authors. Continue reading
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