Review: "The Great" on Hulu

by Cláudio Alves

Most dramatizations of history have a difficult, often unbalanced, relationship with facts. Reality is notoriously devoid of narrative structure, which makes taking departures and creative license into an essential crime. The troubles arise when the parameters of adaptation aren't clear, when fiction dresses itself as truth, and confusion blooms from pretension. Hulu's biographical series about the early years of Catherine the Great in Russia is unencumbered by such issues, sidestepping them with irreverence. At the start of each episode, a title card points out that this miniseries is only occasionally based on things that really happened.

The rest of it is hilarious fantasy, a play on history that turns the rise of Russia's empress and reformer into the stuff of romantic comedy. It's a black-hearted farce that's unafraid and unashamed of being silly…

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Elle, Angelina, and somebunny we worship

Beauty Break: Happy 4th of July

We wish we were feeling more festive today and could shout "Happy Fourth of July !!!" with enthusiasm but the USofA hasn't felt like something to celebrate lately what with concentration camps for children, a would be fascist and friend o' dictactors as President. The next election (and a real Captain America) can't come soon enough!

That said, if you appreciate movies / moviestars for their escapist value, WHICH WE DEFINITELY DO, let's briefly forget our collective troubles by staring at them in their red white and blues. We've shared some of these images before but such is also the natural of holidays... TRADITION. Enjoy the views after the jump...

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The 72 Greatest Gowns of the 72nd Cannes Festival (Part 2)

by Nathaniel R

Look, Andie MacDowell (with Ellen von Unwerth and Izabel Goulart) at a party in Cannes is illustrating for us exactly how we feel like watching actresses work the red carpets at Cannes: drunk, giddy, silly, happy and greedy. 

So let's finish up that list of our favourite gowns at this year's Cannes but before we do that we should note that we purposely didn't include any pants outfits though there were more women in slacks this year than has been the norm. Of those our favourite looks belonged to Margot Robbie and Li Yuchun. Like so...

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The 72 Greatest Gowns of the 72nd Cannes Festival (Part 1)

by Nathaniel R

How did we ignore the gowns from Cannes red carpets for the entirety of this year's run in the South of France? As penance we've collected our favourite gowns (i.e. anything that isn't pants) in two giant red carpet posts. Herewith the 72 greatest gowns from the Cannes Festival ranked in rough order of our appreciation. The order is for entertainment purposes only and we shan't stand by the arbitrary rankings if grilled about them. The order would change every five minutes as this was pieced together bit by bit over several days and our favourite color might be champagne in five minutes whereas at this very second it happens to be red (weird) and usually it's blue or purple.

72 ELLE FANNING 

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