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Entries in I Tonya (26)

Saturday
Jan132024

Hello, Gorgeous: Best Actress of 2017

A new series by Juan Carlos Ojano

This year’s slate of nominees showcase five performers strategically placed within the vision of their respective films right from their introductions. Whether introduced in a scene with actual spatial detail that immediately relates to the core of their characters or configured within the film’s style and tone in a more general sense, none of our first glimpses of them are deficient in meaning and purpose. It is probably not a coincidence that most of these performances appear in Best Picture nominees (and the one that didn’t probably came close too), a rarity in the Best Actress category.

Are you ready? The year is 2017...

Click to read more ...

Friday
Feb222019

Great Acceptance Speeches: Allison Janney, "I, Tonya"

We asked Team Experience to share their favourite Oscar acceptance speeches as we countdown to Hollywood's High Holy Night. Here's Dancin' Dan...

PERFECTION.

Look, I was rooting for Laurie Metcalf, too, but how can you deny this moment?

Click to read more ...

Monday
Jul092018

Beauty vs Beast: The Gump Generation

Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" fun-time poll extravaganza - it feels, in the legendary words of Stephanie Tanner, HOW RUDE, to wish Tom Hanks a birthday today with what's come to be seen as his most divisive role, that of the lead character in Robert Zemeckis' 1994 Oscar-magnet Forrest Gump. "We hate that movie now," screams the internet echo chamber.

Except... I kind of don't? I've always been plenty privy to its gross conservative streak - I went to film school in the late 90s, we talked about it a whole bunch, don't worry. I get that it takes a feather-lite tickle to nostalgic Boomer bullshit when a hand grenade might've been more helpful. I was always rooting for Jenny (Robin Wright) and have always found the film's liberal ladling of degradation onto its independently-minded female character, in the words of here and now, hella probelmatic.

And yet despite all that if I stumble upon the film on TV I'll always get sucked in. Zemeckis spins his fable of Straight White Americana with soda-pop commercial zeal, and everybody's so good, iconic really, in their roles. Perhaps we can one day find a middle-ground, watching the movie as an under-amber representation of a vacuum-sealed culture's last gasp; this is the way America saw itself once, lucky and dumb, constantly blundering forward into the next morass without thinking and then making a pretty story out of the good parts.

PREVIOUSLY Speaking of curdled American Dreams last week's I Tonya contest gave Tonya her gold medal at last - Margot Robbie kneecapped statue-hog Allison Janney with 68% of your vote. Said Suzanne, echoing most of your comments since y'all still mad about last year's Oscars:

 

"Laurie Metcalf should have won. (And if anyone were going to beat her, it should have been Lesley Manville.) It's Tonya for me."

Tuesday
Jul032018

iTunes' 99¢ Deals This Week

No, we are not conspiring with iTunes. It's pure accident that their 99¢ deal this week is I, Tonya moments after Jason asked us to vote on it in the Beauty vs Beast column. I don't like that movie but if you do or if you haven't seen it 99¢ can't really be beat.

I find myself turning more and more to iTunes and hoping for 99¢ rental deals for films I don't own because Netflix / Prime / Filmstruck whoever have such limited and shifting selections each month. iTunes changes their dollar deals quickly but right at the moment there are a ton of great films as well as some interesting little ones... 

Click to read more ...

Monday
Jul022018

Beauty vs Beast: Gold Medal Mamas

Jason Adams from MNPP here trying to think cold on a 95 degree day in New York City - let's step back in time then to the cool months of this past winter, known around these parts as Awards Season, and onto the ice, for it is Margot Robbie's birthday today and we never did a "Beauty vs Beast" for I Tonya if you can believe it. I'm a little shocked myself that we never had 'em duke it out. So here, in one corner we have Tonya Harding (Robbie), who fits this boxing talk like a glove, and in the other corner her mother LaVona (a statue-snatching parrot-wearing Allison Janney), who... is also perfectly comfortable existing inside this metaphor of the boxing ring. 

PREVIOUSLY Last week's contest also tackled an antagonistic mother-daughter duo with Dolores Clairborne, and it was Dolores herself came up on top with a whopping 80% of your vote. Said W.J.:

"That film is a flat-out masterpiece, no joke. Awe-inspiring, fully realized performances all the way around, stirring cinematography and visual effects that stand the test of time. Glad to see it get some love."