Thoughts I Had... while staring at the first images from "Babylon"

by Nathaniel R

Damien Chazelle photographed by Scott Garfield on the set

Damien Chazelle's Hollywood opus (of some sort or another), Babylon, wasn't ready for the fall festivals so we had no clue when we'd get our first taste. Thankfully today Vanity Fair ended our long drought of information, visual and otherwise, with several lux images from the film. Naturally then it's time to discuss our thoughts, yours and mine (as they come to me). Yours go in the comments. Please don't be shy. The team misses socializing with you in this way. Okay, lots of images to get through so here we go as fast as can, thoughts in the order they came to us...

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News Catch-up: Honorary Oscars, "Barbie", and RIPs

by Nathaniel R

Peter Weir, picture here on the set of "The Truman Show", will receive an Honorary Oscar in November. © Paramount Pictures

We had intended for June to be our freshly energized new season but that fantasized new season here at TFE had its own mind and said "no no no, maybe July". Neverthless before June ends, a rundown on stories we haven't discussed in the early summer lull. 

HONORARY OSCARS
First things first you have probably heard that the Honorary Oscar recipients were announced...

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450 days until.... BARBIE

© Warner Bros

Warner Bros just released the first promotional image for Barbie. Though we wouldn't normally be so excited for a corporate ploy to sell more toys we have to think there's something larger and more clever at work here...

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The Fantabulous Style of "Birds of Prey"

by Cláudio Alves

There was a time when super-hero movies were colorful circuses of artifice and joy. Remember the pop iconography of Christopher Reeves' Superman, Tim Burton's Batman or the Punk stylings of Tank Girl? It all changed with the dawn of the 21st century. X-Men brought on an era of heroes dressed in many tedious iterations of leather jumpsuits, while Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy made grittiness cool again. Explosions of poppy color were out and grim pseudo-realism was in.

The DC Comics flicks took the trend to its desaturated limit, but even the MCU is guilty of indulging in this aesthetic stagnation. Fortunately, some films break the convention, be it the Afrofuturistic haute couture of Black Panther or Aquaman's glitzy excess. We can add Birds of Prey to that elite club of stylish super-hero flicks…

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Review: Birds of Prey

by Chris Feil

Cathy Yan returns Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn to the screen after the regrettable Suicide Squad, and it’s somewhat of a rebirth in more was than one. Now single but not fully exorcized from her sublimating relationship with the Joker, Harley is looking to stand on her own two feet. Yet Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) again aligns her with a newly birthed group of crimefighters, this time in an all-female set of not-so-anti heroes.

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