Retro Randomness: Come to the Stable (1949)

by Nathaniel R

Have you ever queued up an old movie no one talks about anymore hoping to discover a gem?

You imagine that it's only been forgotten or is underdiscussed due to the vagaries of when and where movies are available in the ever changing landcape of viewing technologies, Such was my fantasy when I sat down to watch Come to the Stable (1949). This French nuns in New England comedy was my biggest viewing gap in 1949 Oscar history. In fact, I didn't even know it was a comedy.

Alas the fantasy of stumbling upon a forgotten gem didn't last long. Still, Come to the Stable's tagline must have been true in 1949. It read...

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Tweets that make you go hmmmmm

Here we go

My favorite genre of movies are ones in which Saoirse Ronan:
- wants to go to New York
- goes to New York
- fights with her mom
- leaves her mom
- cries over letters from her mom
- slowdances w/ a Nice Irish Boy
- hooks up w/ a Charismatic Italian Boy
- goes to church a lot pic.twitter.com/R98O7fnNbj

— Kate Halliwell (@Kate__Halliwell) November 10, 2017

 Should we have a "Lady Bird" week where we truly obsess? Considering it. MORE AFTER THE JUMP including Wonderstruck, Justice League, Star Wars ghosts, and kindred spirits in James Dean fandom...

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Middleburg: Maggie Betts' "Novitiate"

Continuing our Middleburg Film Festival adventures. Here's Lynn Lee

Middleburg is the kind of idyllic Virginia town that makes me wish I had enough independent means to spend regular fall weekends there lodging at a cushy spa, riding horses, visiting local wineries, and binging once a year on Oscar-baity films before they get released in theaters.  As it is, I was happy to get a taste of the latter on a press pass to this year’s festival.  On Day 3, I joined Nathaniel in town (albeit at different events) and took in Maggie Betts’ Novitiate, Todd Haynes’ Wonderstruck, and Dee Rees’ Mudbound.

Of the three, the one I knew the least about beforehand turned out to be the one I liked best.  Set at a convent in the 1960s around the time of Vatican II, Novitiate centers on the struggles and yearnings of young postulant Cathleen (Margaret Qualley of “The Leftovers” and The Nice Guys) and the fellow nun-aspirants and nuns around her.  That may sound like niche fare at best, but I hope Sony Pictures figures out how to market it because it’s an astoundingly assured, riveting debut feature...

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Review: "The Little Hours"

by Chris Feil

A naughty nunnery run amok is the setting for The Little Hours, a medieval comedy by Jeff Baena. The film takes a passage of Boccacio’s The Decameron and gives it a verbally modernized flair: ancient notions of sin are reimagined through potty-mouthed contemporary delivery and hipster dryness. What makes for a unique (if obvious) take on stifled early-century femininity also becomes an entertaining satire on female rebellion and male stupidity.

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RuPaul's Drag Race S9E9 - Behind the Mask

by Chris Feil

Have you caught your breath since this week’s dramatic elimination on RuPaul’s Drag Race? Should I get you an oxygen mask?

Drag Race has always been a show that delights in shocking us. This episode was so briskly paced, it was positively giddy to get past the challenge and workroom so that it could bring the drama. This week, the queens teamed up to create their own sitcom pilots (more a commercial for one, really). The challenge is perfectly timed with the upfronts over the past week, but Mama Ru dealt us one vicious cancellation.

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