On the mend. And an Oscar thought.

by Nathaniel R

Just wanted to quickly check in to let you all know that I am on the mend and doing a lot better now, self-recovering from a flu or covid-19 or whatever it is/was that I was relaying on the podcast. The fever has been gone for a couple of days and I have more energy daily.  It's hard to get tested which is such a ridiculous problem. Our country was so severely ill prepared for a pandemic since the CDC was gutted by T**** two years ago (why does the media stay so silent on the awful decisions of the government and spend so much time on his tweets or just replaying his self-congratulatory speeches?). And even if the GOP hadn't already ravaged greatly needed government programs, our healthcare system was already in disarray. People being laid off right and left in the face of business closings will also mean the loss of medical insurance for a lot of people. Losing insurance during a pandemic is (unneccessary) tragedy on top of tragedy. It only highlights the absurdity of connecting your ability to see a doctor with working for a corporation. The two should have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

It's been beyond clear for years that our country needs universal healthcare. 

But on a more familiar topic for this blog so as not too get bogged down in political anger -- movies and Oscars...

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Sophia Loren Returns...

by Eric Blume

Variety recently announced that Netflix has acquired rights to an Italian remake of the 1977 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, Madame Rosa. Now titled The Life Ahead, it stars Sophia Loren in the Simone Signoret role, who this time "forges a bond with a 12-year-old Senegalese immigrant boy named Momo."

There's a lot to unpack here.  The original Madame Rosa movie is notoriously one of the worst winners of that Oscar category, and for good reason:  the movie is sentimental garbage.  This French film won over, among others, Luis Bunuel's challenging The Obscure Object of Desire and Ettore Scola's A Special Day, starring Marcello Mastroianni and...Sophia Loren...

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The French Dispatch, Wes Anderson's latest

by Murtada Elfadl

Wes Anderson’s new movie, The French Dispatch, is about a fictional weekly magazine that was inspired by The New Yorker. That’s big news for this writer who got their subscription while still a teenager, and used to look at the “goings on about town” and imagine living in New York, while being so far away in Khartoum. Immediately the film shoots to the top of my most anticipated for the year...

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Jessica Chastain is Tammy Faye...

by Eric Blume

It's never a bad time to start talking about possiblities for NEXT YEAR's Best Actress Oscar, which may include one of our favorites here at TFE, Jessica Chastain.  She just wrapped filming The Eyes of Tammy Faye, where she will play infamous televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, opposite Andrew Garfield as husband Jim. The movie is based from the documentary of the same title from twenty years ago, here directed by the talented Michael Showalter (The Big Sick and Hello, My Name is Doris).  

Seems like inspired casting and an inspired choice for director, since the movie could really deliver in several different tones based on this trio.  What it probably won't be, let's hope, is another straight biopic...

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HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

Though the film year doesn't really end until Oscar night (you know it's true!) here are some cinematic dreams that we have for 2020 on this special night/morning...

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