AFI Fest: “The Fire Inside” Packs a Surprising Punch

by Eurocheese

I have to admit that on the last day of AFI Fest, I was not particularly excited to see a boxing film. Oscar seems to have an affinity for the topic, but sports films in general don't resonate with me. Shame on me for underestimating Barry Jenkins as a screenwriter and for not having higher hopes for cinematographer Rachel Morrison’s directorial debut. The Fire Inside, much like its protagonist, proves itself again and again: It’s a compelling, smart drama with a scope that stretches far beyond the game.

The film is based on the true story of Claressa Shields who overcame obstacles all her life in Flint, Michigan on her way to becoming an Olympian...

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"Come to the Stable" and Tennis Nuns

by Nick Taylor

Today is the 75th anniversary of Come to the Stable, which has to rank among the most inoffensive, featherweight films to earn seven nominations from Thee Academy Awards. The story of two nuns, Sister Margaret (Loretta Young) and Sister Scholastica (Celeste Holm), who travel all the way from France to a wintry New England township so they can build a hospital. “Why do they go all the way to New England” you might ask, but who cares!

Specific details about why things happen are not the draw of Come to the Stable. A musician/landlord named Bob does not want the nuns to build their new hospital on a hill he owns for some reason, which doesn’t stop them from securing a plot of land and importing two dozen of their Sisters from France. At one point the nuns sneak into a gangster’s suite and successfully convince him to sell the aforementioned plot of land after they trade stories about serving in World War II. In short, every obstacle to Sister Margaret and Sister Scholastica getting what they want proves powerless in the face of their somewhat savvy, utterly guileless embodiments of faith. However, there is one enemy the women cannot pray away, one barrier they must overcome with strength, vigor, and attention. That barrier’s name, you might ask? She’s called tennis . . . .

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Almost There: Emma Stone in "Battle of the Sexes"

by Cláudio Alves

Our most recent two-time Best Actress champion is back in theaters with Yorgos Lanthimos' Kinds of Kindness, a black-hearted tryptic that allows Emma Stone to experiment with three distinctly realized characters. To mark the occasion and the success of another tennis-related movie – Guadagnino's Challengers – let's think back to one of the few times this Academy favorite was in the race but didn't land a nomination. In 2017, right after her first Oscar win, Stone played Billie Jean King in Battle of the Sexes. Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the biopic was made in parallel with a Presidential election that saw a very different outcome than its titular match. Looking back, Battle of the Sexes reached for the zeitgeist yet failed to predict where the world was headed.

As for Stone, the project signaled her most outward flirtation with traditional prestige before her career went into another direction altogether…

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Review: "Challengers" throbs with desire

by Cláudio Alves

American mainstream cinema has rarely felt as sexless as it does today. Even in the period between the 1934 implementation of the Hays Code and its demise, screens felt roused with desire. In some ways, the prohibition of overt sexuality supercharged movies with erotic potential, like a pot of boiling water that heats up faster once you put a lid on it. But nowadays, such qualities feel like artifacts of a bygone era. That's not to say movies suddenly lack objects of desire. Instead, as RS Benedict put it in his essay on superhero films, "everyone is beautiful and no one is horny."  But here comes Luca Guadagnino to the rescue, that lustful Italian whose films beckon a return to hedonistic cinema even when produced within Hollywood. Challengers is a prime example of that…

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Poster and Clip from "Nyad"

by Nathaniel R

Netflix has released the poster and the first clip from Nyad, the true story of open water swimmer Diana Nyad's attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida at 60 years of age. The film is the first narrative feature from Oscar-winning documentarians Elisabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin and it's based on the memoir "Find a Way". The film hits theaters on October 20th for two weeks before landing on Netflix. As for myself, I'll see it on the big screen not just for the always amazing Annette Bening but also because the cinematographer is Oscar winner Claudio Miranda so maybe there are gorgeous images of the open water? 

See the poster and the clip after the jump...

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