Horror Actoring: Max von Sydow in "The Exorcist"

by Jason Adams

"I think the point is to make us despair. To see ourselves as animal and ugly. To make us reject the possibility that God could love us."

Re-watching The Exorcist this weekend for the gazillionth time -- but for the first while under the Coronavirus quarantine here in New York -- was an interesting experiment. Like a lot of you I've been locked up in my apartment now for three days, just watching movies and binging TV shows and doing whatever I can to avoid looking at the news (or god forbid Twitter). But still it's proven impossible not to see each successive thing through the lens of now -- the characters in whatever I'm watching will go to a bar or hug and I will wince, thinking "Socially distance yourselves dammit!" before I can even catch myself.

One week ago (a lifetime in itself, at this point) Max von Sydow died and Nathaniel wrote up a lovely memorial and asked me if I'd like to switch up our "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" series for an actor who we loved like an actress, and one who did his fair share of time mucking about in the horror genre. Max had a face for dallying with Death, be it over a chess board or a little girl's bedside; as gaunt and serious as the grave, as a medieval plague etching, but also capable and strong enough to smile, knowingly, back at it. Max Von Sydow always looked like he knew things he wasn't telling us...

Click to read more ...

Doc Corner: William Friedkin's 'The Devil and Father Amorth'

By Glenn Dunks

It’s becoming more common for directors known for fictional narrative cinema to work in the documentary medium as well. Not all of them land as successfully as, say, Ava DuVernay who managed a Best Documentary nomination at the Oscars as her first nod, despite previous critically acclaimed narrative features including even a Best Picture nominee. Documentary is, after all, just another form of building a narrative. There’s no real reason why telling a story in that form ought to be any different to building one around real people and real locations.

The Devil and Father Armoth, now in limited release and available on digital platforms, isn't William Friedkin's first documentary. He's made short docs like 2007’s The Painter’s Voice, 1985’s Putting it Together: The Making of the Broadway Album for Barbra Streisand, and the feature-length Conversations with Fritz Lang. That latter example, a 1975 film, followed Friedkin’s one-two-three narrative punch of The Boys in the Band, The French Connection and The Exorcist.

The filmmaker and his subject

The Exorcist remains his most famous film and also lays the groundwork for The Devil and Father Amorth...

Click to read more ...

This Is Halloween

By Salim Garami

What's Good? We're less than a week away from the spookiest time of the year so let's talk about what the holiday means in the cinematic sense. These are personal impressions and I hope you'll share your own as well.

We start with the actual season in itself: the autumn colors are there in a very muted way that signify the beginning of the end of the year in all its resigned reds and oranges. The palette chases away the greens and blues that took over the summer, although one could certainly see faint glimmers of those colors to remind us of the months past. Such as in Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and its Halloween scene, glowing with yellowish twilight and orange rays in the sun that reflect on the suburban homes and streets Elliot and his friends walk...

Click to read more ...

Unlinkable

Awards Daily Jazz interviews Ali Fazal of Victoria & Abdul
Variety Rock star Tom Petty was reported dead today but reports may have been premature. Story developing but sounds dire
Coming Soon M Night Shyamalan's sequel to Unbreakable starring Samuel L Jackson and called Glass is now shooting
/Film Charlies Angels, a property which never truly dies but keeps trying to find new relevance, is trying again. They're talking up Lupita Nyong'o and Kristen Stewart for leading roles. Kristen's been doing amazing work lately but she is 100% wrong for Charlie's Angels which needs exuberant pop flair when she's all minimalist / sober as an actor. WTH?

Decider surprise! Gerald's Game, a Stephen King adaptation for Netflix starring Carla Gugino, is good
Coming Soon Daniel Dae Kim's stunt training for the Hellboy reboot
/Film Hocus Pocus moves forward as a TV movie remake - none of the original actors or filmmaking team are involved
David Poland on Blade Runner 2049 with no spoilers "It is Aliens to Alien" ... whoa, that's high praise
Billboard composer Danny Elfman interviewed about Superman's iconic theme (redeployed for Justice League) and his long collaboration with Gus Van Sant
Playbill Judy Garland's final concert, restored/remastered from 1969 will be released for the first time
i09 on why you should be watching the Exorcist TV series, back for Season 2
/Film Amazon still has a lot of work to do to catch up with Netflix and Hulu but they're diving into the sci-fi genre big time

stage of screen
Playbill a new musical version of Roald Dahl's The Witches (previously dramatizes wonderfully with Anjelica Huston as the High Witch in the 1990 film) coming to the National Theater of London
Gothamist more on the Pretty Woman musical coming to Broadway
Playbill the Mean Girls marquee is up on Broadway now. It's not just on Wednesdays when it's pink

funny haha
Electric Literature what 7 classic literary characters' dick pics would look like from Atticus Finch to Jay Gatsby (p.s. this is actually safe for work so go ahead and click if you're at your place of employment)

Tweetweek: Lotsa Cannes Action, Political LOLs, Sarandon x 2

A roundup as we do. It's so hard to keep up during Cannes! 

The #Cannes2017 press badge comes with amusing button that roughly translates, "I did not understand it, but the film was really good." pic.twitter.com/4eB9ZcppKm

— Peter Howell (@peterhowellfilm) May 16, 2017

More tweets after the jump including Cannes mania, White House exorcisms, Netflix divisiveness, and beautiful actresses of course. They're kind of a staple here, okay?...

Click to read more ...