Sundance: 'Eileen' is the movie 'Carol' couldn't be

by Jason Adams

The blonde woman in expensive clothes explodes into the dowdy brunette’s life like fireworks. She just appears one day, flung out of space, and nothing will ever be the same for the Plain Jane working girl again. Everything is upended in Midcentury America, surprise feelings warming in the brunette's belly she doesn’t even have a name for, inspiring a sudden need to run. And yes you’d be forgiven if you thought I was speaking about Carol, Todd Hayne’s 2015 masterpiece about a love affair between Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, who no matter what Harge says were not ugly people. 

No I speak of a different lesbian potboiler that just popped off at Sundance this year, director William “Lady Macbeth” Oldroyd’s Eileen, based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s 2015 novel...

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Buzz Linkyear

• Interview here's a dream pairing Interview has Ben Whishaw and Andrew Scott in conversation on sexuality, chemistry and imagination
• Letterboxd Edgar Wright is programming a series at Alamo Drafthouse for next week. Wild thrilling Technicolor masterpiece Black Narcisssus is among the movies so you can see it on the big screen where it belongs!
• Variety How's this for a strange story? That Joan Rivers miniseries which was to have starred Kathryn Hahn has already been cancelled because they hadn't secured the life rights from Melissa Rivers (D'oh!)

More after the jump including Ryan Gosling's next project, Trainspotting, Last Night in Soho, Eternals, and a movie about Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear...

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Nathaniel in Venice: Horrors! It's "Last Night in Soho" and "Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon"

Nathaniel reporting from the Venice Film Festival

Let’s take a wee break from the Oscar-bound and foreign arthouse offerings at Venice and talk genre. As with comedies, there’s not enough of it at festivals but it’s good to program a variety of pictures if you can. Here are two films featuring supernatural elements, one a complete misfire the other a future cult gem... 

Last Night in Soho (Edgar Wright)
I am deeply sad to report that this wasn’t (at all) for me, though I was so looking forward as I generally enjoy Wright’s work. I was worried from the start with the movie’s hyper enthusiasm about everything it’s doing even before it’s begun doing things...

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Tribeca 2021: "The Justice of Bunny King" review

by Jason Adams

I know from untold years of movie-watching experience that it's nowhere near as simple as "just turn the camera on and point it at an incredibly gifted actor (or two)" to end up with a great film worth watching. There have been too many painful yet well-cast examples to the contrary to count. But it's hard to feel that argument in all of my heart in the wake of watching Essie Davis and Thomasin McKenzie in The Justice of Bunny King, first-time filmmaker Gaysorn Thavat's powerhouse drama that's just premiered at Tribeca. These two actors, especially Davis, really seem at this point unstoppable. They just have faces you want to stare at, surroundings be damned.

That's not to say that Bunny King lets them down... Thavat's proves to be an instinctively gifted storyteller, foremost knowing the value in those faces and performances...

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The Fellowship of the Link

• EW The Pride Issue gives its four covers and profiles to Lil Nas X, Lena Waithe, Bowen Yang, and MJ Rodriguez
• /Film "Your favourite hobbits" Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan are launching a podcast about The Lord of the Rings
• IndieWire Why the Emmys should honor Bridgerton
• Deadline Timothée Chalamet, Billie Eilish, Naomi Osaka, Amanda Gorman set as Met Gala co-hosts

More after the jump including Ludi Lin, Thomasin McKenzie, Ewan McGregor as Halston, a new Amy Adams project, updates on Kevin Spacey's trial, and arrests in the Lady Gaga dognapping...

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