Podcast: Dunkirk and Spider-Man Homecoming

In this episode Nathaniel, Joe and Nick talk about the latest superhero movie (Spider-Man Homecoming) and the latest heroic movie without super powers (Dunkirk). Plus Nick has very exciting upcoming Film Comment issue news.

Index (42 minutes)
00:01 Nick talked to Jane Campion, omg!
03:15 Spider-Man Homecoming, Tom Holland, Marisa Tomei, and a brief sidebar to Avengers: Age of Ultron
13:33 Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan's recurring obsessions, and brief tangents to Detroit and The Beguiled

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Related Posts
• Revenge of the Twinks
• Review Spider-Man Homecoming
• Previous Podcast

Dunkirk and Spidey

Cinematography, Production Design, Editing ~ April Foolish Oscar Predix

We're almost to our favorite craft category (costume design) and the marquee categories (acting/picture) are yet to come but here's another does of "what could be" in a few visual categories as our April Foolish Oscar Predictions continue...

Mudbound was shot by Rachel Morrison, who was previously DP on Fruitvale Station and Dope. Next up: Marvel's Black Panther

CINEMATOGRAPHY [click for the chart]
The big question TFE must always ask is "when is a female DP ever going to get nominated?" This year we count three female DPs with major projects: Mandy Walker (Australia, Hidden Figures) shot the romantic drama The Mountain Between Us, Rachel Morrison (Fruitvale Station) delivered another Sundance hit with Mudbound, and Urszula Pontikos (Lilting) was behind the camera on the story of Gloria Grahame's last days called Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool. 

Meanwhile on the male side of the equation, given that Greig Fraser and Bradford Young were FINALLY nominated last season after years of impressive rangey work, can the same thing happen for Hoyt Van Hoytema who has been waiting just as long. He shot Dunkirk this year.

PRODUCTION DESIGN 
Two mini-dramas within this race might be Production Designers at war with themselves. Four time nominee Sarah Greenwood has two high profile films, one fantasy (Beauty and the Beast) and one World War II drama (Darkest Hour). Three time nominee Nathan Crowley's films are less diametrically opposed but there's still plenty of room to showcase his range from the period circus musical The Greatest Showman and yet another collaboration with Chris Nolan on the World War II drama Dunkirk. Neither have ever won. Could this be the year for one of them? 

FILM EDITING
Arguably the category that's most dependent on the Best Picture race (give or take an action movie or thriller now and then) so this is like throwing darts at a wall about which films will have Best Picture heat and which could be the type of films that are honored for editing without that boost. 

Previous first stabs at new Oscar predictions
BEST SCORE, BEST SOUND
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS, BEST MAKEUP & HAIR
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE 

Review: The Zookeeper's Wife

A portion of this review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

Jessica Chastain stars as Antonina Zabinski, The Zookeeper's Wife, a true story based on the international bestseller of the same title. The Zabinski family run a lovingly crafted zoo in Warsaw but political unrest unnerves Jan Zabinski (Johan Heldenbergh) enough to attempt to send his wife and child away. Antonia, naive and endearingly devoted to her animals, won't have it. Then German bombs hit their attraction, killing many animals. Poland surrenders to Germany quickly. Much to the Zabinski’s horror they learn that their surviving animals will all be killed for meat to feed soldiers unless they can strike a deal with fellow zookeeper and now Nazi officer (Daniel Brühl, Hollywood’s go-to Germanic villain who isn’t named Christoph Waltz). 

While working on this deal with the devil, Antonina and her husband begin a dangerous game, hiding Jews in their now empty zoo until they can figure out a way to get them out of Poland to (relative) safety in a world gone mad...

Click to read more ...

Three Fittings: High Glamour and Low Spies in "Allied"

[New Series! Three Fittings will celebrate costume design in the movies. The number is necessary self-restraint for we love the art of costuming too much. We kicked off last week with La La Land icymi.]

Allied begins strongly with a weirdly lulling quiet parachute descent into the Moroccan dessert. Moments later the man from the sky is all wrapped up a stone blue headscarf, his face obscured, presumably to protect it from the sun and sand. This obscures the movie star within which is never a good thing so the scarf loses its functionality almost immediately. It's suddenly an accessory rather than a tool, just another texture and a complimentary color to the fetching earth tone ensemble on a ridiculously handsome man walking toward a car far off in the distance.

Who knew that an empty road in the desert could double as a runway?

Costume designer Joanna Johnston clues you in immediately that you're looking at a movie that's aiming for the glamorous illusion of Old Hollywood...

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It's Betty Grable's Centennial!

World War II's most popular pin-up girl, just ahead of Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable would have turned 100 years old today... 

Click to read more ...