Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Shape of Water (2017)

Giles: Oh! God, to be young and beautiful.
If I could go back to when I was 18 - I didn't know anything
about anything - I'd give myself a bit of advice.
Elisa: [in sign language] What would you say?
Giles: I would say: Take better care of your teeth
and fuck, a lot more. Oh no, no, that's very good advice.

Guillermo Del Toro's Best-Picture-winning The Shape of Water is out on Criterion 4K today! I love this movie and will hear no ill words about it -- I think it winning Best Picture was weird but it was 2017. We were all going a little mad. (So maybe we'll have more bonkers atypical Oscar winners ahead! I suppose that can be one bright spot, sigh.) Anyway it's a lovely little movie and Sally Hawkins gives a lovely little performance and when it comes down to it I think we all could stand to fuck more fish. So that's my advice. Fuck more fish. 

Punch-Drunk Druggies Cross Delancey

Criterion Announcement Day sneaked up on us again -- and it was technically three days ago! They're late even and I didn't notice. Gosh it's almost like there are distracting things happening in the world? Well let's not focus on those, and instead focus on the movies that Criterion is releasing onto 4K blu-ray this upcoming February of the year 2025... yeah we're especially going to need some distractions right then I wager. Argh. Anyway! Criterion! First up is Gus Van Sant's 1989 druggie drama Drugstore Cowboy starring a very pretty Matt Dillon alongside Kelly Lynch, Heather Graham, and James Le Gros. Oh and William S. Burroughs! He's in this too. I haven't seen this movie in a very very long time (like at least twenty years) so it's definitely due a revisit -- I have a feeling I'll have grown to appreciate it more because I was never that much of a fan but it feels like a movie I'll get more now than I did when I was younger. 

Next up we have a pair of movies I've never seen -- Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear from 1987 starring Peter Sellers and Molly Ringwald (wtf) and Joan Macklin Silver's 1988 romance Crossing Delancey with  Amy Irving torn between two fellas in late-80s Manhattan. The Godard sounds bonkers; the JMS sounds sweet and perfect for a Saturday afternoon, and I am excited to watch them both. 

Then we've got three more movies (big month, February) which I have seen before -- there's Nicolas Roeg's brilliant 1970 film Performance with  James Fox and Mick Jagger, there's Guillermo Del Toro's first film Cronos getting a 4K upgrade, and there's Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love also doing the same. Love all three of those -- PDL was my favorite PTA movie for a long time but I can safely say that Phantom Thread has replaced it now. But I also haven't re-watched it in several years since every time I do think about it I think about how it shreds my nerves and I move on to another movie since whose nerves have needed extra shredding lately? Certainly not mine! 

Heads Up, Happy People

Heads-up, happy people! The vast library of our beloved Criterion Collection is on sale on Amazon right now at 50% off! This will presumably be for the entire month of November as they do this to compete with the same sale at Barnes & Noble that typically starts a little later in the month. That means it also includes pre-orders for movies out before the end of November, which includes Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water, the original Godzilla in 4K, and Paper Moon in 4K! And of course it includes last month's barnstormer of an excellent drop with Todd Solondz' Happiness, a Val Lewton horror double-feature, All of Us Strangers, and that to-die-for Gregg Araki trilogy! And then there's the issue of that massive 40-film 40th anniversary box-set that Criterion is releasing on November 17th -- that's not priced at the full 50% off right now but it is priced at $400, so $10 a movie, which seems like a damn good deal already. Anyway point being click on those links and treat  yourselves to some movies, it will distract you from... [gestures wildly]

Criterion's Great Big November Stomps Ahead

November is typically a pretty epic month for Criterion releases because they're no doubt hoping for cinematic stocking stuffers to be all the rage over the approaching holidays (it's also the month when Barnes & Noble has another 50% off sale typically for that exact same reason) and sure enough they've announced a great big slate today. Starting with the king of the monsters itself, Godzilla! Ishiro Honda's original 1954 kaiju masterpiece Gojira that is -- they're dropping it in a brand new 4K restoration! I suppose to depends on your mood and what you want from a movie about a giant monster stomping on tiny people -- sometimes you want that to be goofy and have little ones blowing bubbles while the big guys do Pro Wrestling movies, and I judge no one for wanting such a thing. But the 1954 film is seriously excellent, a proper horror film explicitly wrestling with Japan's post-WWII experience, and remains the greatest film in the series til this day. Although Godzilla Minus One did give it a run for its money last year!

That's not the only horror movie getting the Criterion treatment in November -- Guillermo Del Toro's Oscar-winning The Shape of Water is hitting the collection too! Whether TSOW is really horror or more of a romance I'll leave to people who care about such distinctions to tussle over -- what I do know is that winning Best Picture did a number on this lovely movie's reputation, and I hope we can re-embrace it now, with the benefit of time, because I think it's super. And this is also a new 4K release -- I cannot wait to luxuriate in Del Toro's details. 

Criterion is really ramping up the 4K upgrades now that they've started with them -- the 1932 version of Scarface from director Howard Hawks and Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece Seven Samurai are both being upgraded in November, as is William Wyler's Funny Girl starring that Streisand woman. And then there is Peter Bogdanovich's phenomonal 1973 comedy Paper Moon -- I have never been Bogdanovich's biggest fan but most of his earliest movies (this, The Last Picture Show, and Targets) I do fully endorse. Madeline Kahn in Paper Moon alone is worth the purchase price. 

Six titles is more than Criterion usually drops in a month, but those are of course not all -- as was announced last week they're also celebrating their 40th anniversary with an asbolutely monumental box-set of 40 (!!!) films called CC40 which consists of the films most chosen by people who've visited the legendary Criterion Closet. I'm not even going to begin listing off the titles because there are 40 of them and I'd want to list every goddamned one. They are all classics, they are all worth seeing. The set ain't cheap -- it's 650 bucks -- but that works out to less than $17 for each movie, so if you've been wanting to start a Criterion collection of your own then this is a one-stop shop means to do so! Absolutely epic shit!

Oscar Isaac's Giving Us His Flesh of the Gods

Now here is some movie news so chockful of sweet names that you're gonna get a tooth-ache -- Oscar Isaac and Kristen Stewart are going to star in the new movie from Mandy director Panos Cosmatos, which was co-written by Se7en writer Andrew Kevin Walker. The movie is called Flesh of the Gods and here is the plot description:

"In glittering 80’s LA, married couple, Raoul (Oscar Isaac) and Alex (Kristen Stewart), descend each evening from their luxury skyscraper condo and head into an electric nighttime realm of 80’s Los Angeles. When they cross paths with the mysterious and enigmatic Nameless and her hard-partying cabal, Raoul and Alex are seduced into a glamorous, surrealistic world of hedonism, thrills, and violence.”

Tell me that doesn't sound like the hottest shit you have ever heard? 1980s sexy neon decadence starring those two adventurous hotties??? Admittedly I had mixed feelings about Mandy -- specifically because I'm over movies about women dying horribly to send men on righteous vengeance quests and I thought it would have been ten times a better movie if Nicolas Cage had been the one to die and Andrea Riseborough went on the righteous vengeance quest for him. (Obviously the fact that I prefer Riseborough as an actor to Cage by degrees of thousands had something to do with that too.) 

But Cosmatos really won me over with his episode of Guillermo Del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities, which was one of my favorites... although I will say that I adored 90% of that series, one of the best anthologies in some time I thought -- Hey Guillermo can we get a second season already? Anyway Flesh of the Gods! That's a motherfucking title already -- add the cast, the writer, the director, that plot description -- I am super duper sold on this and need it inside of me like five days ago.

What a Monster Jacob Elordi Is

In case you missed the news yesterday (thx Mac) Andrew Garfield has left Guillermo Del Toro's Frankenstein movie and Jacob Elordi has stepped in to replace him -- all six foot five inches of him. And before I hear a single person say that Jacob is too pretty to play Frankenstein (specifically Frankenstein's Monster, that is) I am going to need you to google Boris Karloff because Boris was an extremely handsome man. And Frankenstein being super-tall makes a world of sense. Still on board the project are Oscar Isaac as the good Doctor and Mia Goth as... do we know who Mia's playing?

I've seen people say she's playing The Bride but the sources I've dug around in don't seem 100% on that. There's also the role of the Doctor's Wife, at least in the original version, but I can't imagine Del Toro wouldn't spice that boring role up here in 2024. Especially with Mia Goth playing it. Perhaps those two characters will become one? Also onboard is Christoph Waltz, probably as a bad guy because Christoph Waltz. Anyway since Frankenstein has always been a deeply queer text I hope GDT leans hard into that -- Oscar Isaac is defying god to build himself a pretty pretty man, after all!

Bride of Frankenstein is Gay Canon and only a gay director should be allowed to touch it https://t.co/r7h9hSMrxq

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) November 14, 2023

Two Trailers of Sheer Terror!

My head's been all over the place today -- blame those Jeremy Allen White underwear pictures that exploded off my screen like fireworks when I first turned on my computer this morning -- and so I haven't gotten to a couple of important things worth sharing yet. So let's do it rat-a-tat style, a fast drop of too much information and then whoosh I'm gone again like I was never here. First up! There is a docuemtnary about horror master Dario Argento hitting Shudder on February 2nd! (It's coinciding with a screening series here in NYC at the IFC Center.) Titled Dario Argento Panico and from filmmaker Simone Scafidi the doc features interviews with people like Gaspar Noé, Guillermo Del Toro, and Nicolas Winding Refn, aka the hottest nerd-fest in town. Also a bunch of his actors and Mr. Argento himself. Here's the trailer!

Next up we got the full trailer for Diablo Cody's next horror film called Lisa Frankenstein -- I shared the teaser all the way back in October; watch that here if you're like me and don't want too much given away. Which means that no, I haven't watched this full trailer myself. But I have heard good stuff about this movie from people who've already seen it, and I love love loved that teaser, so I don't need to. Maybe you're not me, who knows! Anyway Lisa Frankenstein hits theaters on February 9th, and here's that trailer:

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Crimson Peak (2015)

Ogilvie: A ghost story. Your father 

didn't tell me it was a ghost story. 

Edith: Oh it's... it's not. It's more a story with 

a ghost in it. The ghost is just a metaphor. 

Ogilvie: A metaphor? 

Edith: For the past.

I love how Guillermo Del Toro just lays that out there in Crimson Peak -- a smack upside the head to reorient our expectations going into the movie, and yet so many people were like, "It's not scary enough!!! The ghosts are funny looking!!!" after watching it. This movie remains so underrated! Blergh, people. Anyway no blergh to Guillermo, who's celebrating his 59th birthday today! A very happy blergh-less day to him!

Blue Fairies & Red Balloons

Time time time keeps bullet-training away... somehow it's time for Criterion Day again? I don't know. I have no concept of time anymore. What I do have a concept of is -- hooray for physical media! Criterion has just dropped the three titles they'll be releasing in December of this year, just in time to shove into your beloved's stocking. (Not a euphemism... or is it???) (Eww.) And at the top of the pile is Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio, which Netflix has deigned good enough to give the physical media treatment, thank goodness. And in 4K to boot! And you must look at the pop-out packaging:

Check at the disc specific's on Criterion's site -- it is stocked to the gills with extra content, as one expects from the premiere fancy place for film! This set hits on December 12th so yes, that's plenty of time to stuff them stockings. (Eww.) Next up...

... they're dropping a set of Albert Lamorisse's short films including the legendary The Red Ballon. The set also includes White Mane, Bim the Little Donkey, Stowaway in the Sky, and Circus Angel. And all of these have been restored, some in 4K, as well. I've only ever seen The Red Balloon -- have any of you seen any others? And I was about to say this was an incredibly kid friendly line-up for the holidays, but then I saw the third movie...

... a 1961 noir called Blast of Silence that they describe as "Swift, brutal, and blackhearted." So maybe not this one for junior. I've never heard of this movie before though -- any fans? The trailer (included at that link) makes it look like an incredibly stylish portrait of NYC at that moment in time. Anyway that's it for December -- this seems like a small batch so part of me is wondering if they'll drop news on a boxed-set later on?They do that sometimes and I feel like we're due a beautiful box-set from them this year still. The Pasolini one is a wonder but we usually get a couple, don't we? God I'm greedy. 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Open Your Eyes (1997)

César: We never appreciate the good moments till they're over.

Antonio: Maybe that's why they're good moments.

A happy 50th birthday to the fine (and fine) Spanish actor Eduardo Noriega today, probably best known here in the U.S. for his lead role in Guillermo Del Toro's perfect 2001 ghost story The Devil's Backbone. That is if he's not known for the movie quoted above from director Alejandro Amenábar -- who coincidentally also made a perfect ghost story in 2001 called The Others. I just don't know how well-seen Open Your Eyes is at this point here in the U.S. -- I never hear anybody talk about it anymore, even though it has gotten a blu-ray release and it is currently streaming on Prime.

Anyway it's very good and you should see it if you haven't! And if you're unaware Open Your Eyes was remade in 2001 (good grief what a convergence point that year is turning out to be for this post) as Cameron Crowe's film Vanilla Sky. And while there are things I admire about Vanilla Sky, Amenábar's film remains far superior. Anyway Noriega did a lot of great work around that time -- Amenábar's 1996 film Thesis is another one that doesn't get mentioned often enough (with The Others getting released on Criterion in October maybe more of Amenábar's movies will finally get good releases). And then there's the homoerotic spectacle of Eduardo and Leonardo Sbaraglia (recently seen in Pedro Almodovar's Pain and Glory)...

... in Burnt Money from 2000, which, wanna hear something nuts? I HAVE NEVER SEEN. I have posted about this movie's existence since the very beginning of this website almost twenty years ago and yet I have still never seen it! Even when images like this exist:

I have quite obviously wasted my life. 

She's Alive, Alive!

An almighty update to the news from last month that Guillermo Del Toro is planning on making his next film a new adaptation of Frankenstein with Andrew Garfield and Oscar Isaac (news that already had us swooning) -- Deadline is saying that Mia Goth is also in talks for the movie! They say she's there to play the doctor's love interest, so Henry's betrothed Elizabeth (Mae Clarke), basically.

Although one assumes that Del Toro will update the role and make it more interesting than she ever was in Whale's films -- Whale was decidedly not interested in that woman, haha. Not when he was too busy queering that shit up in every nook and cranny. Anyway Goth was obviously created in a lab for old-timey horror movies, so this feeds the beast. And I mean -- GDT should just go ahead and merge her role with The Bride of Frankenstein, right? That would make total sense now. We don't need any boring-ass normies now!

Hot Boy is Hellboy

Even though the role of Hellboy has turned out to be a bit of a curse (Del Toro's series should've gone on for longer, and David Harbour got a raw deal), and also it means that he'll be buried under paint and prosthetics, I am delighted to hear this morning's news that Claws star Jack Kesy -- our sweet sweet sexy Roller baby! -- has just landed the devil-horned red superstar for a new Hellboy movie. Titled Hellboy: The Crooked Man -- is this based on a run of the comics? I have no idea, I have never read any, but Hellboy creator Mike Mignola co-wrote the script. And even better the film's being directed by Crank co-director Brian Taylor which gets me excited as the Crank movies totally rule. (Taylor's usual co-director Mark Neveldine is nowhere in sight but that dude married Alison Lohman and they went off and became insane anti-vaxx maniacs so hopefully the Taylor-Neveldine working relationship is dead and I don't have to think about Neveldine ever again.) Anyway Kesy's done a few things outside of Claws, my beloved Claws, that I have seen -- he was in Deadpool 2 and he was in that horror movie Mosquito State that I totally adore. (I re-watched it a few months ago and it 1000% holds up.) And I have liked him in everything too -- besides looking like the jock I want to throttle me until I pass out he's properly talented! Let's hope this movie lets him be fun. And only covers up a little bit with prosthetics. Like, show this shit off y'all.

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Monster

I was tempted to photoshop Andrew Garfield a flat top in the above photo to separate it from the last time I posted that full photo-shoot and connect it to today's tale of news, but who cares? If we wanna look at that photo again, we can! I deem it alright. So there that is, you are welcome. As for the flat-toppery -- today comes word that Garfield is going to be playing the Monster to Oscar's Isaac's Dr. Frankenstein in a new filmed version of Mary Shelley's classic tale from no less than director Guillermo Del Toro! Those are a lot of names and thoughts and shit, I will give you a second to catch up. Right, though? Right. There's no word on what Guillermo's spin will be but I can't imagine he won't lean into the Goth of it -- I just can't imagine Del Toro of all people not being a purist on this one. As long as he keeps all of the naked wrestling and oiled-up abs from Kenneth Branagh's film intact! That's what counts most.

Good Morning, World

Awww remember Bradley Cooper on Alias? We were all so full of possibility back then. I try to remember back to those happier times when he comes up now but he makes it difficult, what with the stealing jobs from Jake and the ear-bleeding musicals with Lady Gaga. I did think he was terrific in Nightmare Alley though, and not just because I saw his wee-wee. And maybe him macking on Matt Bomer in [the movie he stole from Jake] will be something I also gravitate towards. The world is still full of possibilites, believe it or not! And so a happy 48th birthday to Bradley today. Let's all watch some Alias today in his honor. 

Guillermo's Making Our Nightmares Come True

Kind of flummoxed and flabbergasted when I searched the site this morning and realized I never posted the first trailer for Guillermo Del Toro's forthcoming Nightmare Alley -- the original with Tyrone Power is a fave (it just got a Criterion release not too long ago) and the cast that Del Toro has gathered up, including Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett and Toni Collette and Rooney Mara and Richard Jenkins and Willem Dafoe, well, that says it. Oh and it's set in, and was filmed in, Buffalo, not far from where I grew up. Anyway I didn't write up that first trailer back in September because Nathaniel beat me to the punch over at The Film Experience -- see that here. 

Or don't, because we have a new trailer today, and here I am writing it up.  Guillermo Del Toro's Nightmare Alley is actually out pretty soon -- and yes I realize that saying December 17th is "pretty soon" is enough to send anyone with half a brain spiraling into a panic about how the fuck is it already almost Christmas and oh my god I haven't bought a fucking thing and... et cetera, et cetera. The "pretty soon" equals out to "29 days" and yeah, that's pretty soon. And here's the full trailer they're making their final case with. You decide!

If you've got any thoughts on it in the comments let me know -- I need no convincing on seeing this because of that damn cast... also I already have a screening of this scheduled even sooner than 29 days from now; I'm seeing this in two weeks! I think it looks like fun though and there are some stellar shots in there -- the one of the bloody angel in the snow (pretty sure that's Rooney, and if you've seen the original film you know what's happening here) is giving off super duper Crimson Peak energy and I am as always here for that. 

Yes Sir Tyrone Power Sir

Did you know that in 1942 at the ancient age of 28, just as his career was really hitting its stride (he'd just starred in The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, and The Black Swan, three of his best pictures) Tyrone Power enlisted in the Marines, grew a hot mustache, and became a fighter pilot for World War II? He was hardly the only celebrity who fought in the war, and his "advanced age" kept him from flying combat missions, but he volunteered for cargo flights and ended up carrying the wounded out of big battles like Iwo Jima. He walked away in 1945 with a heap of medals for his service.

I bring this up because 1) it's Memorial Day Week, and 2) Criterion just released Power's greatest film according to me, 1947's Nightmare Alley, onto blu-ray today! Sure this came well after his service but you have to imagine the darkness of War was lurking in his imagination when he became fixated on getting this dark dark dark Noir made. (There's a lot on the disc's Special Features about how determined he was to play this role, even to the detriment of his career.) Anyway Criterion's 4K restoration looks absolutely stunning and you need to check out this disc, especially before Guillermo Del Toro's remake with Bradley Cooper comes out later this year. Now hit the jump for a couple bonus snaps of Sexy Stached Marine Tyrone with his military friends...

A Luke Evans Reminder

Luke Evans' mustache and bicep would like to remind you that the second season of their show The Alienist is hitting blu-ray today -- see my previous post about exactly this same thing, but written a couple of weeks ago, right here. I was going to ask if we thought the stache was for business or pleasure but IMDb says he is filming his role as "The Coachman" in Robert Zemeckis' upcoming live-action Pinocchio movie and I could see a stache going with that, couldn't you? I don't know why he'd have to be so shredded for a Pinocchio movie but my guess is that's the part that's for pleasure. Anyway I didn't even realize that Zemeckis was already filming this -- I'm sad we're not getting the Guillermo Del Toro version; he seemed better suited to the creepy material. Zemeckis will probably make it creepy for all the wrong reasons a la his Polar Express movie (which also starred Tom Hanks, who's playing Geppetto this time). 

Merrily Nightmare Flowers Go to Ridgemont High

Criterion Announcement Day is coming a little early here in February! It's usually on the 15th, but here on February 12th they've gone and given us our sweet sweet fix -- maybe they're taking advantage of February being the shortest month, I don't know, but I'll take it. There are five titles coming out in May -- the one that caught my eye right off the bat is the super sleazy 1947 Circus-Noir Nightmare Alley starring Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell, which is one of our faves. It's currently being remade by Guillermo Del Toro (see our previous posts) with an insanely stacked cast -- Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, on and on. But the original is ace, crazy dark, and I recommend checking it out! Love the cover art too:

May's other four titles include a 2007 concert documentary about the Moroccan band Nass El Ghiwane called Trances, and then Hou Hsiao-hsien's dreamy 1998 whorehouse reverie called Flowers of Shanghai, which I just saw for the first time last fall thanks to the NYFF screening this lush new restoration included on Criterion's disc. It's a hypnotic thing but exceedingly molasses-paced so be prepared for that. But Tony Leung looks great, even with that period-appropriate but un-flattering hairline. (When doesn't he.)

The then the last two titles are Cameron Crowe and Amy Heckerling's classic 80s teen-comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which I doubt I need to explain to anyone reading this post, and then Dorothy Arzner's 1932 "open marriage" comedy Merrily We Go To Hell starring the great Sylvia Sidney and the great Fredric March. I've never seen MWGTH, and always meant to! Can't wait for the chance. Mr. March is such an underrated stud.

Bradley's Been a Bad Boy

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I was a big Bradley Cooper fan for a very long time -- I was both an Alias nerd and a Wet Hot American Summer devotee, after all -- and then, and then, A Star is Born happened. A truly bad movie that was so inexplicably enjoyed by so many smart (and not so smart) people that I felt like I'd fully lost my mind that Oscar season. Seriously. That movie is bad. And while Bradley's performance isn't by any stretch of the imagination the film's biggest problem -- that would be Lady Gaga's absolutely abysmal work and the film's wretched script -- it is, in the immortal words of Pete Campbell, Not Great Bob. He sells a lot of the emotional heft of the flick -- whatever little heft it does have, actually -- but that booming baritone croaking thing he is doing with his voice is so over the top cheesy and distracting. And then he proved himself an unbearable humorless schmuck all Oscar Season long, and my point is he did a real damn good job of whittling away most of my good Bradley Cooper feelings over the course of a few months. Not Good, Brad!

Anyway I'm going to have to try to get over it -- and judging by how annoyed I am still getting thinking about that entire debacle here in August of 2020 I have some work to do! -- because the future projects he's lined up as an actor are going to demand my attention, and hopefully, my enthuasiasms. Of course there's Guillermo Del Toro's remake of  the Carny Noir Nightmare Alley, which has him tackling Tyrone Power's role opposite Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara and Toni Collette, and which began filming in Buffalo way back before the pandemic -- not sure where that stands now; if they finished filming before shutdown, I mean.

And now today it's been revealed that he is going to be in Paul Thomas Anderson's next movie. I told you about it last November -- it's based on PTA's own childhood growing up in the Valley in the 1970s and it's actually supposed to be a good and proper ensemble piece a la Boogie Nights or Magnolia, aka the sorts of movies he started out making, as opposed to the One (or Two) Man Armies he's been fixated on post-There Will Be Blood. (Although just so we're clear, from my perspective Paul Thomas Anderson has never made a single bad movie, period.) Anyway that lessens the weight on Bradley Cooper's shoulders, thankfully -- if this is an ensemble film my feelings won't rest entirely on his performance. If he went and ruined PTA's perfect record, hooooo boy.

Monsters Wanna Costume Too

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As I mentioned earlier there wasn't a lot that stuck in my craw during last night's Oscars, since they got a lot right -- or you know, right with the limited options they had presented themselves with, nomination-wise, anyway. But there was one big thing I found myself annoyed about, and that was the way they used costumes from both Midsommar and Us as dancing props for the opening musical number even though neither of those movies got nominated. If you follow me on Twitter you saw this happen in real time:

.

The Midsommar dresses just make me sad :(

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) February 10, 2020

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Wow -- riveting Twitter feed, Jason. Anyway I turned that tweet into action and today over at The Film Experience I wrote a little bit about the Oscars' truly lackluster history with the genre's endlessly iconic costuming. When I really started thinking about all of the egregious oversights over the years it really piled up! Even just this past year there are two hands worth of examples!

I know it's just one of many, many examples of the Academy hardly ever allowing themselves outside of the box, but it seems like all we ever talk about with regards to that are the bigger categories when, if you dive into the smaller crafts that make up our shared movie history, you see it's just as infuriating. As much as I loved Greta Gerwig's Little Women -- and I deeply deeply did -- who's going to remember anything Florence Pugh wore in that movie more than they'll remember her day-mare floral May Queen extravaganza?