Update: Tom Steyer has dropped out of the race.

Joe Biden won South Carolina. His victory is not a surprise. The margin of his victory, however, is. He's going to end up with a 30-point victory over Bernie. I thought that after his poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, and his second-place finish in Nevada that Biden would squeak out a win in South Carolina, but do so in a way that muddled the choice by moderates even more.

It looks like Biden will come out of South Carolina not only the as the consensus choice among moderates, but probably the frontrunner for the nomination, again.

"We just won and we won big," Joe Biden declares in South Carolina. "We are very much alive!"

— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) March 1, 2020

This is why:

Black voters in South Carolina via preliminary @CNN exit polling:

Biden 60%
Sanders 17%
Steyer 14%
Warren 5%
Buttigieg 3%
Gabbard 1%
Klobuchar 1%

— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) March 1, 2020

Good job, Toaster Biden! People are going to ask Klobuchar and Buttigieg (and maybe even Warren) to drop out, but I don't even think that is necessary at this point. South Carolina signaled to all the other moderate voters who to back, and on Tuesday the moderate wing of the party will take South Carolina's cue. This will pretty much end up a race between the establishment Biden and the anti-Establishment Bernie. I doubt even Bloomberg is gonna make much of a dent.

On Super Tuesday, Bernie will take California, Biden will take Texas, Bernie will take New England, and Biden will take the South. I'll be interested to see who wins Minnesota (if Klobuchar drops out), Colorado, and Virginia, where Tim Kaine has backed Biden. Bernie and Biden will both probably both come out of it well-positioned to take on the other, and then we can have a real conversation -- not about electability, but about moderate or progressive policies and what this party really wants in a candidate.

Unless Elizabeth Warren comes out of nowhere and blows up everybody else's spot.

I swear to God, if the future of our Democracy were not at stake, this would be a terrifically fun political race to watch purely from a political standpoint.

We interrupt our usual stream of The Bachelor spoilers to bring readers a rather impressing The Bachelorette spoiler.

And that Bachelorette spoiler is this:

WE KNOW WHO IS GOING TO BE THE NEXT BACHELORETTE!

This topic of conversation and consternation has been floating a hot topic around the Internet for several days now.

With Peter Weber's awful season of The Bachelor winding down, fans are understandably curious which woman will step into the lead shoes on this ABC franchise when The Bachelorette returns this summer.

Could it actually be Hannah Brown, returning for a historic second run?

Or the villainous Victoria Fuller, who actually remains in the hunt for Peter's heart?

Or Kelsey Weier, who advanced to the hometown episode of The Bachelor this year but was then sent packing?

 

According to the most reliable Bachelor and Bachelorette source out there, the answer to these questions are no, no and no.

And the answer to who will actually be the Bachelorette in 2020?

It's Clare Crawley!!!!

Tweeted the only and the only Reality Steve on Saturday morning:

(BACHELORETTE SPOILER): Monday morning on GMA, Clare Crawley will be named the “Bachelorette.”

As a refresher, she finsished 2nd on Juan Pablo’s season, was on BIP 1 & 2, and was recently on Winter Games. Refer back to my thoughts Thursday as to why I could see this decision.

As outlined by Steve above, Crawley nearly became the fiancee of Juan Pablo during his polarizing run as The Bachelor.

She was then a popular contestant on multiple seasons of Bachelor in Paradise and even got engaged to a fellow reality star in 2017.

Steve describes Clare as "passionate, emotional" and as one who definitely "falls hard," which makes her perfect for The Bachelorette. 

And yet: assuming Clare is the selection, this will buck a long-running ABC tradition of selecting an anchor from the most reason season of The Bachelor.

Despite this seemingly being a reason to doubt Reality Steve, let's be serious here: The guy is never wrong about this stuff.

When you want Bachelor spoilers or Bachelorette spoilers, this is the person to turn to, it's as simple as that.

Heck, he even alleges on Twitter to know the ages of 14 of the men who will be pursuing Clare this year (28, 28, 25, 23, 28, 30, 40, 28, 31, 33, 26, 26, 28, and 28) and says filming for her will begin on March 13.

She will likely meet five of her suitors on the March 10 Bachelor finale.

Prior to this reveal, it had been rumored that Hannah would actually run it back as The Bachelorette... until she and ABC clashed over her salary.

Crawley, as previously cited, actually got engaged to Benoit Beauséjour-Savard during The Bachelor Winter Games: World Tells All special, only to split from him about two years ago.

“We understand A lot of you have been asking about our relationship since the show, and we wanted to thank you all for the love and respect as we navigated it in real life off camera,” the two stated at the time, adding:

"It’s with a heavy heart that we have mutually decided to end our relationship.

"We think the world of eachother, and we were both hoping we could make this work."

And Crawley concluded:

"I’m sorry that this may not be what you want to hear, but it’s our truth.

"Just know there are no negative feelings here, we are simply two people who believed in love, and were open enough to give it a chance.

"Please respect our privacy as well, as with the end of any relationship, it is never easy. Thank you for your understanding and love while we have shared our vulnerability with the world."

So there we almost definitely have it.

Clare Crawley -- who is 38 years old, ancient by ABC standards -- will be the next Bachelorette. She's someone few within Bachelor Nation has really heard from or talked about in awhile.

The only question that now remains, therefore, is this:

Will you be watching her journey?

View Slideshow: The Bachelor Secrets Exposed: Affairs, Herpes & More!

It begins with blood. Blood creeping on cold concrete. A woman looks rattled, she's spattered and a bit battered, but the blood is not hers. She looks down at a dead man, the blood creeps from his cracked skull. The harrowed gasps that escape her split lip is her only companion in a mechanic's garage with a fresh corpse and a grisly mystery. Blood on Her Name begins after the murder that is its inciting incident and invites you to follow its apparent killer in a clumsy and conflicted cover-up.

Written by Don M. Thompson and Matthew Pope, Blood on Her Name is a baroque Western, stripped of cowboy hats, horses, and heroes. What's left is outlaws, blood, and gut-twisting regrets. Single mother and mechanic, Leigh Tiller (Bethany Anne Lind) scrapes by in a world defined by men. The shadow of her imprisoned ex hangs over the garage they once ran together. The troubling delinquency of her son offers a daily challenge as she struggles to veer him away from the path of his father. Meanwhile, her own father is a gruff sheriff who butts into her business and her parenting at every turn. Then there's the mysterious dead man on her floor, who threatens to tear her meager world to shreds.

Leigh has to get rid of the body. But before she can dump it in a lake where it might never be found, the dead man's phone rings with a message from his son. Aching for the family destroyed, Leigh decides to bring the dead man back to his people, leaving him in a place where they'll be sure to find him. But her sympathy paves a path to her undoing, dropping clues that lead his kin to her door with suspicion in their eyes and vengeance in their hearts. As they close in, Leigh is forced to look back on the skeletons in her closet and consider how far she'll go to protect her family from ruin. There will be no riding off into the sunset. There will be more blood shed.

Helmed by Pope, Blood on Her Name is a lean and mean thriller that's shouldered firmly by Lind. Like Logan, it's a character-driven drama that entices us with the scent of blood in the air, then hooks our hearts with a story of violence, trauma, and a deep yearning for redemption. This desperate woman is no white hat or black hat. She's a complicated figure who's purposefully hard to figure out. She is as much as mystery as what happened the night of that first killing. Leigh doesn't stride, swagger, cock her hips, or spin a pistol. She trembles. She cries in the shower. She stumbles into flashbacks of a formative and heinous childhood memory. And in every troubled step, Lind is mesmerizing.

Her voice is soft, with a gentle Southern twang. When she speaks harshly, there's a wavering that exposes her soft side, and potential weakness. Her eyes flicker with intensity, fear, and sometimes rage. The incongruity of her tenderness with the violence and the awful acts that come after is endlessly jarring, drawing us in to investigate and ponder the depths of darkness that might lurk in even the seemingly gentlest soul. For much of the movie, Leigh is a crumbling dam, trying frantically to hold back the flood of emotions that threaten to destroy her. Lind's body practically vibrates with this tension, which is ruthlessly contagious.

Together, she and Pope create a dark whirlpool of a story that sucks you in, plunging you into darker and darker depths, suffocating you in the suspense of it all. It's a sensational ride, not only for the sick thrills but also because at its core beats an aching humanity. For like Leigh, those around her won't be painted simply as good or bad. This is a backwoods Wild West of poverty, corruption, and violence, where the only choices given are bad. As you're sucked into this story, who to root for becomes complicated and all the more compelling.

Blending elements of crime-thriller and revisionist Western, Blood on Her Name delivers a uniquely exciting experience, where the spectacle is grim but the storytelling is defiantly--maybe foolishly--hopeful. There's a deep wish that even the worst sins can be washed away, like blood from concrete. But some sins are too dark, staining everything they touch.

Blood on Her Name is now in select US theaters and on VOD in the US, Canada, UK, and AUS, and NZ.

(Francois Durand/Getty Images)

The Me Too Movement took center stage in Paris when several actors walked out of France’s César awards after Roman Polanski won Best Director for his film An Officer and a Spy. Actor Adèle Haenel (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) was one of the first to leave in protest, with videos on social media showing her shouting “Shame!” and “Well done, pedophilia” as she walked out.

Adèle forever. pic.twitter.com/Fhe9xSLxCK

— Portrait of a Lady on Fire (@Portrait_Movie) February 28, 2020

Haenel, who has said she suffered sexual abuse during her youth in the French film industry, was followed out by Portrait of a Lady on Fire director Céline Sciamma, along with several other attendees. A vocal supporter of France’s Me Too Movement, Haenel had previously spoken out against Polanski’s nominations, saying “Distinguishing Polanski is spitting in the face of all victims … It means raping women isn’t that bad.”

The show’s host, French comedian Florence Foresti, addressed the controversy by welcoming all the “predators” in attendance and later remarked “There are 12 moments when we’re going to have an issue,” alluding to Polanski’s 12 nominations. Outside the venue, hundreds of people had gathered to protest Polanski and the industry that continues to celebrate and protect him. French police fired tear gas at the protesters as they pulled down a safety barrier beside the red carpet.

The awards show, often referred to as the the French Oscars, was embroiled in controversy weeks before the show even began, when Polanski’s film scored 12 nominations. In response to the outrage, all 21 members of the board of the Association for the Promotion of Cinema announced they would be stepping down.

Polanski fled the U.S. in 1977 to avoid a prison sentence after pleading guilty to raping a 13-year-old girl. He has since been accused of rape and sexual assault by several women, many when they were minors. These accusations have done little to blunt Polanski’s career, as he continues to work and win awards.

Polanski had previously stated that he would not be attending the awards saying, “We know how this evening will unfold already … What place can there be in such deplorable conditions for a film about the defense of truth, the fight for justice, blind hate and anti-Semitism?”. Wow, it must be so hard for him.

France’s culture minister Franck Riester stated in an interview that a Polanski win would be “a bad symbol given we must all be aware of the need to fight against sexual violence and sexism.”

Haenel’s walkout has earned praise on social media for her bravery:

In a world full of people that stay silent in front of rapist having a career, be an
adéle haenel.
pic.twitter.com/yHwjwSklQk

— bea (@zwanheda) February 29, 2020

Can 2020 be the year we stop rewarding men for their "art" while ignoring their unapologetic history of rape and child sexual abuse?

Love to 👑 actress Adèle Haenel, who was one of the people that walked out of the #Cesar awards when they gave best director to #Polanski. https://t.co/8fulP7eT1y

— Farrah Khan (@farrahsafiakhan) February 29, 2020

Adèle Haenel, who was abused by a director, left the #César awards when they gave best director to Polanski.
I FUCKING STAN https://t.co/BsJHIO3SuI

— Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) February 29, 2020

A l'annonce du César de la Meilleure Réalisation pour Roman Polanski ("J'accuse"), Adèle Haenel quitte la salle.

Le meilleur des #César2020 > https://t.co/ipnVwouBeV pic.twitter.com/7xa0CTbU3H

— CANAL+ (@canalplus) February 28, 2020

(via New York Times)

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—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

Inspired by his upbringing in the touristy areas of Niagara Falls, Ontario, writer/director Albert Shin concocts a mind-bending mystery about a boy gone missing with Disappearance at Clifton Hill. In the off-season, garish neon lights of the titular district flash on sparsely peopled sidewalks. Haunted houses hang open but empty, oozing an unease, while the rumble of the falls whispers of dark secrets drowned within its depths. It's a grim place full of suspicious characters. Yet its story's engine is fueled by a defiant and maybe fantastical hope for redemption.

Written by Shin and James Schultz, Disappearance at Clifton Hill follows an amateur detective on her journey to solve the mystery that's haunted her since childhood. At 32, Abby (Tuppence Middleton) is regarded as a pathological liar and black sheep of her family, but she reluctantly returns to her eccentric hometown to help her sister (Hannah Gross) settle the affairs of their late mother. This includes finalizing the sale of her rundown motel to the richest family in town. However, a fanciful urge to save the day spurs Abby to reject the deal. Her desire to do right by her departed mom and redeem herself drives her down disturbing paths of conspiracy, torture, extortion, and podcasts.

Abby's made a lot of mistakes in her life, but she becomes fixated on the first big one. 25 years before in the Thanksgiving of 1994, the then 7-year-old witnessed a one-eyed boy being beaten and tossed into the trunk of a car, whisked away to God knows where. Then, she was too shocked to say a thing. Now, Abby's determined to tell her tale and uncover the truth, but neither will be easy. The police force has personal reasons to distrust her. Even her own sister sneers at her wild theories. Her only ally is a local historian who splits his time between overseeing a UFO-themed cafe, deep-diving into the Niagra's pools for bodies and clues, and hosting a true-crime podcast called "Over the Falls." That this multi-hyphenate with many interests is played by visionary Canadian director David Cronenberg is just one of the film's delicious indulgences.

Shin infuses an intoxicating blend of grime, crime, and style into Disappearance at Clifton Hill, all of which make it a twisted treat to enjoy. He has an excellent eye for locations and captures fishing lakes, empty thoroughfares, and cheap hotels with a mix of nostalgia and dread. He gives the film texture by folding in snapshots, polaroids, microfiche, and glitchy VHS tapes as clues in Abby's investigation. You can practically smell the musk of an abandoned box or feel the dust clutching on searching fingers. Then, he leans into Abby's intense emotions and rocked sanity with surreal scenes involving snarling tigers, disappearing ink, and the French-Canadian answer to Siegfried & Roy. (Marie-Josée Croze steals scenes as a ferocious tiger mom/magician.) With each, the audience is tempted to question the reliability of our protagonist's perspective.

Middleton entreats our patience, effecting the world-weary tone of a hardscrabble detective. Yet there's a sneaking excitement in Abby's investigation, even in moments of threat and panic. Here lies the promise that she can save the day and in doing so be saved from being the eternal screw-up. When a slight smile cracks over a newfound clue, when her words rush out in a desperate bid to be believed, or when she tries to trick a pair of married magicians, our hearts race with her, wishing for justice and her absolution.

Unfortunately, while Shin's got plenty of style, the film stumbles as the pieces come together. The build-up is thrilling, the actual revelations are a bit anti-climactic. Then comes an ending that may stand up to scrutiny, but isn't exactly satisfying. Still, the film boasts David Cronenberg as a true-crime podcaster, waxing poetic about smalltown corruption, the sins of wealth, and how bodies can break into bits. His tone is stern yet reassuring with a playful kick, like rich whiskey after a long, hard day. Honestly, I'd recommend watching this movie for these snippets alone. Disappearance at Clifton Hill is a moody, intriguing, and morbidly entertaining journey of guilt, penance, and potential redemption. Yet my biggest take away is someone give David Cronenberg a d*mn podcast already!

Disappearance at Clifton Hill opens February 28.

Last night, the Cesar Awards took place. The most prestigious event in French cinema -- their equivalent of the Oscars -- was already mired in controversy this year following the resignation of the entire board of directors in response to complaints about the event's lack of transparency. Many members of the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma expressed feelings of powerlessness over the voting process, an issue that came to the forefront after Roman Polanski's latest film J'Acusse received 12 nominations. Various feminist groups protested both the film and the awards themselves, and the pushback continued in the event itself.

After Polanski received the award for Best Director for the fifth time (he was not at the ceremony because he complained that he'd be subjected to a 'public lynching'), actress Adèle Haenel walked out. Haenel, who was nominated for Best Actress for her work in Portrait of a Lady on Fire, shouted 'Shame!' as she exited the ceremony, followed swiftly by her director, Celine Sciamma, and various other attendees. As Haenel and her cast and crew left the building, Haenel chanted, 'Bravo, the pedophile, bravo!'

A l'annonce du César de la Meilleure Réalisation pour Roman Polanski ("J'accuse"), Adèle Haenel quitte la salle.

Le meilleur des #César2020 > https://t.co/ipnVwouBeV pic.twitter.com/7xa0CTbU3H

— CANAL+ (@canalplus) February 28, 2020

Adèle Haenel, who recently spoke about being sexually abused by her director from ages 12-15, leaving the Cesar Awards with Céline Sciamma following Polanski's 'win': "Bravo, le pédophilie, bravo!" pic.twitter.com/8334hD3LMI

— adèle haenel stan account (@arexnna) February 29, 2020

Adele Haenel has been one of the most vocal actresses in France calling out the film industry's misogyny and abuses in recent months. She also candidly discussed her own experiences with sexual assault as a child, having accused director Christophe Ruggia of sexually harassing her from the ages of 12 to 15 after he cast her in the film Les Diables. As a result, Ruggia was expelled from the Société des réalisateurs de films, the guild for French directors, and this January, Ruggia was officially charged with sexual aggression against a minor by a person of authority and sexual harassment.

It was dishearteningly unsurprising to see Polanski win the Best Director Cesar award. He's won it four times before so why not bring it up to five, right? A lot of prominent voices in the industry have dug their heels in on the Polanski issue in recent months, desperately clinging to the notion that his greatness as a director is all that matters and all we should focus on. We saw this at the Venice Film Festival last year, where J'Accuse won the Silver Lion. Separate the art from the artist and we'll all be happy. It's a staggering falsehood we've clung to for decades, a bastardizing of Roland Barthe's Death of the Author theory that we've come to rely all too heavily on as a Get Out of Accountability Free card. We've stripped an academic theory of its substance and slapped it onto any issue that makes us vaguely uncomfortable as a means to alleviate that. We just want to enjoy Chinatown, is that too much to ask?

I've already seen people complaining smarmily that it's silly for Haenel or anyone else to protest Polanski now given that we've known about his crimes for decades. That ignores how people have been pushing back against the film industry's consistent celebrations of him following the unlawful sexual intercourse charge to which he pleaded guilty. Polanski has always been protested; it's just that now those voices are impossible to ignore across the board. The Cesar Awards knew all that. They were painfully aware of the context in which they continued celebrating Polanski, and they still did it. They can position that as 'rewarding the art, not the man' all they want but in the current climate, it's a move that cannot help but feel like retribution.

Rewarding Polanski will always feel like a giant 'F**k You' to the rest of the world. It doesn't matter how eloquent or passionately argued your defenses of the man and his work are -- and believe me, I have heard every defense in the book -- ultimately, all you're saying is that you think it's perfectly okay to get away with drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl if the abuser made Rosemary's Baby. You prize people above art, and that dehumanizing mentality creates a truly insidious world. We live in that world every day. It was what allowed convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein to get away with his monstrous abuse for decades. Art does not matter more than people, especially those who have been attacked, abused, and manipulated in defense of it.

In the post-#MeToo era, we have already seen the backlash take root in devious ways. It's evident in every right-wing misogynist politician who has adopted 4Chan-style rhetoric of women being 'self-victimizing SJWs' as a means to rile up their supporters. We see it in all the cable news talking-heads who oh-so-seriously try to debate if the movement has 'gone too far' and whether or not it encourages 'cancel culture.' As Max f**king Landis tries to mount a comeback, we see this slimy mentality at play once more. The Cesars saw the rhetoric, they felt the anger, they knew how utterly prehistoric and nasty it would look for them to reward Polanski... and they did it anyway. How can that not feel like anything other than a direct attack against every victim of abuse? How could they expect Adele Haenel to just sit there?

Jessica Mitford once said, 'You may not be able to change the world but at least you can embarrass the guilty.' Shaming the abusers was the only way we could get justice for the longest time, but how does that work in a system where abusers and their enablers feel no humility or disgrace?

We stand with Adele Haenel.

Dakota Johnson and Tracee Ellis Ross are teaming up for The High Note. My first thoughts after watching the official trailer were: "oh, wow," then "huh, ok," and finally, "hmmm." It is a great cast and, on the surface, it honestly has a very Mindy Kaling/Emma Thompson vibe a la Late Night. And, don't get me wrong, that's not bad at all, but what I'm trying to say is that Dakota Johnson giving music tips to Tracee Ellis Ross is... hard to believe, even in a movie.

The High Note follows Maggie Sherwood (Johnson), a music grad who landed the assistant job for the inimitable and legendary singer Grace Davis. While Maggie is convinced that Grace does know her last name thank you very much, her friend reminds her that she is nothing but a blip on the radar for such a superstar like Grace. When the singer suggests that she wants to make a new album, the first after a decade, Maggie jumps at the chance to help Grace make new music and the two strike up an intriguing friendship along the way.

The film is set in the LA music scene and it originally had the title of Covers, which... wasn't good, honestly. The High Note sounds much better and speaks more to the feel-good comedy nature of the film. Granted, this is just based on the trailer. There's no telling what the film will actually be like, but I suppose we'll find out soon enough.

Directed by Nisha Ganatra, The High Note also stars Ice Cube, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Zoe Chao, Eddie Izzard, Bill Pullman and Diplo. The film will be in theaters on May 8, 2020. Watch the trailer below!

Few filmmakers possess the ability to illustrate the human experience in a way that allows the viewer to see their own reflection where they might otherwise have never thought to look. Released in 2016, Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women not only conveys the complicated notion of loneliness with great clarity, it also depicts a specific female longing for something more.

The director makes it clear from the outset that the subjects of the film are all fiercely independent individuals: Laura Dern is Laura, an experienced lawyer; Michelle Williams is Gina, a headstrong wife and mother; Kristen Stewart is Beth, a young and overtired lawyer; and Lily Gladstone is Jamie, a solitary farmhand. As their stories develop, so these women begin to unravel – as did I, watching the film for the first time as a 17-year-old.

We observe Jamie as she carries out the mundane task of taking care of horses at a farm in Livingston, Montana. Day after day, she silently performs the same actions, with no one but the farm dog for company. She’s alone, and that devastating fact nags at her. She yearn for something more. Anything.

This agonising want leads Jamie to an almost empty high school classroom in the early evening. She’s a sore thumb among the middle-aged pupils waiting to be educated on the history of US scholastic law. The teacher of this class is Beth, who stumbles into the classroom with seemingly no idea what she’s doing. Jamie sees Beth from the back of the room and decides that she wants to reach out to her, perhaps to have something with her, even if she isn’t necessarily able to articulate what that something is.

Studying Lily Gladstone’s performance, one plagued with interminable solitude, was a slap in the face to my perceived notion that I was going along just fine in my life. Jamie’s long, distant stares into the Midwestern mountains – waiting for something to alleviate her malaise – shook me to my core. I felt so exposed seeing this person attempting to form some kind of connection.

I recognised the longing when Jamie takes Beth to a local diner and abruptly cut through her silence with a bold statement. “I could show you if you stay longer…” “Show me what?” “The ranch, the horses.” Jamie holds her breath, exposing a vulnerable side to herself that almost seems out of character. When her invitation is rejected, we can only watch hopelessly as Jamie drives back to the farm alone, staring at the road, playing the moment back to herself on a loop.

Seeing Jamie in this way reminded me of the hole I had been trying to conceal in my own heart. This film took that gaping hole and made it glow. It forced me to recognise my own loneliness, a feeling which, much like Jamie, I didn’t know what to do with.

Reichardt didn’t change my view of the world – but she has made me more cognisant of it. I realised through Williams’ Gina that being strong-willed is not an instant salve for the isolation one can feel when relationships are not going well. I saw through Dern’s Laura that sometimes being a woman means listening to others’ grievances in spite of them ignoring yours. This came less as a gut-punch than a confirmation of a fact of womanhood, one that I didn’t reckon with until I had to.

I revisit Certain Women from time to time and witness the same women going through the same agonising struggles. As they fall apart, I start to feel myself become whole again. A cruel truth: every time, it’s as if Reichardt is holding a mirror to my face and telling me that, yes, this is what I’m feeling. It’s the most loving reality check I could ever ask for. This film will always hold a special place in my heart for permitting me to feel the things I once was too ashamed to admit to myself.

The post How Kelly Reichardt’s depiction of loneliness helped me feel full again appeared first on Little White Lies.

Tsai Ming-liang has spent the best part of his 31-year career honing his unique blend of slow cinema. Seven years after announcing his intention to retire from 35mm narrative feature filmmaking after Stray Dogs (which won the Grand Jury Prize at Venice in 2013), the Taiwanese master makes a welcome return with Days.

Those already acquainted with Tsai’s work may be pleased to find that his time away exploring the capabilities of VR with the likes of The Deserted and Your Face has not changed his mode of style. Many of his trademarks remain, including long takes from fixed camera positions as well as the theme of alienation.

Lee Kang-sheng, the director’s proxy since 1991’s Boys, lives alone in a big house. Non (Anong Houngheuangsy) resides in a small apartment in town. Kang acquires the services of masseur Non in a hotel room. They inhabit each other’s lives for a small window of time before parting ways.

Plot is a nebulous concept in Tsai’s universe. Conventional pacing and story structure are substituted for ambience. Scenes can last for what feels like an age as Tsai focuses on a single image: Non preparing food; Kang taking a bath, or counting money in a hotel room.

Kang and Non frequently drift in and out of the established shot; the camera acting less as an active participant than a passive, indiscriminate observer. Sounds are limited to those of Kang and Non’s surroundings, such as rain pattering on a window pane, or traffic on a busy street.

Dialogue is scarce, and when words do emit from the characters’ mouths, they are often mumbled and indecipherable. To Tsai, verbal communication is superfluous to the revelations that can be attained through time spent in silent observation. It is somewhat ironic that for a film with next to no words, Days has a lot to say.

The post Days – first look review appeared first on Little White Lies.

It's the 29th of February, a very special day that literally comes along only once every U.S. Presidential election cycle.

Happy Leap Day to all!

Today's the day every four years that we tack on an extra day to even up the whole earth rotating around the sun thing. 

Probably. We think. At least that's how we understand it. We might be making that up, but it sounds more or less true.

Leap Day, of course, is part of a Leap Year.

As such, it contains a 366th day added to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical year or whatever.

Because February only has 28 days to start with, for some reason, the powers that be gave that month the extra day.

Leap Day has nothing to do with the election, although it does happen to coincide with that other quadrennial event.

After this one right here, future elections/Leap Years include 2024, 2028, 2032, 2036, 2040, 2044, 2048 and 2052.

We could go on.

More exciting than the election? Literally anything. But for the "Leaplings" or "Leapers" of the world, today is super special.

After all, a person born into this world on the 29th of February only gets a birthday every four years! Think about that.

The coolest thing about having a Leap Day birthday? Becoming a walking, talking conversation piece by virtue of being born.

The downside? The other three years.

When do you even celebrate? February 28 or March 1? On one hand, March 1 seems logical, as it's the day after February 28.

Then again, it's not even the same month if you go that route. You can't change your birth month, right? What do you do?! 

Some federal programs such as Social Security accept February 29 birthdays, though, the free market can be less reliable.

Some websites don't even list the 29th as an option in drop-down menus! That's a microaggression if we've ever seen one.

Leap Day birthdays are obviously uncommon IRL, though they are a frequent birthday for fictional TV and film characters.

Makes for some good storylines. Poor Jerry from Parks and Recreation and Cam from Modern Family come to mind.

Whichever the case, we hope that you enjoy this extra day of living today and enjoy this PSA from The Hollywood Gossip: 

March 1 is not until Sunday.

John Mulaney will be hosting Saturday Night Live tonight, and despite the fact that Pete Davidson is online clickbait this week, this post is not about their SNL promo together, where Pete Davidson pokes fun at himself:

I feel like the fact that I didn't include Davidson in the headline here is a real sign of maturity. I chose to draw you in with good content instead of empty Pete Davidson calories. To wit: Have you seen John Mulaney's Sack Lunch Bunch on Netflix? Because you should, whether you have children or not. It is a parody of the kind of children's television many of us grew up with that doubles for your children as the kind of children's television many of us grew up with. I loved it, but what I loved most was Jake Gyllenhaal's character, Mr. Music. It's seven minutes long. It's hysterical. And it's right here, available to watch in this post!:

Now that you have watched it, waved everyone else in your vicinity to come over and watch it again with you, and you are now more enamored with Jake Gyllenhaal than ever before, allow John Mulaney -- on The Tonight Show to promote his SNL appearance -- to explain why they got Gyllenhaal (Okja!) and how (he wanted to do it!). When you are done watching this, you will have earned the right to watch "Music Everywhere" above again.

Yesterday, shockwaves rippled through the film world as the entire staff of the legendary French film journal Cahiers du cinéma resigned as one. Fifteen salaried editors – allow us to first register shock that a niche arts publication had so much personnel on the payroll in 2020 – all walked out in response to the magazine’s recent purchase by shareholders that the critics feel create a conflict of interest irreconcilable with their mission of total editorial purity.

This may sound familiar to those readers keeping up with the world of media in the Western world, where it seems like every week brings a fresh story of vulture capitalists and private equity firms laying waste to some fine print or online outlet.

The Cahiers situation isn’t quite so stark; an Indiewire item translating French newspaper Le Monde quotes longtime employee Jean-Philippe Tessé as saying: “The new owners want to make it a ‘chic’ and ‘cordial’ review, it’s an absolute nonsense.” (One of the shareholders would be a regular producer for Jacques Audiard, presumably one of the directors that Cahiers exists to critique.)

At a time when the continued existence of any publication is tenuous at best, that might seem like insufficient cause to hit the self-destruct button, but Cahiers was explicitly founded to be a hostile, contrarian voice. They considered themselves an essential check to critical consensus, and while their defiant opinions could sometimes be maddening, they were just as often bracing entryways to reconsiderations of notions we’d taken for granted.

Cahiers as we know it may be dead, but that doesn’t mean that the publication has to be put in the ground. The shareholders will ostensibly want to keep the valuable brand alive, and will most likely hire replacements more amenable to the new atmosphere of management. (Though finding French critics willing to step in as what essentially amounts to scabbing could be tricky.) Personally, this writer’s hope is that the displaced talent might stick together, find some new hands-off benefactors, and start over under a new title.

Regardless of what may come, the certainty is that the global landscape of criticism has been irrevocably altered. Cahiers wasn’t just a pillar of the form, it was one of the last film magazines not beholden to commercial imperatives or the whims of an affiliated body.

Even today’s most esteemed journals – Film Comment, Sight & Sound – can only survive by hitching their wagon to an organization like Lincoln Center or the BFI, which creates certain restrictions on what can and can’t be run. The French new Wave iconoclasts that started Cahiers took it upon themselves to be the thorn in cinema’s side, a mantle now left nearly vacant.

The post After the mass walkout, what’s next for Cahiers du Cinéma? appeared first on Little White Lies.