Pageantry, With a Vengeance: ‘Drop Dead Gorgeous’ at 20

Advertisements The Midwestern pageant queens of the #MeToo era are speaking out against workplace harassment, but the teen beauty contestant competitors of 1999 were setting their rivals on fire in open corn fields — at least, according to the outlandish, utterly crass, and…

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The Beguiled

Advertisements Sofia Coppola’s take on Thomas Cullinan’s novel The Beguiled (or The Painted Devil)—and by association Don Siegel’s 1971 film adaptation—is a dusky, sensual and twisted sort of fairytale. Coppola’s version is vastly different tonally, as she attempts to share the same…

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Woodshock

Advertisements Immersed in the eternal, wondrous beauty of the northern California Redwoods, a fragile Theresa (Kirsten Dunst) drowns in the guilt associated with the emotional weight of helping her mother commit assisted suicide with poison-laced cannabis which she procured through her job…

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