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Apologies to the youngsters who won't get that '80s SNL reference. Anyway, it's not clear to me what happened in the final few hours of this week's request poll—judging from various comments, it was at one point an exact tie between Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Merrily We Go to Hell, then a late voter broke the tie in Hawks' favor (prompting pleas from Hell hounds for him to switch his vote), and then somehow Arzner's film wound up winning with a decent margin, 54% to 46%. Did we get a bunch of last-minute votes, or were there defectors? Makes no difference to me, as I'm just happy for an excuse to investigate an early female filmmaker whose work I've neither seen nor read much of anything about. The film doesn't appear to be digitally available at the moment, but there are black-market options. 

Fair warning: If you loved The Fabelmans and would be rankled by a violently negative review of same, don't read the one I'm gonna post here later today. 

Comments

Anonymous

I liked The Fabelmans a lot but I'm excited at the promise of violent negativity.

Anonymous

MERRILY WE GO TO HELL is a Criterion release, no? Or do you just mean it's not streaming?

Anonymous

Can't wait, I'm kind of baffled at how many people are crying masterpiece about such an unremarkable nostalgia piece. I have a feeling that if they didn't know it was by and about Spielberg, very little in the film would leave an impression on its own.

Anonymous

I enjoyed The Fabelmans a fair bit, but I'm still kinda bewildered by its sheer acclaim. Like, we're talking Best Picture favorite sorta hype.

gemko

I don’t mean DVDs and Blu-rays when I say “digitally available,” though I guess that’s technically accurate. But thank you for reminding me that I have the damn Blu-ray in the other room.

Anonymous

There were around 70ish votes and it was indeed 50/50 when I wrote my initial plea. I didn’t follow it after that but very happy with this result, not least because it was my pick. 😁 Look forward to your response and the Fabelmans pan. The trailer made me want to 🤢

Anonymous

Looks like THE FABELMANS has joined AD ASTRA in the "films that have made me audibly gasp upon seeing their D'Angelo rating" canon.

Anonymous

I’m still trying to figure out why I mostly disliked Fabelmans so I’m greatly looking forward to the writeup.

Anonymous

I loved "The Fablemans" but am looking forward to reading your take. I also think "Merrily" is great, too!