Dream of the Pfeiffival

Pfeiffer aged up to play grey haired Ruth Madoff in "Wizard of Lies"The McConaissance ended with an Oscar and an Emmy nomination. The Reeseurgence went well, too, even if it's pop cultural impact wasn't so Wild. Can't we get a Pffeiffival now? (I'll have to work on the name but renaissance and resurgence were already taken so I'm going with revival).

As previously reported our favorite M.I.A. movie goddess Michelle Pfeiffer, Susie Diamond herself, is back at work. She and Robert De Niro are currently filming their roles as The Madoffs in HBO's telefilm "Wizard of Lies". It will be Pfeiffer's first major television role in over 30 years. Among the top bakers dozen of female movie stars of the 1980s (roughly speaking that's: Streep, Close, Lange, Spacek, Midler, Keaton, Basinger, Pfeiffer, Turner, Weaver, Field, Hawn, and Winger in no particular order) only Pfeiffer and Hawn have refused to do television since. Streep and Close even dabbled before it was cool to toggle back and forth. Hawn doesn't really count as she is essentially retired and with Pfeiffer making an HBO film, yes, TV has won the final round. (There's a great conversation about this, via Jane Fonda -- who retired from movies halfway through the 1980s -- in the forthcoming movie Youth) 

But the most exciting thing about Pfeiffer returning to acting is not that she is -- look we've been here before and she never dives in the pool after sticking a toe in but runs from the water -- but that she'll do so twice in short succession. After the HBO movie, she's signed on for a regular movie, a proper silver screen effort from Killer Films called Beat Up Little Seagull.

Pfeiffer at her last film promotion event way back in September 2013

This is a very big deal for a number of reasons: Killer Films is awesome and has been for decades -- you can thank them for Todd Haynes and and also the bulk of interesting LGBT movies from the past couple of decades;  Pfeiffer never does "indies" so she's getting out of her comfort zone which is well past long-needed; it's a leading role and she's too luminous to get shoved to the background to play someone's supportive grandma; the director previously made the indie Mother of George which was shot by cinematographer Bradford Young... so can we hope he affixes his brilliant lenses on Pfeiffer? (What better subject for his eye than one of the world's great screen beauties?)

 The film is described like so:

Beat-Up Little Seagull follows the life of a sensitive and fragile woman (Pfeiffer) who struggles to find footing in a fast-paced world. When her mother dies, she faces a crisis in which she must find a means for survival, all the while hiding her struggles from her new lover (Sutherland)."

"Sensitive and fragile" Pfeiffer? Yes please. Perhaps she'll even cry in a sweater or lie to herself. That all said we look forward to trying hard not to view this 'struggles to find footing in a fast-paced world' plot as a thinly veiled allegory for La Pfeiffer's repeated disinterest in her own career.

Comment if you embrace this news with wet eyes and/or if you're suspicious that she won't go through with it. You can have both reactions. Your host here at The Film Experience is living proof.  

Red Carpet Lineup: Naomie Harris x 4

Naomie Harris on various red carpets promoting Spectre...

Naomie's best "Spectre" Red Carpet Look?

Form-fitting

Striped

Color-blocked

Flowing

Quizzes

Hello mates. It's Nathaniel back from London where James Bond's latest adventure Spectre is already out and filling houses. When I was there Tim & Guy were talking about a Moneypenny commercial (embedded below) and how Naomie Harris has more opportunity to show off her action chops in that promo than she does in the films. As for Spectre, Harris herself is promising more action for Moneypenny.

TFE has been in Naomie Harris's corner since her apocalyptic fierceness in 28 Days Later (2002). That film was a great launching pad for Harris, Cillian Murphy, and Brendan Gleeson (who all worked a lot in the subsequent years) but it arguably did more for zombies themselves who've been truly ubiquitous since. Hollywood never did capitalize on this British beauty's screen presence and complete ease within the always active action genre, though. Same old story and blindspots one supposes. So we're glad she has the Bond franchises -- nice work if you can get it -- for steady income.

Do Moneypenny and Q and M get recast immediately in the next film when Bond does or do they get another paycheck before they're booted?

Women's Pictures - Jennifer Kent's The Babadook

Happy early Halloween, everyone!

In the comments section of last week's post on A Girl Walked Home Alone At Night, a brief but lively discussion sprung up over whether folks prefer the Iranian-American vampire flick, or Jennifer Kent's inaugural feature film, The Babadook. Rather than pit the two films against each other, let's just take a moment to appreciate the fact that in 2014, we got two really good, buzzed-about horror films from two new female directors. This, as much as any other reason, is why I hope 2014 will be remembered in the future as one of those Great Years of Film.

Anyway, it could be argued that whether you prefer A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night or The Babadook is partially determined by whether you prefer indie swagger to conventional horror. But to call the film "conventional" would be to sell The Babadook incredibly short. At first glance, The Babadook looks like a stylish example of a supernatural thriller, but the genre tropes hide a dangerous film about the subconscious strife between parent and child. [More...]

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Iris, a great subject.

With Oscar's documentary longlist out, we're catching up with a few. Here's Deborah on Iris.

Sometimes all you need is a great subject.

To say this does a disservice to documentarian Albert Maysles, who has created a visual feast with Iris, but the primary delight of the film is Iris herself. Iris Apfel, at 94 years old, has lived a life of visual feast. If your tolerance of eccentric little old ladies is low, you won’t love this film, but phooey on you in that case. This woman is a prize, a person who celebrates her own uniqueness, who takes joy wherever she can, and the film focuses on that joy...

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Kristen Wiig's Awards Bait: 'Crying in a Sweater'

Margaret here, bringing you the first of this year's Oscar-bait parodies and with it proof that awards season is fully upon us.

Kristen Wiig, on the promo circuit for Nasty Baby, used her spot as a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to debut the trailer for her new "extremely independent" movie Crying in a Sweater (directed by Michael Bay). The title, if you can believe it, about covers it: Wiig lolls about tearfully in a series of sweaters while rhapsodic critical praise scrolls by. She's poking fun at the kind of dramatic low-budget Oscar hopeful that she's starred in more than once, but the result is silly enough that it doesn't read as snide.

My personal favorite performances in the Crying in a Sweater subgenre include Toni Collette in The Sixth Sense, Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game, and Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine, but the gold standard has to be Diane Keaton in Something's Gotta Give:

    

In fact, there's a lot of overlap here with the favored TFE movie category Women Who Lie to Themselves. Which prompts the question: what are your favorite crying-in-a-sweater performances? How many of them come from Women Who Lie to Themselves?