Tim's Toons: Will the real Jem please stand up?

Tim here. You might be aware of the new release Jem and the Holograms, but it's probably likelier that you're not. According to The Wrap, the film wrangled $34,000 from Thursday night previews on 944 screens, for an awe-inspiring average of thirty-six dollars per screen. That's like a group of four friends per location.

In lieu of mourning the quick demise of an unwanted property, I would instead turn back to the series that inspired it, in the loosest conceivable sense of the word "inspired". The original Jem and the Holograms cartoon was one of the glories of manic Reagan-era TV animation, a transparent attempt by Hasbro to do a show for girls that would match their popular toy commercials disguised as television for boys, Transformers and G.I. Joe. What it lacked in having an equally successful toy line to keep its memory secure in the public imagination, Jem made up for in being totally absurd and tacky in the most exquisite manner possible.

It is one of the most '80s of all '80s properties.

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Steve Jobs: Kate x3

Posterized: Carey Mulligan

Carey Mulligan at the Women in Hollywood Awards earlier this weekTwo Oscar hopefuls will hopefully dominate the conversation. Steve Jobs went wide today and the scrappy fighting-for-our-rights British period piece Suffragette is finally starting its US release in select cities. The movie has whethered some controversy of late and unexpectedly muted reception critically... at least in its first round. But release is a different challenge than pre-release buzz. If audiences like it, expect the Oscar buzz to reheat. At least for its leading lady who, we should remind ourselves, already had a minor unexpected hit this year with Far From the Madding Crowd.

Which means it's time to think about Carey Mulligan again.  How many of Carey Mulligan's 14 films have you seen? The posters (and more commentary) after the jump...

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Queer Horror Night: You're Killing Me

Manuel here to talk about a new entry in that ever-growing queer horror genre, just in time for Halloween!

What if you were so steeped in irony that, when a random (but totally hot) stranger creeps up to you, admits to stalking you and having killed his ex-boyfriend you think it’s the funniest thing in the world, because, like, who even says things like that?

“Well, he’s not scary. He’s gorgeous! He just has a weird sense of humor…”

That’s the premise behind Jim Hansen and Jeffery Self’s You’re Killing Me, a horror comedy playing at NewFest just in time for Halloween.

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Adele + Dolan = "Hello"

New contributor Coco here, very happy to be joining the Film Experience team. Have you seen the latest Adele video?

Isn't it only logical that Adele's almost four-year hiatus was broken thanks to one of the most prolific auteurs of our times? It's unclear how much of a role Canadian wunderkind Xavier Dolan played in getting Adele to record her long-awaited third album, but he directs the video for first single "Hello". 

It's clear from this video that Adele is a huge fan of Dolan's Mommy, that she saw it, and that it was so trasnformative it inspired her to get up and finally record the follow-up to her megaselling and Grammy-winning album 21. That might be giving Dolan too much credit -we'll have to wait for the 25th anniversary oral history to find out the details- but the influence is there. Not only does it feature Dolan's trademark exhuberance, it also sounds a lot like the kind of song that would have been part of the Mommy soundtrack, especially with those "I'm sorry" chorus toward te end. 

What do you think? Was Adele totally inspired by Dolan? Do you think the song will win all the Grammys?