Small Screen MVPs: Damaged Surgeons, Haunted Houses, Coming Out

Who or what was your MVP of this past week on your tv screens?

A couple of weeks ago we polled Team Experience to share their MVPs from shows they were currently watching. You liked it so we'll attempt to do it weekly or at least bi-weekly. In this new world of infinite screens and schedules, whether you're bingeing, right up-to-date, or on demand surfing, we're all probably on different time tables so please do share yours as well.

If you watch these shows would you pick the same most valuable player?

MVPs of the Week

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Director
It's taken this show a while to get to a place where it feels confidence in taking artistic risks, but last week’s episode, ‘4,722 Hours’, saw the once meek show taking its most audacious move yet under the helm of director Jesse Bochco. When Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) was snatched by the Monolith in season two’s brutal stinger, I never expected that the show would tackle the aftermath in such sober, thoughtful form. Bochco even dares to omit the regular title card, using a simpler, more elegant logo atop a vista of the deep blue planet.

Immediately, then, Bochco marks ‘4,722 Hours’ as a singular artistic endeavour, a quite remarkable thing in a Marvel Studios empire that has continually driven away individualist directors. Alright, so the episode still fits within the show’s larger template and is constructed with tropes familiar from many lone survivor sci-fi tales, but it feels full of personality, submerged in the midnight blue light of eternal night, allowing Henstridge to dig into Simmons’ psychological trauma that the show had presented to us in the previous episodes. It’s an episode full of confidence and trust in both character and audience. Let's hope it’s one that signals an even brighter future for a series going from strength to strength. - David Upton

The Walking Dead's Executive Producer
Thank you, Robert Kirkman, for backing the hell off. [More...]

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DVD/Bluray: Little Voices & Lion Roars

It's time to talk about this week's big DVD/BluRay releases and a few from last week since we neglected to mention them. The big one is of course Pixar's hit Inside Out which you were surely reminded of this Halloween weekend -- popular group costume! It's likely to end 2015, once Star Wars 7 & Hunger Games 4 arrive, as the fifth most ginormous hit. It's also looking like a good bet for a Best Picture nomination with the box office being so rough for more traditional Oscar types.

Tim and I both highlighted Inside Out in our halfway year in reviews (Tim's / Mine) because it's delightful, and moving, and a true return to form. Are you eager to revisit it?

It's all about the little voices in your head. But only five of them? I've got at least nine. Which begs the question... 

INSIDE OUT says we have five little voices in our heads: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. How many you got?

Sounds about right.

I've got way more than that. But the other ones aren't appropriate for a family movie

I don't understand the breakdown. My voices reject labels!

I don't hear voices. Am sane!

Poll Maker

Other New Releases

• Best of Enemies - documentary (Amir's Review)
• Digging For Fire -from the prolific Joe Swanberg
• End of the Tour - Won very strong reviews but little public interest
• Max - did you know heroic military dogs can get PTSD?
• Pixels - Adam Sandler vs video games (Tim's Review)
• Seymour an Introduction - documentary (Glenn's Review)
• She's Funny That Way - a comedy via Peter Bogdanovich
• Southpaw - Jake Gyllenhaal vs his demons + abs/guns
• Vacation - the sequel meant to reignite the franchise

Curio Pick: The most compelling of the non Pixar new releases is surely the big cat epic Roar (1981), the infamous cult movie starring mom & daughter Tippi Hedren & Melanie Griffith, both of whom were injured (along with many other cast & crew) on set. What is it with Tippi Hedren and violent animals? See also: The Birds. 

BIFA Nominations: Amy, Ex Machina, Macbeth, and More...

We've already heard from the Gotham Awards (New York's indie awards) and now we're off to the UK for their rough equivalent the Moet British Independent Film Awards. The leaders are the absurdist festival sensation The Lobster (reviewed), the marital drama 45 Years - go Charlotte Rampling! (reviewed), and the long-awaited Macbeth (reviewed). Doesn't it feel like the latter has had buzz for about 16 months now without ever appearing in US theaters? Annoying. We still can't make sense of the US release plans for it. 

Best British Independent Film + Best Director
“Amy”  Asif Kapadia
“Ex Machina” Alex Garland
“45 Years” Andrew Haigh
“The Lobster” Yorgos Lanthimos
“Macbeth” Justin Kurzel

The Lobster is may be the presumed frontrunner given its hefty 7 nomination total, but The Film Experience's position is that Ex-Machina deserves some awardage and it better be here because where else is it going to be, you know?

A 5/5 match with film and director suggests that the voting wasn't even close and those films were far out front though High-Rise, Brooklyn, and Suffragette also enjoyed multiple nominations

The complete list of nominees with brief commentary is after the jump...

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Curio: On a Cute Streak

Alexa here with your weekly arts and crafts. Chelsea Patterson moved to Los Angeles with an art degree and a dream.  When creative work was hard to find, she started waitressing and eventually decided to focus her energies making art celebraing her favorite movies. Her goal was to keep her designs full of delightful details, and her etsy shop CuteStreakDesigns was born. I like her off-kilter take on some of my favorites, like this print for The Conversation.

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Q&A: Hotel's Casting, Woody's Men, Oscar's Quartets

It's time for our semi-weekly Q&A session. Let's just jump right in since there was no uniting theme this time. If I didn't answer your question, apologies. I select by a very scientific process of Which Ones I Feel Like Answering. 

Jeff Daniels should've been Oscar nominated for The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)LIZZY: What are your favorite male performances in Woody Allen films?

Hee. So typical that I've never even thought of this before as the ringleader of Actressexuality. Let's see. Towering above them all has got to be Jeff Daniels in The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985). Both Mia and him should have been nominated that year at the Oscars with threats to win. It's such a delicately specific, stylized, and endearing performance in a movie that's aged superbly well. Completing a top five in no particular order I'd go with: Woody himself in anything/everything between 1977-1986, Max von Sydow in Hannah and Her Sisters, Corey Stoll in Midnight in Paris, and Chazz Palminterri in Bullets Over Broadway. But I really had to think on this one... his movies are all about the women, for all his neurosis and intermittent misogyny and/or misanthropy.

It's true. The only man who's ever won an Oscar for acting in a Woody (Michael Caine in Hannah and Her Sisters) is not one I'm particularly fond of. I wouldn't call myself allergic to Michael Caine but he's in the "don't quite get the appeal" column of legendary actors. 

PATRYK: Do you consider Kate Winslet's performance in Steve Jobs annoying? I was surprised how drastically her accent changed. Shame on the Academy if she wins on a tag-a-long nomination instead of someone like our Elizabeth Banks, who might actually be a real contender without tag-a-long Winslet and fraudulent Vikander and Rooney. 

No. I thought Kate was great in the movie. Yes, the accent was dodgy but I've already explained why I'm okay with that. Otherwise she really nailed the most important part: a psychic kind of work wife connection to Fassy's Jobs. I also agree that Banks was fabulous in a potentially dull/underwritten part in Love & Mercy but I'm not so sure she isn't the lead of that movie. I'd like to see it again before determining. 

TYLER: What is your favorite film set in New Orleans?

the answer (not Interview with a Vampire) and enticing Oscary questions after the jump

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