Are you playing along at home?
Saturday, June 6, 2015 at 9:27PM 
Look at this cute portrait a reader made for me. You know him as "Seisgrados" in the comments!It's my birthday and I don't ask for much from y'all. Only that you obsess over actresses with us and constantly readjust your instant watch and DVD queues to play along with our many series! To maximize your enjoyment this week make sure to catch Spy (2015), "The Knick" Season 1 (2015), Oscar favorite Amadeus (1984), Agnes Varda's highly watchable masterpiece Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962), The Tony Awards, seminal miniseries "And the Band Played On" (HBO, 1993), and any film starring Cara Seymour!
Today's Reader Assignments
1. ASK NATHANIEL (right now) ~ he needs questions for this Wednesday night's Q&A column
2. COMMENT - It's like blog fuel for the writers - pick any article
3. DONATE THROUGH SUBSCRIPTION- This blog is a full time commitment (as you can imagine) and it's been going forever to try and entertain you and it's always tough financially. If you subscribe for a small monthly donation ($2.50 or, you know, a cup of coffee) it helps a lot -- if only a few hundred more of you would do so it would make an enormous difference in stability.
4. OR MAKE A ONE TIME DONATION for either your favorite series or something like "here's 5 bucks for each year I've been reading" If you specify why you're making the donation that would help. Let's say you want to support Anne Marie's "Women's Pictures" or Manuel's "HBO LGBT" project or whatever then I would know to pass your donation along to the writer responsible rather than keeping it for expenses.
KTHNXBYE
HAPPY UNBIRTHDAY TO ALL OF YOU!
Unless you share my birthday and then happy day, Gemini Twins!
Reader Comments (32)
Happy Birthday. For your birthday instead of praising actresses that we mutually like, I will sing the praises of someone who is divisive: Meryl Streep. She was win worthy in Silkwood, Ironweed, and Julie & Julia. For your ask Nathaniel: What would Meryl Streep's career look like if she were not cast in Sophie's Choice?
Happy Birthday Nathaniel! And thank you for your site!
Watching the Everest trailer this week, and seeing that they've assembled such a starry female cast for what will probably be thankless Wife and Girlfriend roles made me a little bit sad. Now, maybe I'm wrong about this one and Keira Knightley will take looking concerned while holding a phone to new levels but it got me thinking... what film has made the biggest waste of its female cast and what kind of film would you put those actresses in to better utilise their talents?
Oh, so it's your birthday! Something in the cosmos was prompting me to house-clean to The Immaculate Collection, so that explains that.
Hope you have a great one!
Happy Birthday Nathaniel! I love your site and I originally came to it by seeing your comments on Stinkylulu's Supporting Actress Smackdowns way back when. I loved that feature on Stinkylulu's site and was SO happy when you announced that you and Stinkylulu were bringing it back. What performance are you most looking forward to revisiting among the remaining Smackdown years? What performance are you least looking forward to revisiting at some point?
What are your favorite movies with a female name in the title? I mean, movies like "Rachel getting maried", "Te bitter tears of Petra von Kant" and so on. My all time favorite is 'The Marriage of Maria Braun!
Happy aniversary! Thak you so much for existing!
Happy Birthday, Nathaniel! :D
This year is the first year I can donate to the blog - and I'm gonna :) You do a fantastic work and deserve more credit!
And my question for ASK NATHANIEL - Since I'm always obsessing on this some times... If your life reached the big screen, who'd you like to play you and your close relatives (mother, father, siblings, significant other, etc)?
Happy Birthday! I wish you many happy returns of the day! Continue to entertain us with the blog that's undoubtedly the most enjoyable movie blog out there! Hands down.
A possible question for Wednesday: Between the W cover, Grace and Frankie and Youth, Jane Fonda is having a great career revival (heck, she even broke into the imdb Top 100 a couple of weeks ago). Of her Oscar nominated performances, which ones do you think deserved to win? Klute and They Shoot Horses... are unquestionably brilliant and deserving, but what about the others? I personally would have given her one for The China Syndrome as well (what a tricky character and multi-layered performance, nothing like you would expect).
Happy birthday! I already donate because you're awesome sauce and I think you inspire me a lot - showing you can achieve dreams and do what you're passionate about! Enjoy the day, you've earned it.
Two questions because I'm greedy:
What did you think of Nicole in Paddington? I thought she was excellent and it was a step in the right direction for her in terms of warming people up to her again and winning back public affection. If you were her agent where would you encourage her to go in her career now? Be more fussy? Haha.
If you could summon up a dream smack down panel of people dead or alive (no shade on the awesome ones you have come up with), who would be on it and why and what year would you make them do? This can include years previously covered.
Happy Birthday, Nathaniel! Thank you for all the hard work and may Nicole Kidman call herself you BFF. This is the ultimate gift because as a fellow Kidmaniac I'm giving up my chance to have this happen to me.
Happy birthday, Nathaniel! TFE is my favorite place on the web, and I am so grateful for all the work you put into it.
Happy Birthday (again)!
You answered my question last week, so I'm not expecting an answer this time, but will still try to come up with a good one:
[pause]
I was thinking about A Fish Called Wanda and wondering why the four leads of that film, illustrious as their careers have been, aren't among the most sought after (i.e., A-list) actors of their generations right now. Also, there was a 19-year age difference between Cleese and Curtis (11 between Kline and Curtis). Are there any major films where you don't find this icky or otherwise sexist?
That was two questions. ;-)
Birthday question:
Ennio Morricone recently told The Guardian that he believed "the standard of composition for film has deteriorate"
While I can't say I disagree that doesn't mean there aren't still great scores being produced. In the interest of focusing on the positive what would you say are the Top 3 film scores of the new century (2000 - 2014)?
My choices: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and The Social Network just edging Ratatouille and The Fountain out of the bronze.
Happy Birthday Nathaniel!!! Lots of love from Pakistan!
I read in the last Q and A post that you think Nicole's chances og getting more attention from the academy seems to be diminishing, however, don't you feel thatmost if her pictures qualify as academy bait on paper. even genius, the secret in their eyes and to some extent the family fang?
Happy birthday! Thanks for letting me play around in your sandbox.
Question: I've been doing a lot of revisiting movies lately, ones that I haven't seen in a decade or better in some cases, and I've found it fascinating how much my memories have, in general, misled me. So I pose it to you: what movie has been the biggest disappointment to you after you've revisited it many years after thinking you loved it? Or the reverse: what movie that you thought you hated has been the biggest revelation upon re-watch?
What movies do you think Shakespeare would be most jealous he didn't write or what movies seem the most Shakespearean to you? (comedy and tragedy, and obviously nothing based on anything Shakespeare)
I'm in a very 1995 mood since Nick's Cannes Anniversary writings, so would you care to share your favorites from that year? Or any funny anecdotes about how you experienced the Oscar race? Were you obsessing and predicting twenty years ago?
Happy Birthday! May all of your cinematic dreams come true.
Happy birthday! I am going to go with an actress almost never discussed on the blog here: thoughts on Marsha Mason and what is a favorite performance?
Happy Birthday Nathaniel! All the best.
Happy Birthday! I have 3 of my best friends celebrating their birthday on this day so I always remember it :-)
Happy 30th birthday. How can Hollywood be encouraged to make adult dramas a priority, rather than a few dramas a year novelty? And why isn't Cate Blanchett making $10 million or more per film?
Happy birthday! I haven't think of anything to ask this go-around, but I will try this:
If you were to make a Hong Kong film available on netfilx for you to stream right now (i.e., not currently available at all), what would you choose?
*comes to computer in giant coat, takes off coat to reveal a sparkling almost see-through dress and semi-drunkenly types*
Happy Birthday, Nat! Here's to many more years of life and TFE! I've been reading this site since the blogspot days so my consistently broke ass totally needs to send a donation. It's coming!
I'm going to re-ask my last question:
If you could invite 3-4 actresses over to dinner to purely discuss their lives/gossip and no question is off-limits, who would you invite?
Happy Birthday!!!
I first found you through"Best PIctures from the Outside In", which I really wish you all had continued. Any chance it could come back? If I recall you were in the 40's vs. 70's films.
My question for you would be a simple seeming one: With Lifetime's "The Secret Life of...", what are your thoughts on the Ultimate Sex Symbol, Marilyn Monroe?
Condragulations
My Question,What are your thoughts on the 70's work of Glenda Jackson.
Happy birthday, Nathaniel! Going through your blog is my morning ritual. So much good stuffs to read. My question to you (first time participating this), how would you rank modern movie musicals, say, since 1990? Personally, my no. 1 is definitely Moulin Rouge! I have watched that movie so many times I can even recite the whole script.
Happy Birthday for yesterday, Nathaniel. Hope you have a great year.
Happy belated birthday, Nathaniel! May God/the universe/Tilda Swinton bless you throughout the year.
Anyway, my question is, of all the women who are big in music at the moment, which one(s) do you think may make for strong actresses?
Happy belated birthday! I hope it's a rich year at the movies.
My question is about you:
Which publication would you like to write for and why?
I wish it comes true to you!
Do you have a favorite Oscar category? I know you love Best Leading Actress of course, but is there one that you specifically adore and pay extra attention to?
Mine is Best Supporting Actress. No idea why. It's just always been that way. Always the category I follow the most closely.
My question: you share a birthday with Harvey Fierstein and Sandra Bernhard. To honor her, recast one or both of them in a recent Oscar-caliber film!
*to honor them, I meant. Initially I had focused only on Bernhard but both are such specific character actors, I decided to open it up a bit!