Big Little Lies MVPS: Episode 2.5 "Kill Me"

Previously: Episode 1 (Nathaniel) Episode 2 (Spencer) Episode 3 (Lynn) Episode 4 (Nathaniel) 

by Eric Blume

I’m onboard with most of the TFE staff that season two of Big Little Lies isn’t quite up to the level of its first season, but that it’s filled with fun, exciting, and interesting things.  Last week, Nathaniel noted that David Kelley’s writing is weaker this season, and I agree (especially in those therapy scenes), but it’s also about the directing: Andrea Arnold has talent, but she lacks Jean-Marc Vallee’s lush lyricism and ability to keep everything jangled and on-edge. She also doesn’t have Vallee’s gift for framing:  the images aren’t as memorable as what Vallee put together, and she’s shot too many in-the-car sequences from the backseat so the scenes feel repetitive rather than intimate and revealing. 

 But each episode holds wonderful surprises and treats for those invested in the show...

Top Ten MVPs of Big Little Lies, Episode 2.5 "Kill Me"

Click to read more ...

Watch at home: Strange things to tell the bees during the Peterloo massacre

Nathaniel R giving you the heads up on what's newly available to screen at home.

DVD/Blu-Ray/Rental
• High Life - In which Dr Juliette Binoche gets nasty with her patients and Robert Pattinson mopes around in outer space while caring for an infant.
• Tell It to the Bees - In which Dr Anna Paquin seduces her new friend Holliday Grainger (fine performance!) in a small homophobic British town in the 1950s. But it's actually a sentimental family movie of sorts. Watch out for the unintentionally hilarious killer bees! 

Also newish on blu-ray and/or DVD: Pet Sematary, The Best of Enemies, Little, After, Mojin: The Worm Valley, and Gotham (the complete series). 

iTunes 99¢ Deals
Titles you can rent on the cheap this week include the orgiastic French film Climax, 2016's Best Picture winner Moonlight, 2017's very best film Lady Bird, the new horror classic The VVitch, Bong Joon-ho's popular South Korean monster movie The Host, and the charming Eighth Grade.  They're also offering up Don Jon & Under the Skin in a stealth attempt to remind you of what a genre-hopping ridiculously talented and versatile actress Scarlett Johansson is. Be happy that she shakes off the Marvel shackles very soon (Black Widow is currently filming). Who knows what pleasures await when she can step out of that one genre and into all genres again!

Streaming this week

Click to read more ...

The New Classics - Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Michael Cusumano's series on the great films of the 21st century through the lens of a single scene.

Scene: Wig in a Box
I distinctly remember the arrival of the poster for Hedwig and the Angry Inch at the art-house movie theater I worked at during the Summer of 2001.  The poster is dominated by the image of John Cameron Mitchell’s gender-defying punk rocker aggressively belting out a song, a swirl of glittering make-up and tendrils of blonde wig. More than attention-grabbing, it was attention demanding. I eagerly anticipated the film as I watched the trailer several dozen times during my shifts. As a straight, cisgender man from the suburbs with a lackluster wardrobe, I assumed that it was most definitely a movie Not. For. Me. but as an insatiable movie-devouring college student, I was nevertheless excited for what looked like a wildly inventive, low-budget extravaganza.

And while I was correct about the creativity on display, I was wrong about feeling excluded by the film. Despite sharing zero details with the protagonist’s turbulent life story, it hit me personally in a way I wasn’t ready for...

Click to read more ...

What did you see over the holiday week?

Given the craziness of holiday weekends at the box office, we opted to wait until "actuals" were released rather than run with an "estimates" column yesterday. So herewith a complete picture of the Fourth of July weekend with all 12 pictures still in wide release and the corresponding top of the charts in platform or limited titles. What did you see this first week of July? 

Weekend Box Office July 5th-7th (Actuals) 🔺 = new or expanded theater counts / ★ = recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / LIMITED
1 🔺 Spider-Man Far From Home $92.5 (cum. $185) *NEW*  TOM HOLLAND	1 Pavarotti [DOC] $458k on 250 screens (cum. $2.9)

2 Toy Story 4 $33.8 on 4540 screens (cum. $306.1) PODCAST	2 🔺  Last Black Man... $431k on 188 screens (cum. $2.7) ★ REVIEW, PODCAST, BEST OF

Click to read more ...

Beauty vs Beast: Say it With Cerulean

Jason Adams of MNPP here with your brand new edition of our "Beauty vs Beast" poll -- not to over-Meryl us (does such a thing exist?) with two Meryl polls in the span of three weeks on top of her much-talked-about turn on Big Little Lies, but it was the 13th anniversary of The Devil Wears Prada back on June 30th and it suddenly struck me like a very expensive coat in the face that, blasphemy of blasphemies, we have never done a Prada Edition for this series. I KNOW!! Insert a gif of one of Miranda's withering glares here. Shameful. So let's see if the Anne-Hatha-lovers have any tricks up their designer sleeves...

online surveys

PREVIOUSLY Last week between bouts of Meryl we tackled another queen of screen Olivia de Havilland, and while she may not have taken down Ryan Murphy with her Feud-based lawsuit Livvy at least got one over on that other queen Monty Clift, taking 59% of your Heiress vote. Said joel6:

"Morris is a beauty and perhaps Catherine is too naive but that's her father's fault not hers. Morris is a low down gutter snake that gets exactly what he deserves and seeing Catherine serve it up to him is sweetness itself. Olivia de Havilland gave several great performances but this is the cherry on top of the cake! Wishing her all the best as an awesome 103 year old and as long as her health holds may she see many more birthdays!"