Game of Thrones. The Final Season Approaches

Though The Film Experience has not covered Game of Thrones in the past beyond the occasional mention, a couple of our contributors are big fans and since the final season is the television event of the year, we're opting to break tradition and cover each episode. Here are Eric Blume and Ben Miller, who will be writing up the final episodes, to grill each other on their experience of the series to date if you'd like to join them in this refresher. - Editor.

ERIC:  Ben, I’m excited about working on this project with you. Let's start at the beinning: Have you been a fan of the show since the first episode, or did you join somewhere in progress?  What made you fall in love with it?

BEN: I got into it on the ground floor.  I was never much of a fantasy book reader (no Harry Potter, no Lord of the Rings), but this seemed like one of the first shows where people were genuinely excited for the potential of what it could be.  I knew a few people who had read the books, but I went in fairly cold and with an open mind.  You also have to keep in mind of what HBO was doing at the time...

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Soundtracking: Other People

by Chris Feil

Writer/director Chris Kelly has quietly become one of our sharpest surveyors of gay life in a very straight world. His is a gay perspective adept at illuminating the very specific mileage between not only queer folk and the straight people who think they understand them, but also between gay generations often lumped into one.

We saw this at play this year in the new beloved series he co-created, The Other Two, but we first got that insight in his underrated debut feature Other People. This semi-autobiographical dramatic comedy saw a thirty-year-old gay writer David (played beautifully by Jesse Plemons) returning to his suburban home to care for his mother Joanne (the immaculate Molly Shannon), recently diagnosed with cancer. All of that human drama, including its gay textures, get embodied in one perfect song choice that Kelly uses throughout...

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Fosse/Verdon - EP 1: "Life is a Cabaret"

by Chris Feil

FX’s Fosse/Verdon begins with two intriguingly quiet moments for a series founded in musical theatre. First, an older Bob Fosse waits alone in a hotel room, and someone comes knocking. Then we flash back to the genius working in tandem with his wife and partner Gwen Verdon, perfecting a piece of choreography in his iconic style. Gwen offers a slight adjustment to his angular positioning, and they proceed. “Yours is better,” he says decisively. This kind of personal and creative symbiosis, which has made the two depicted here into the stuff of Broadway hallowed history, is sadly only fleeting in the premiere of this new limited series.

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The Pfragrance of Pfeiffer and a "French Exit"

by Nathaniel R

"Henry Rose" comes in 5 scents

We expected to get Pfeiffer news this year with the upcoming publicity tours for both Avengers 4 and Maleficent 2 on the way but it appears it's not just cameos and supporting roles this year but a full-blown work schedule. In addition to those two films, she's just launched her fragrance line "Henry Rose" ($120 a bottle. Steep!) which we knew was coming but not quite when. What we didn't realize it's that it's a fully self-funded passion project (though LaPfeiffer declines to say how much money she spent). After realizing that the fragrance business was very non-forthcoming about ingredients, some of which can be toxic, damaging the environment or your health, she stopped wearing perfume for 10 years and created her own. The line of five different unisex fragrances is fully transparent and safe in a recyclable bottle; Pfans will think the name sounds familiar -- it's a portmanteau of the middle names of her kids.

But our passion for Pfeiffer is acting-based and there's news on that pfront, too. She plans to start work on a new film called French Exit this year. This is great news because it's a lead role in a character-driven film about a "tart, possessive" widow who moves her family from Upper East NYC to France to escape debts and scandal (shades of Blue Jasmine maybe? We should be so lucky!). Azazel Jacobs, who made The Lovers with Debra Winger a couple of years ago, is behind the project. He sure loves his iconic 80s stars so we, in turn, love him. 

Watch at Home: On the Basis of "Destroyer"

by Nathaniel R

Links go to our reviews or interviews

New Blu-Ray / DVDs
• Mirai - an Oscar nominated beauty from 
• The Mule -Clint Eastwood's 37th (!!!) feature
• On the Basis of Sex -Failed Oscar bait
• Vice - Inexplicably successful Oscar bait but not-so successful in theaters. It was the second lowest grosser among the Best Pictures globally (only Roma behind it) and second least well reviewed (only Bohemian Rhapsody behind it). 
• Welcome to Marwen - Robert Zemeckis crash and burned with this visual fx curiousity about a man who deals with trauma by creating dolls of his war experience. It grossed just $12.7 globally...

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