April Showers: Antonio Banderas in "Law of Desire"

In April Showers, Team TFE looks at our favorite waterlogged moments in the movies. Here's Manuel on Law of Desire (1987).

Almodóvar is the air again due to Chus Lampreave's passing and his latest, Julieta getting solid reviews (his best since Volver). And since April is “Actor Month” here at TFE let's kill two birds with one stone by looking at a small scene featuring Antonio Banderas and Eusebio Poncela from the 1987 classic Law of Desire.

The film centers on Antonio (Banderas) and his obsessive fixation with a gay film director (Poncela). After stalking him and eventually roping his way into his life, Antonio settles on trying to shape Pablo after his own image. First, he fixes some things around Pablo’s messy apartment, including some tiles in his shower, and then, the next day he takes it upon himself to set some sort of routine for them.

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The Family Fang Welcomes You

Manuel here. Nat got a look at The Family Fang in Toronto and ahead of its screening at Tribeca (and its limited release later this month), we finally got a poster and a trailer for Jason Bateman's sophomore effort. The film features the Arrested Development star and TFE fave Nicole Kidman as the Fang siblings (Buster and Annie) who are brought together after their parents mysteriously disappear. In true indie drama mode, though, this is an excuse to unearth all sorts of dysfunctions, mostly stemming from the fact that the senior Fangs are kooky performance artists who scarred their children by incorporating them into their live art pieces (and, you know, by referring to them as child A and child B).

In a feat of perfect casting, the Fang patriarch is played in his later years by Christopher Walken who shares top billing with Kidman and Bateman in the poster below:

So many things to love about this poster but at the top of my list is the inclusion of Kathryn Hahn on the side who is just perfect as the young matriarch, Camille Fang. That said, you could easily mistake this for a Wes Anderson poster, don't you think? The line reminding you that the film was written by "Pulitzer Prize Winner David Lindsay-Abaire" (for, coincidentally, Rabbit Hole which Nicole brought to the screen in 2010) is straight out of Moonrise Kingdom.

I can't really do a Yes/No/Maybe So given I already got to see the finished film last week, but I'm curious to see whether the poster and trailer are making you eager to get to meet the Fang family.

Streaming Thoughts: Broken Circles, Hunger Games, Gay Indies

Time for another "watch this before it leaves" warning. It's so stupidly complicated to follow these things is it not? So we'll do what we can here and there. The big 'new month calendar dump' is approaching but we'll deal with those next week. For now, let's just talk random streaming stragglers. The following titles are leaving either Amazon Prime or Netflix Instant quite soon so give them a shot if you've been meaning to.

As we do we've freeze-framed them randomly to see what they're serving up and to (hopefully) prompt discussion...

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Beauty vs Beast: Weimar Memories

Jason from MNPP here, willkommen and bienvenue, happy to see you! I trust you've all left your troubles outside? Today is the 84th birthday of the Master of Ceremonies himself, Herr Joel Grey, and so we're feeling frisky for some time inside the Kit Kat Club. As an aside, have any of you read Grey's recent autobiography? I highly recommend it if you haven't -- he's lived a hell of a life and doesn't hold back. (I recently shared my favorite tidbit from the book over at my site.)

Grey originated the role of the MC on stage (and won a Tony for it) and was the only person carried over from the cast to the film (much to Bob Fosse's chagrin), which led to him also winning the Oscar for the role. (This came up recently when Patty Duke, who also won both a Tony and an Oscar for the same role,  passed away.) Standing beside him that night and clutching her own statue was of course a little somebody named Liza Minnelli - maybe you've heard of her? But darlings, now we must choose...

PREVIOUSLY The new Captain America movie is out in about three weeks and we gave you guys the chance to make your Civil War wishes known --wellh the titular Captain stomped right over his fellow Avenger Iron Man to the tune of just under 90% of the vote! It's a blow-out for Cappy! Said Sawyer, taking these results to their (logical? harsh?) extreme:

"Cap all the way. I can not abide Tony Stark. I hope he dies in this movie."

In Praise of Brendan Gleeson

For our impromptu and informal Actors Month, members of Team Experience were free to choose any actor they wanted to discuss. Here's Chris Feil... on one of our most reliable character actors. 

Though Brendan Gleeson's grounded and somewhat imposing presence have made him a staple of large budget period and genre pieces they've too often kept him on the sidelines as well. Perhaps his minor breakthrough in Braveheart (1995) is what created this typecasting bias of Gleeson as the hearty rascal. But note: it's not his aggressive frame that make him such a valuable piece of each film, it's his ability to bring human reality to films that are focusing on the very big canvas. Martin Scorsese, Anthony Minghella, Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Danny Boyle, just begin to scratch the surface of the director who have noticed though awards bodies have yet to truly awaken to his subtle and diverse gifts...

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