Review: Sense8, season 1

Tim here. We've had a little more than a week now to play around with the new Netflix series Sense8, which has hopefully been enough time for everybody to process it. For myself, I'm still working on that: it's a whole lot of show, frequently not to its benefit. But it dreams no little dreams.

The show is the brainchild of J. Michael Straczynski, whose Babylon 5 largely created the "pre-planned serialized television" in the 1990s, and siblings Andy and Lana Wachowski, of The Matrix and its many attempted follow-ups, all of which have been met with widespread derision and a small but freakishly adoring cult. In the interest of full disclosure, I should confess that I'm part of that cult. I even really liked Jupiter Ascending. So feel free to not trust anything I have to say about anything ever again.

Straczynski's achingly earnest liberal humanism blends seamlessly into with the pie-eyed optimism and sincerity of the Wachowskis' post-Matrix work, especially the swooning globalist poetics of Cloud Atlas. The result is a show that wears its politics and its sentiment right out in the open, with actors navigating big mouthfuls of dialogue that sound like an op-ed first, a stoned philosophy student's stream-of-consciousness second, and things that human beings would ever say out loud to other human beings third (another legacy of Babylon 5. I'm not even entirely sure I mean that as a complaint. Artlessness born out of sincere passion is a very different thing than a simple lack of talent. It's charming, albeit in a shaggy way.

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Beauty vs Beast: Sidewalk Stories

Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" -- the very first movie that I ever saw being filmed in person was on one of my first trips to New York City; I guess it must've been in the spring of 1997? There I was walking down a side-street near NYU, a wide-eyed country bumpkin in the big city, when who should suddenly be standing in front of me but Jack Nicholson. Jack Nicholson! That'll stop you dead in your tracks. Beside him was Helen Hunt and Greg Kinnear and you guessed it, it was James L. Brooks' multiple Oscar winner As Good As It Gets.

I watched them film for about half an hour (it was the scene where they were getting into the car to go on their mid-movie road-trip) in awe, and now whenever I think of this movie I think of that experience and how fundamental it was to cementing this city as where I wanted to live my life. There's magic around every corner, wedged terrifyingly in every crack of the sidewalk. Long story short today is Helen Hunt's birthday (and Greg Kinnear's birthday is on Wednesday) so As Good As It Gets it is...

PREVIOUSLY Last time around we anticipated the weekend's great big movie (movie-a-saurus) with a claw-off between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Velociraptor in Steven Spielberg's 1993 original Jurassic Park - ya'll love your Clever Girls and the Raptor slashed her way to the winning circle with 60% of the vote. Said forever1267:

"Velociraptors are one of the few movie monsters that really scared me while watching the movie. They aren't supposed to be smart! They're not supposed to be able to open doors! They're not supposed to be clever! Chills!"

FYC: Lauren Weedman for Supporting Actress, Comedy

Team Experience shares their personal dream picks in multiple Emmy categories as voting begins. Here's Adam on an actress we're all hoping to see a lot more of... - Editor

Lauren Weedman was to the first season of Looking what Joan Cusack was to Working Girl. They each drifted in and out of the main narrative, never the primary focus, but neither restricted entirely to the background. Their sharply delivered lines punctured their scenes, dick-slapping the audience, demanding attention. While they may have been vital to their best friend’s stories, they couldn’t tell their own stories. 

During the second season, Looking realized the strength of Weedman’s performance, allowing the indispensable Doris to come into her own as a character. Adding another individual to their mosaic of souls wholeheartedly discovering who she was, searching for where she wanted to be, and loving the people that surrounded her elevated the show. We followed Doris as she dealt with the repercussions of losing a parent and revealing her childhood of abuse. We championed Doris when she reclaimed her autonomy by confronting an unhealthy codependent relationship. We swooned when she allowed herself the possibility of a romantic future by finally exposing her vulnerabilities without the masking of her humor.  

Lauren Weedman positively throttled me like a famished crocodile death-rolling a dehydrated antelope during the Doric-centric episode, “Looking for Plot.” That raw, acerbic wit, and melancholic longing Weedman was able to express with only the constricting of her chin muscles split my sides and welled my tear ducts simultaneously. Her fucking CHIN made me feel feels I didn’t even know I was capable of feeling. Jesus.

We will no longer be able to follow this group of friends and lovers around each week but when I reminisce on my times spent with the boys and gal of Looking, I’ll always cherish Lauren Weedman’s performance as Doris. I'll cherish it in much the same way I once, while at a funeral, devoured an entire Edible Arrangement centerpiece while fellow mourners shot me disapproving looks as I selfishly grieved. It may seem reductive to compare Lauren Weedman’s affecting, poignant, barbed performance to that of a gloriously displayed collection of sculpted fruit, but each supported me while I accepted circumstances I couldn’t change, and helped me move on. 

Previously:
The Americans
Jane the Virgin
Cara Seymour, The Knick
Lisa Kudrow, The Comeback
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Ruth Wilson, The Affair 
Matt Czuchry, The Good Wife 
Gwendolyn Christie, Game of Thrones 

Coming This Week:
Ann Dowd, The Leftovers ...and more!

Yes/No/Maybe So: The Martian

Manuel here to talk space trailers. It’s been a week since the trailer for Ridley Scott’s latest project about Matt Damon getting stranded in Mars dropped, and we have been mum about it here at TFE. Is it because we have no Fassy to look forward to this time around? Or because we prefer our Scott vehicles better when they involve a certain Ms Weaver? The Martian centers on Watney (Damon), an astronau that finds himself stranded in the red planet when a NASA mission is forced to quickly retreat. Alone, unable to contact Earth and armed only with a month's worth of food, he sets out to survive in a planet where, as he says in the trailer, nothing grows. Will his science-know how keep him alive long enough for him to call for help and wait for his team to rescue him from Mars? We'll have to wait until November to find out! 

In the meantime, let's break down the trailer in true TFE-fashion:

YES

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Sydney Film Festival: '54' Rises Like a Phoenix

Glenn here offering thoughts on some of the films at this year's Sydney Film Festival. Here he is on the '54: Director's Cut'.

The history behind Mark Christopher’s wannabe decadent, sexually-charged disco epic 54 is almost as interesting as the real life nightclub it uses as its setting. Originally conceived as a disco-themed coming-of-age drama like Saturday Night Fever blended with the hedonistic dungeon-like underworld of Cruising, all signs pointed to the film being a crazed and sexy paean to a world that no longer exists. And then Miramax got involved. There's a long history of director's cuts of famous films or those from famous directors (Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now) or cult titles (Dark City). 54 was neither, so how did it get into this position?

After a few fated audience test screenings, Miramax decided to change tact with 54. Cutting out 40 minutes of footage that showed an openly queer antihero and replacing it with 25 minutes of newly filmed material aimed to exploit the exploding popularity of stars Ryan Phillippe and Neve Campbell. Released to scathing reviews, the film ultimately limped at the box office, Mike Myers had a supporting actor nomination rescinded by the New York Film Critics Circle (at least according to the director) and was likely never thought much of since. Mark Christopher’s career was essentially ruined in the process.

Knock on wood with more after the jump...

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