April. It's a Wrap

We're so ready for sunshine and summer movie season! But let's wrap up April first ICYMI... not the whole month but the highlights. We work hard providing fresh content daily so we don't want you to miss anything. There's always something new. And... uh... old. Maybe we went a little overboard on the sudden Joan Crawford fetishizing this month but it happens. The actress fetishes. It's best to just let them play out. They're not going to be ignored, Dan.

Most Popular
Y'all seemed to like the Team Top Ten for Best Sci-Fi films Parts 1 and Part 2 i.e. before and after the populist dam-bursting of 1977's Star Wars & Close Encounters. That sci-fi madness came with a robust Artificial Intelligence fascination that's also going on at the multiplex (Avengers / Ex Machina). The other most popular feature was the return of the Ask Nathaniel Q&As for which I am flattered and must thank you for your participatory enthusiasm (another belated one very soon). It was fun to talk favorite crazy characters, missing Buffy & Battlestar Galactica, and dream screen-to-stage plays. Regarding the latter: I'm now fully obsessed with my Contact idea; I'm brilliant!

Oscar Predictions
The first wave which we affectionately call April Foolish Predictions because it's dumb to start so early are up. Dig into the charts and discuss (The remainder hit tomorrow)

Monthly Playlist
Our listening pleasures this month were showtunes. Margaret eased on down the road with her amazing and creative dream-casting of The Wiz's upcoming remake. Plus, it's Tony Season so Broadway is naturally on the brain. We're rooting for "Fun Home" based on the life of cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Aside from the showtunes we got our fingers tapping to Dolly Parton's immortal earworm "9 to 5".

"Last Night I Dreamt I Went To Manderley"
You didn't sign the guestbook so we don't know if you enjoyed the amenities and conditions of your 5 day stay with us but we had a ball serving you Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca all the same: Day 1 a meet-rude courtship; Day 2 your new home and old (bitter) staff; Day 3 ooh, lingerie; Day 4 a costume ball mistake; Day 5 a trial by fire. We're eager to do this relay-revisit again but we need to find the right movie that's entertaining in all of its subsections.

Other Key Posts
The Walk -can you handle the vertigo?
Jane Campion - Anne Marie revisited 5 of her features
Taxi Driver - is it actually about the movies? I think so
Michelle Pfeiffer - she's shopping around a TV sitcom
Movie Amigurumi - we want every one of these brilliant crotchet dolls
Art Movies - these 5 paintings deserve the Woman in Gold movie treatment (only, uh, better movies) 
Furious 7 - Michael reviewed the behemoth hit and didn't disappoint

Getting worked up over the lack of realism on display is like chastising a toddler smashing his Tonka trucks together because, actually, that’s not how to use a cement mixer properly. 

Hot Piece(s) o' the Month 
Hathaway as Miley - that lipsynching! Cox as Daredevil - those lips!

Coming in The Lusty Month of May
Favorite sex scenes, Orson Welles Centennial tribute, rising actor David Dastmalchian, Avengers-mania, and a 1979 retrospective to coincide with the Supporting Actress Smackdown.

A.I. "Her," or The Rise of the Empathetic Machines

Wrapping up the sci-fi week festivities (did you see the final top ten list?) we turn the time over to our fine new contributor Lynn Lee. You'll want to read this one! - Editor

Deep down, most people who think about artificial intelligence have the same fear: that it will not only surpass humanity but supplant us, ending our reign as the planet’s dominant species and extracting cosmic revenge for our own abuses.  Building on these anxieties, movies about A.I. have embraced a pretty consistently grim outlook for humanity in the face of this phenomenon (which even has a fancy, if oddly spiritual-sounding name: the singularity).  The slaves become the masters, seeking either to exterminate or enslave us. 

But if A.I. overtakes human intelligence, and the machines evolve into a superior being, wouldn’t that include superior emotional intelligence?  And wouldn’t a super (emotionally) intelligent being have developed extraordinary powers of empathy?  Rather than using those powers to manipulate us, couldn’t they serve as a bridge between us and them?  Or would they, in outstripping our own poor abilities, become a further source of divergence?

Films that pursue this line of inquiry typically balance the A.I.s’ desire to understand and learn human emotions against their basic survival programming.  Blade Runner’s most transcendent moment involves a replicant (“more human than human”) reaching out to save a man (who may actually be a replicant himself) he was ready to kill just a minute earlier.  A.I: Artificial Intelligence, brandishing the tag line “His love is real.  But he is not,” teases out the conceit of such artificial beings, initially programmed to be and feel just like humans, evolving into a super-species who must deconstruct the emotional memories of one of their earliest prototypes in order to understand their own connection to us.  

More recently, the quietly disquieting Ex Machina introduces an A.I. who turns the Turing test on its head and leaves unanswered whether a machine that can so expertly read and simulate our more vulnerable emotions will ever come to feel them for “real.”

I can’t think of another movie, however, that explores these questions quite like Spike Jonze’s Her...

Click to read more ...

Women's Pictures - Jane Campion's Bright Star

Have you participated in Hit Me With Your Best Shot? Visual index coming tonight! 

As an end to this month-long series on Jane Campion, Bright Star presents a perfect kind of artistic summation for the writer/director. This John Keats romance is part of a tradition of filmmakers and playwrights making art about art. Though presumably about the life of an artist, the  finished play or film acts as its creator’s thesis statement about sublime inspiration (Minnelli’s Lust for Life), beauty and pain (Julie Taymor’s Frida), the thin line between madness and creation (Scorsese's The Aviator), or the creative process (Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George). Inevitably, these films and plays are as much about their creators as they are about their subjects.

Jane Campion had already made one such thesis statement earlier with An Angel at my Table, a biopic designed to explore the relationship between otherness and originality. By telling the story of Romantic poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) from the perspective of his fiance Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) in Bright Star, Campion explores not the creation of art, but rather art’s creative power. The audience sees Keats through Fanny’s eyes - Campion does love personal narratives - and so both Fanny and the film blossom into color. But first, we must be introduced to our young protagonist.

Campion's colorful thoughts on art and love after the jump...

Best Shot

"White. A blank canvas, or page."

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Team Top Ten: Best Sci-Fi Films (Post-1977)

Welcome back to April’s Team Top Ten. If you missed our show last week, we chose the best science fiction films made before 1977, the landmark year when both Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars were released. This week, the masterworks after that milestone.

Although you won’t be shocked to find that we managed yet again to have a tie at number 10 – a three-way tie, no less – our selection otherwise sprang a few surprises. There were omissions of high profile titles – David Cronenberg's The Fly *sniffle* – but we did otherwise cover all decades, multiple genres and even animated films. Long-time readers will not win bonus points for guessing what film came first. Still the margin by which it won was unexpected. It topped half of all ballots and won more points than the second and third films combined. Without further ado…

Team Experience Top Ten
Best Science Fictions Film Produced After 1977...

10. The Iron Giant (1999)
Even fifteen years after I have first seen it The Iron Giant is still one of those films that will light up my face with excitement when I read its name, or see an image from it somewhere. And it's no doubt the same excitement that so many people feel about Brad Bird's first film that has secured its lasting presence in popular culture, and now on this list. I have always been thrilled to introduce new audiences to The Iron Giant - watching it with friends who haven't seen it has become a bit of a tradition for me - so to think that its inclusion on this list might prompt a few of you to see it for the first time, or see it again with someone who doesn't know it yet, fills me with great joy.
–Sebastian Nebel

replicants, extra-terrestrials, and time travellers after the jump...

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April Foolish Predictions: Direction, Costumes, Cinematography, Sets!

The April Foolish Predictions probably won't be quite finished by April's end, damnit! So we'll have to save four categories (Actresses and Screenplays) for May 1st. Blame Nathaniel's BFF who has demanded a Marvel marathon which starts very soon and which will then usurp a good chunk of the next 24 hours of Nathaniel's life. Since the bestie rarely wants to play movie games, Nathaniel obliges. Nathaniel also talks about himself in the third person for which he apologizes. 

But while we're talking Oscar predictions -- even deferred Oscar predictions - let's talk Visual Categories and Best Director. Since more charts are now up!

DIRECTOR
This question will horrify the Birdman haters (they are depressingly legion) but could Alejandro González Iñárritu manage back-to-back Oscars for direction? It's only happened twice before, both times in the 1940s (John Ford in 1940/1941 and Joseph L Mankiewicz in 1949/1950), but since The Revenant will be such an about face from Birdman the fire could still be burning for honoring the Mexican auteur's work. Especially since Oscar has never ignored one of his films. Between the five titles there are 21 nominations and 5 wins so if the new picture becomes a perfect average it's looking at 4 nominations and an Oscar somewhere. Other previous winners that might be in play are Spielberg, Hooper, Howard, Zemeckis, Beatty or Boyle. And will David O. Russell or Quentin Tarantino ever actually win Best Director?

Newbies? On a whim I'm going to predict Denis Villeneuve who I've enjoyed for a long time and who seems very proud of Sicario (his FBI vs Cartel drama led by Emily Blunt) and whose career seems about to explode post Prisoners. If civil rights period drama Suffragette (Sarah Gavron) or The 33 (Patricia Riggen) are good enough might we finally have another female director nominated? 

COSTUME DESIGN
There are a three potential double dippers this year from Oscar darlings Sandy Powell (Cinderella & Carol) and Jacqueline Durran (Pan & MacBeth) to Jane Petrie (you're saying "who?" but you'll know her by the end of the year since she went from relative unknown to suddenly prolific with four period pieces Suffragette, Jane Got a Gun, '71, and Genius which will all be released in 2015 in the States if Genius gets finished and gets distribution in time.

Elsewhere we have to wonder if the very talented long time costume designer Daniel Orlandi (Trumbo) is ever going to score his first nomination. And can I just say how amusing I find it that the great Jenny Beavan who has only ever been nominated for what some might derisively call 'masterpiece theater' style dramas costumed Mad Max: Fury Road this year? That's too fun! 

PRODUCTION DESIGN, EDITING, CINEMATOGRAPHY
Cinematography could be a murderer's row of great again since Deakins, Lubezki, Kaminski, Deschanel and more all have projects this year. As for the rest and the general overview - i made small adjusments to picture and supporting actor as well due to rethink of craft categories and the hunch that Sicario might really be something with Blunt and Villeneuve both still rising -- check out the all chart index 

As always, your comments are not just welcome but implored. Let's try the wisdom of crowds. What are you sensing at this extremely early date?