Golden Spy

Manuel here bringing you an eye-catching poster to get this week going.

I love the random cartoony paws on her jacket.

I saw this golden poster for Melissa McCarthy’s upcoming Spy comedy and I couldn’t not talk about. It’s so amazingly silly yet self-serious. It’s precisely the type of eye-catching visual gag that this marketing campaign needs (better than the one-note poster Margaret discussed back in January). More importantly, it’s exactly the careful tonal balance the film will have to pull off if it’s going to succeed critically as well as commercially. I know it’s supposed to make me think of Goldfinger (and perhaps of Goldmember?) but all I could think was the posters for Dominic Cooper’s The Devil’s Double, a movie I know everything about exclusively from this (NSFW) post (thanks JA!)

They're clearly going for the Bond tie-ins with these character posters and why wouldn't they? If you're going to riff off the spy genre, there's really nowhere else to mine.

Perhaps it’s my affection for pre-Bridesmaids (ie. Gilmore Girls) McCarthy that’s getting to me, but I am hoping that her softer comedic side resurfaces at some point in her career. May Spy do the trick? Is the presence of real-life action figure Jason Statham and Jude Law in full-Bond mode enough to sway you to give Spy a chance this summer?

Review: Furious 7

Michael C. here admitting upfront that I was wary about the prospect of reviewing an entry in the Fast/Furious franchise. The risk is that a movie like this turns one into a caricature of a film critic, a Frasier Crane type watching the movie through a pair of opera glasses, scoffing and harrumphing at the schlock on the screen. The kind of killjoy who cranks out the cane-shaking screed about how 'in MY DAY car movie had GRAVITAS, not the weightless, video game CRAP that these damn KIDS shell out for! Something, something, Steve McQueen.'

So I am relieved that seventh entry in the franchise did not force me into that unappealing position. Unlike the recent Kingsman, which spoiled the fun of its goofy action with a rancid attitude, I can endorse Furious 7 if only for the tone of goofy positivity maintained by director James Wan. These films are, as they never tire of repeating, all about family. Family and loyalty and introducing every third scene with a shot of a babe’s bikini-clad ass. 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.

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Furious #7, Cinderella #1

As expected the big loud noisy high speed franchise on wheels Furious 7 broke April box office records and earned the biggest opening weekend of 2015... until Age of Ultron arrives.

WIDE RELEASE
01 Furious 7 $143.6 new Review
02 Home $27.4 (cum. $95.6)
03 Get Hard $12.9 (cum. $57) 
04 Cinderella $10.2 (cum. $167.2) Review
05 Divergent: Insurgent $10 (cum. $103.3)
06 It Follows $2.4 (cum. $8.5) Review
07 Woman in Gold $2.1 new
08 Kingsman: Secret Service $1.7 (cum. $122.2) Review
09 Do You Believe $1.5 (cum. $9.8)
10 Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel $1 (cum. $30)

The other story is leggy Cinderella. The lux live action adaptation -- which has spurred on much future live-action remake planning from Disney animation (see that bizarre Winnie the Pooh news and next year's possibly even bigger Beauty & The Beast film) has just become the #1 biggest grosser of 2015. Not that the glass slippered princess will wear that particular tiara for more than a day or two at the rate the Fast & Furious company is collecting coin. 

What did you see this weekend?

Link-a-round

Cinemascope Ari Folman (Waltz With Bashir) is working on a stop motion animated film about Anne Frank. Yes, that Anne Frank
The Stake has a great piece on Tina Fey's firestarter comedy, especially its willingness to constantly poke at our racial discomforts
Playbill has fun making Stephen King's books into stage musicals
Pajiba has seen (well the first ten minutes) of a porn parody of Guardians of the Galaxy with characters named Star Load, and Bonin
EW shares the 20 best episodes of Mad Men. Great choices overall - I'll be furious forever that Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss didn't win Emmys for "The Suitcase"
MNPP I missed Matthew Goode's birthday but this is the perfect gif set with which to celebrate

Women and Hollywood the annual Crystal Awards for women in film are here and this year's honorees are Nicole Kidman and Ava DuVernay
Boy Culture celebrates the one and only Buster Crabbe with some pre-code footage
Deep Dish celebrates Bette Davis on her birthday with lots of clips from TV & film
The Guardian raves about Carey Mulligan's career and artistry. She is currently playing Bill Nighy's ex-lover on Broadway at the moment in Skylight. Yes, Nighy. He is 36 years older.
Theater Mania yes, it's true. Cats will be revived on Broadway
Salon Michelangelo Signorile writes about the bleak state of gay characters on TV, usually sexless even in shows where their straight counterparts have plenty of physical intimacy (this is especially sad to read after Looking's cancellation though the article doesn't mention that)
Comics Alliance the superhero craze has officially jumped shark? an Avengers inspired menswear line is upon us. No, not a boys underoos line, a menswear line. Kind of brings us back to that gender doublestandard discussion again, right?
Huff Post Comedy speaking of double standards read this great piece on the headlines that would follow Madonna if she did the same things celebrity men her age or older did
Maria Shriver's Blog also has a piece on ageism and sexism via the prism of Madonna
i09 proof that awards are always political -- and it isn't just Oscar that's perpetually under attack -- in this investigative piece about a very weird two years for sci-fi's "Hugo" Awards
TV Line "The Muppet Show" will be returning to ABC at some point. Let this serve as your reminder that they tried to revive it one other time in the 1990s and Michelle Pfeiffer was a guest! Here is video proof. (Yes, I was very excited that night)

Unfortunately, as in The Muppets (2011) they thought it wise to invent a new Muppet character that wasn't even a tenth as good as any of the originals. Why does this keep happening? I'm all for shaking things up lest one be fossilized in nostalgia but if you can't come up with a good character DO NOT steal screen time from the good ones!

April Foolish Predictions. Let's Talk Best Picture

Subverting expectations, let's not start small but big with our annual April Foolish Oscar predictions. The first chart is up for the BEST PICTURE competition. Bear in mind that apart from Fox Searchlight's Brooklyn, (reviewed at Sundance) nobody has seen any of these films so this is pure fumbling in the dark for things that have the general shape of Oscar darlings. There are so many variables in each season and this first guess as to the general field is meant to spur conversation and must be taken with a grain of salt salt block.

A lot of recent Oscar darlings will try to sell new wares including Hooper, Inarritu, Vallée, Tarantino, and David O. Russell. Steven Spielberg, a perennial, could be back with his cold war film Bridge of Spies. Previous winners with heavy cobwebs on them in terms of Academy favor like Ron Howard, Warren Beatty, Jonathan Demme and Robert Zemeckis will try for comebacks. And one of TFE's all time favorite filmmakers, Todd Haynes, is back after a long long big screen hiatus. Oscar has never quite known what to do with him so will they figure him out once they see Carol? It's a big question mark even though the movie sure looks like a potential beauty.

The films I have the most faith in at the moment -- in terms of Oscar appeal only -- are The Danish Girl and The Revenant but it's all guesswork until we see real footage on all these films.

Thoughts? Psychic revelations? Future tomatoes thrown?