Last Thingz - Missi's Farewell

The Missi Pyle Experience is a wrap.

- by Missi Pyle

Before I go, I want to give y'all a sentence or two about eight photos, a few of which Nathaniel asked me about. 

GALAXY QUEST (1999)

Tony Shalhoub is a fucking dream boat. This movie was the best experience of my life. Also every day Alan Rickman sat and ate lunch with us like a real human being, not in his trailer. He is like a beacon from heaven. I am so lucky I got to do this movie.

[Gina Gershon and Joan Rivers after the jump... ]

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Beauty vs Beast: Miss Scarlett Decides

Fiddle-dee-dee y'all it's Jason from MNPP here with today's sweeping Southern epic edition of "Beauty vs Beast." Yes indeedy today is the 75th anniversary of the biggest movie that ever was and probably ever will be - David O. Selznick's Gone With the Wind (if any movie's ownership belongs to its producer, it's this one) premiered in Atlanta on this day in 1939. Three hundred thousand people lined the streets surrounding the Loews Grand Theater, the cap of three days worth of festivities which brought over a million people to the city. Most of the stars attended, save Leslie Howard who'd returned to England because of WWII, as well as Hattie McDaniel and the other black actors in the film who would've been segegrated from the rest of the cast thanks to Jim Crow. (A situation echoed several months later when McDaniel had to make her way from the back of the room to accept her Oscar.)

The film immediately smashed every record in sight - it sold just about half as many tickets as there were people in the United States, and adjusted for inflation its box office in today's dollars sits at something like three and a half billion dollars. It was a hit!

There were several character iterations I could've gone with for today's competition, but it seemed to me to face Viven Leigh's towering performance as Scarlett O'Hara off against anybody (Melanie, imagine!) would've flounced and trounced any ol' nobody in her way, so instead let's make like we're Scarlett herself and stricken with a crisis of suitors! A beau-tastrophe! Whomever shall we choose?

poll by twiigs.com

You've got seven days to vote, which should just give you about enough time to re-watch the first half of the movie up to the Intermission, so get to it.

PREVIOUSLY We took on 2014's blood-soaked war of the sexes with David Fincher's Gone Girl last week, pitting Ben Affleck's full-frontal assault as Nick in one corner opposite Rosamund Pike's icy cool girl Amazing Amy in the other - sure enough Amy kept her nickname tight in her calclating grasp, making off with over 70% of the vote. Said Mareko:

"Cool Girl is fun. Cool Girl is game. Cool Girl is hot. Cool Girl never gets angry at her man."

The "Knight of Cups" Pastiche Tease

I understand that people are talking about the Malick teaser today? I feel stymied by this one (shockingly I'm a "no" at first glance so I'm skipping the traditional YNMS) but I shall share a few thoughts. Mostly, though, I feel Cate Blanchett sums it all up for me in her early teaser line-reading. So long as you pretend that she's me and I'm talking to Terrence Malick instead of Wandering Bale Sun-Logged in the Egyptian Desert Hollywood Wilderness...  

You're so different these days. What's going on with you?

Between the club music and what looks like a mash-up of several very familiar -- though I can't quite place them -- films, I just don't get it. Something about this Knight of Cups teaser smells like selling out. By which I mean there's a strong whiff that that is also happening thematically as Christian Bale goes Hollywood and loses himself in decadence and luxury and money and La-La land. But perhaps the love of a good one can savzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Splash with me cold water. I rise!

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Missi's Oscar Night Memoir

We return you to our celebrity guest-host Missi Pyle... at The Film Exp The Missi Experience. Just one more post after this gorgeously fun memoir. Enjoy - Editor

ME N OSCAR

The 84th Academy Awards. An Oscar Night Memoir
- by Missi Pyle

I just want to take a minute to talk about The Artist. Holy shit. What an incredible experience that was.

Tiny back story. I left LA in 2008. I had married this guy from Montana with a grizzly bear sanctuary. I bought a geodome in the woods in Montana and moved in with said Grizzly man. I truly don't know what I was thinking. I had made some decent money in the previous year and I thought I could act from Montana? (Spoiler! Only Michael Keaton and Jeff Bridges can act from Montana - I wrote a show about it) Anyway, the marriage didn't work out and I ran out of money and came crawling back to LA.

I randomly had auditioned for, gotten the part and shot the film The Artist. It was really an incredible experience. But in my wildest dreams I never imagined the ride it would take me on.

[OSCAR NIGHT AFTER THE JUMP...]

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"Critics Choice" Flies With Keaton, Checks Into the Grand Budapest & Stands with Jolie, Unbroken

(We interrupt your Missi experience this morning to bring you more awards news. Missi returns this afternoon for two final posts.) 

If you missed my predictions and would like to mock them, they were here. The Critics Choice which will be broadcast live on A&E this year from the Iconic Hollywood Palladium (a new home and venue) on January 15th at 9 PM EST / 6 PM PST. I shall try and attend again. If I can get a better table. What? Travel expenses must be justified!

BEST PICTURE
Birdman - leading with 13 nominations
Boyhood - 8 nominations
Gone Girl - 6 nominations
Grand Budapest Hotel - second place with 11 nominations. wow
The Imitation Game - 6 nominations
Nightcrawler - 3 nominations
Selma - 5 nominations
Theory of Everything - 5 nominations
Unbroken - 4 nominations
Whiplash - 4 nominations

I suspected (aka predicted) that we'd see Unbroken and Gone Girl resurface in the conversation here. In fact the only prediction I got wrong was I didn't foresee Nightcrawler happening, fearing that the AFI love for American Sniper was significant. I think Boyhood will probably win in the end (especially given the weird halfhearted "comedy" section of the awards pulling votes away from Birdman) but good on Birdman for that astounding level of support.

I was really hoping for one non-Oscary thing though. I thought Under the Skin might have an outside chance for a shocker (and yes I voted for it).

JAKE GETS THE JOB and more after the jump...

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