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Saturday
Mar072015

We Can't Wait ~ The 2015 Mini-Series

It's that time again. As one film year wraps up we get all antsy with excitement for the next. Team Experience voted on their most anticipated films of 2015 and the 15-strong daily movie countdown starts tomorrow morning. It goes without saying that there are far more enticing propositions than just 15. With the definition of 'arthouse cinema' expanding over the last 20 years to include just about every film starring a woman (Truth: something like Still Alice would have been considered mainstream in the 1980s), and just about any drama, even those with true stars, without genre affiliation and the companion visual fx budget it's safe to say that Team Experience leans heavily in that direction, taste wise.  

But, lo and behold, some of 2015's upcoming would-be blockbusters actually look enticing. After this rough winter, let us gorge on popcorn all summer long. Here's five would be blockbusters on the other side of Age of Ultron (just discussed) that might be great popcorn entertainments ... or hopelessly mediocre but we won't know until we get there. Keep your hopes up!

EVEREST (Sept 18th)
SOUTHPAW (July 31st)
Pick a Gyllenhaal, either Gyllenhaal. Post Nightcrawler we have to pray that he's on a legend making hot streak. Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur's name might not immediately make dibs on 'quality' given what he's made previously since going Hollywood but it's always possible that Everest, his mountain climbing adventure with a really terrific and terrifically manly all star cast (Jake, plus Borlin, Hawkes, Worthington, and Jason Clarke who we recently spoke with) will be thrilling. Especially in IMAX.

As for Southpaw... Though the cinema has been overrun by boxing pictures since, what, 1931?, if Antoine Fuqua can regain his Training Day mojo and Gyllenhaal's character is as dramatic as he sounds (alcholol, drugs, career immolation, child custody trouble) it'll be well worth checking out. 

MAGIC MIKE XXL (July 1st)
Now only 116 days away ! 

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (December 18th)
"Keeping hopeful" is a true hurdle with this one but let's include it anyway out of curious as to whether the TFE readership is excited to see it? (Let us know in the comments). The Star Wars franchise was horrifically marred by the last three films and J.J. Abrams, despite his skill with a camera, doesn't tend to make films with anything like emotional or pop culture staying power. His Star Trek pictures and Mission Impossible one-off made truckloads of money but, quick, name something about any of that that stayed with you and you think of regularly! They were just piggybacking on accumulated decades of glory. Just about his only film that might well have shown us any real "magic" as a storyteller was Super 8... and even that one was largely hit and miss and a self conscious Spielberg knockoff. So, not hopeful but curious. And then we'll get to see what Lupita Nyong'o has been up to apart from red carpets. Let's hope she's in it for more than 1 or 2 minutes. 

JURASSIC WORLD (June 12th)
Why we didn't ever discuss the trailer I do not know. Chris Pratt as a raptor trainer? Sure, why not. In! 

 

Saturday
Mar072015

Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (1957)

Cinderella Week continues with Manuel on a true event in showbiz history...

How's this for a televised live event: on March 31st 1957, more than 107 million people watched Rodgers & Hammerstein's written-for-television musical Cinderella starring none other than not-yet-household name Julie Andrews. Critics and networks have bemoaned the increasingly fractured TV landscape and when you look at numbers like that (aided, of course by novelty as well as lack of choice) you can't help but marvel at what that must have felt like. Think of the snarky tweets and memes 107 million people could have come up with! This is, of course, what NBC has been trying to accomplish with its musical events (kickstarted not coincidentally with another Julie Andrews vehicle and followed, oddly enough, with the production that gave CBS the idea in the late 50s to produce a new musical for a Sunday night broadcast).

More...

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Friday
Mar062015

Forget About L()ve 

"2014 is OVER, Nathaniel" - everyone.

I'm aware, thank you. But you know how it is. We have to wean ourselves off of each delightful film year. And we still have to finish our annual Film Bitch Awards and then we're done. Pinky swear. Speaking of the pink... time to surrender it.

Romance isn't what it used to be in the movies. Even when movies have romance at the core somewhere like American Sniper or Divergent or whatever, it's often presented like a mandatory plot point rather than with any real passion; something to check off for all quandrants rather than get lost in. That makes our Best Kiss, Best Sex Scene, and Sexpot of the Year categories sometimes hard to manage but we press on.

Sex is so integral to life that you'd think the movies would want to claim it a little more rather than ceding it to Netflix originals, Showtime and HBO. When movies do go there they're often surprisingly prim (50 Shades of Grey) or arthouse grim. For the latter see Nymphomaniac, both volumes. Or rather: don't. Unless you're willing to fast forward a lot. It would have been infinitely better as one 90 minute film: faster, funnier, and more focused. [NSFW More...]

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Friday
Mar062015

Next Tuesday... a Ball 

We're multi-tasking again. Cinderella week has already kicked off here at TFE but don't forget to watch Paris is Burning on Netflix Instant Watch (or Amazon instant rental) this weekend so you can maximize the fun of Hit Me With Your Best Shot Tuesday night. Let Jenny Livingston's classic documentary school you on Ball culture. It's only like 70 minutes long so you'll have time. You might even wish it were 700 minutes long when the credits roll.

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Friday
Mar062015

Posterized: Judi Dench 

Today marks yet another onscreen reunion of besties & Dames Maggie and Judi: The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel opens in limited release (it goes wide next weekend). They shared a dressing room at the Old Vic in the 1950s and they've been tight ever since.

Dame Judi & Dame Maggie in 2014

They're both Oscar Royalty of course, among the most beloved actresses to ever live, but Judi Dench's story is particularly interesting since it took her so long to cross over into full stardom. Long a valued commodity in the UK, America was slow to discover her. Perhaps it started with the international hit and Best Picture nominated A Room With a View (where she & Maggie played spinster friends - they both won BAFTAs for their roles, Maggie in Lead, but only Maggie went on to an Oscar nomination with a demotion to supporting). By the time Judi got her first true lead film role in Her Majesty Mrs Brown, Maggie was already a two-time Oscar winner, with five nominations under her belt. 

So Judi's late life success is a unique story. Let's look at her career since her stateside breakthrough. How many of these 24 Judi Dench films have you seen?

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