Lisa, it's your birthday...

She’s now had 50 years on this Earth, and I think we can safely say that Lisa Kudrow – who’s certainly smarter than any of the characters she’s played – has given a lot of joy to the world in that time. Dave here to pay the Film Experience's respects to this fine actress. To the world at large, Kudrow will always be Phoebe Buffay, but of all the Friends, she’s surely the one with the spiciest CV after the show. It’s only her affinity for hard-edged, pitiful characters that's kept her from continued mainstream success. For the connoisseur, Kudrow remains one of the most adept comic actresses working. We salute you, Lisa, on your special day.

Watch, learn, and don’t eat her cookie.

-x-

Phoebe Buffay, Friends 

If you want to receive e-mails about my upcoming shows, then please, give me money so I can buy a computer.

six more indelible characters after the jump!
which is your favorite?

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Where to Now, Ms. Close?

Andrew here to talk about one of the finest women in the last decade of television, and the woman who created her. Let's talk Patty Hewes. With all five seasons of Damages newly available on DVD and Amazon Instant Video, it's time.

When Glenn Close won her second of two Emmy Awards for her work on Damages she coyly thanked the creators of the show for giving her what was...

 ….maybe….the best role of my career.”

At the time I couldn’t help but react with incredulity considering this was the woman who had given us Alex Forrest (Fatal Attraction), Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil (Dangerous Liaisons) and Norma Desmond and Paulina Salas on stage. Could this TV role really be the role of her lifetime?

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Stage Door: "The Pride" and "The Explorers Club"

In 'Stage Door' we share our live theater adventures... 

Hugh Dancy & Ben Whishaw in "The Pride" back in 2011

If you noticed the blog was far from fruitful this past week in the posting it's because I was in Chicago visiting Nick and Tim. Nick and I took in the play "The Pride" on its closing weekend in the Windy City. His partner had worked on it as dramaturg and Nick thought I'd like it. He was right...

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HBO: The "B" Stands For Bening

JA from MNPP here - while it's still quite a ways off from being a thing sitting in front of our eyeballs, if indeed it ever does, I figure this is the sort of news that the TFE readership wouldn't want to miss: Annette Bening might be headlining a series for HBO. Deadline's reporting that The Bening, as she's known round these parts, is looking at a series called The Third Coast, about "a larger than life casting director in New Mexico," that would be directed by Jay Roach and was written by Paul Rudnick.

Roach got his start with the Austin Powers movies before moving on to the Fockers series and then more recently making that memorable back-to-back pair of political powerhouses for HBO, Recount and Game Change. Meanwhile Paul Rudnick wrote Addams Family Values, and that is everything. (Seriously though, Rudnick's "Libby Gelman-Waxner" character for Premiere Magazine back in the Nineties was formative for this writer.)

If we're not already past the tipping point in mourning the flight of serious actors to the smaller screen I think we ought to be - an opportunity to check in with The Bening on a weekly basis, doing her thing, doesn't sound too shabby to these ears.

What Did You See This Weekend: Wolvie or Jasmine?

Amir here, bringing you this weekend’s box office report. Hit by superhero fatigue (more specifically ‘X-Men fatigue’ or even more specifically ‘Hugh Jackman as Wolverine’ fatigue) and feeling generally uninterested in most of the weekend’s leftover offerings, I spent the past couple of days at home catching up with some classics. The rest of North America felt differently, rushing to see Jackman’s sixth outing as the adamantium-clawed hero to help it to a total gross of 55 million dollars. Box office analysts suggest this number is well below the expectations but considering that with the international gross, The Wolverine has already surpassed its entire production budget in three days, it is well beyond the limits of my understanding how that is not considered a success.

BOX OFFICE

01 THE WOLVERINE $55 *NEW* 
02 THE CONJURING $22.1 (cum. $83.8)
03 DESPICABLE ME 2 $16 (cum. $306.4) 
04 TURBO $13.3 (cum. $55.7)
05 GROWN UPS 2 $11.5 ($101.6)
06 RED 2 $9.4 (cum. $35)
07 PACIFIC RIM $7.5 (cum. $84) 
08 THE HEAT $6.8 (cum. $141.2) Review
09 R.I.P.D. $5.8 (cum. $24.3)
10 FRUITVALE STATION $4.6 (cum. $6.3) Review
11 THE WAY WAY BACK $3.3 (cum. $8.9)
12 WORLD WAR Z $2.7 (cum. $192.6) Review

The weekend’s other wide release is the virginity comedy called The To-Do List. Not helped by the generally negative critical response, Aubrey Plaza and co. sold less than two million dollars worth of tickets and debuted outside the top ten, surely a failure by all measures. On the other hand, The Conjuring continued its strong run and proved once again that horror films are the most consistently profitable genre in today’s cinema. Meanwhile, Fruitvale Station added more than 1000 screens and The Way, Way Back nearly 600, and they were both rewarded with strong returns, allowing them to finish at 10th and 11th respectively.

The real story of the weekend, however, was in the tiny release of Blue Jasmine. Those of us not lucky enough to live in NY and LA will have to wait at least a week to see it, but Woody Allen’s latest opened to an astonishing 102k/screen average on six screens, surpassing the screen average of the widely successful Midnight in Paris. It’s probably a bit much to expect a similar final tally for Jasmine, but the signs are all good so far.

What did you see this weekend? (If you are as uninspired by the top ten as I am, may I suggest the acclaimed documentary The Act of Killing or Computer Chess? See them if they’re open near you!)