The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
Hi everyone, it’s Tim. Our host and founder might be gone for a little while, but the women and men of Team Film Experience will still be around to keep the lights on, even without Nathaniel’s guiding hand to keep things on track. For example, you can expect to see my four-part series, "Michelle Pfeiffer: Decent, But She’s Sure No Renée Zellweger", beginning next week.
Kidding! Happy Birthday, Nathaniel, here's Michelle being all smoldering.
Anyway, as Nathaniel mentioned, it’s also his birthday, and in his honor, I’d like to go on a little tour of some of the all-time best cinematic birthdays.
I woke up with a totally horrid summer cold ~ happy birthday to me! But I can't let that stop me. Due to a manic expediting of an expired passport, and an otherwise stressful week, I haven't prepared anything fancy to say goodbye with and haven't curated a selection of guest bloggers (whoops) as is my normal way since I'm always afraid you'll leave me if the blog is empty for a week... but flights wait for no blog! I'm off for a week overseas.
The blog isn't quite 'going dark' -- that's too dramatic and technically complicated -- but will return to full glory starting on Monday the 17th.
We'll call this a Summer Hiatus though there might be a surprise post or two - no promises. Much Ado About Nothing, Violet & Daisy, Man of Steel, and The Bling Ring are all opening while I'm away damnit
But sometimes you just gotta unplug. We'll catch up when I get back and am creatively recharged for another great film year and Oscar race!
It's not every month, hell, it's not every year when we get the trailer to a new Michelle Pfeiffer movie so naturally we have to talk about Malavita again. Or, I guess, The Family as it's been rechristened before release. It's always a pity when a movie ditches a really specific title for one that could work for thousands of movies and thus stakes no claim on personality whatsoever.
Perhaps the trailer itself has personality. Let's watch and discuss.
[watches]
Okay. Only watch that if you're the kind of person who doesn't care about spoilers. IF you are this kind of person i envy you because the movie studios don't care about them either - they love shovin' them into trailers. I get the sense you're basically seeing the whole movie here. But we gotta break it down anyway as we do because...
LA PFEIFFER IS BACK
YES
Michelle Pfeiffer saying "merci"
This might be funny. It's kinda tough to tell in the trailer because so much of comedy depends on good editing and trailers never have a sense of that since they're cutting entirely different scenes and dialogue together for their specific 2 minute effect
The return of Michelle Pfeiffer's Married to the Mob accent "we're not in Brooklyn anymore"
Michelle Pfeiffer driving that car with those sunglasses
Tommy Lee Jones has been on a real roll lately. Does this end the party or continue it?
and Michelle Pfeiffer as fire starter. Bring it bitch.
NO
After Silver Linings Playbook, I'd like to believe that Robert DeNiro is back to acting rather than cashing in but a mob comedy is probably not the place to believe that.
Whenever trailers show this much of the wink-wink laughs and action, I worry about "those are all the best parts" and there's a lot of ways in which this might be super offensive (xenophobia, "hurting people is hilarious!" immaturity and so on) rather than funny.
MAYBE SO
Luc Besson, in the director's seat, isn't totally reliable.
The casting of the kids looks great visually but Dianna Agron coasts a lot on her looks and when you're playing Pfeiffer's daughter... well, she better take it up a notch. Pfeiffer never did that and good lord she could have coasted for decades with the ones she got.
Also: Can you believe my restraint that I only used one photo of Pfeiffer to illustrate this?
I am a crazy cat lady but I like dogs in short doses and I especially like seeing movie stars with their pets. Seeing people with their pets (or other people's pets) adds a level of adorable realness that you just can't get any other way. Even movie stars pick up poop and clean catboxes!
Tom Hardy and puppy kisses
This dog doesn't need to watch movies to know how kissable Tom Hardy is!
With Smash gone to its grave and Mad Men nearing its end and still no official word on a second season of Bunheads (i'm losing hope) I need a new TV show to write about weekly. So indulge me in TEEN WOLF which has finally given werewolves a good name again. It's roughly three trillion times better than Hemlock Grove and roughly one billion times sexier than The Twilight Saga probably because the guys and girls are hotter and have personalities that extend beyond "mopey" and "lovestruck" though they amply cover those character traits, too. I have flirted with covering it before writing up the first three episodes and ogling the muscles. But weirdly, though I realized the leaps and bounds it made in quality in Season 2, I didn't commit to blogging it. So... Season Three!
Teen Wolf Magical Logic #1: Werewolves can't get tattoos because they heal too quickly. Unless those tattoos are by torch in which case the healing just gives up or something?
"Tattoo" In the first episode we pick up as the school year begins (teen shows always have this trouble of built-in expiration dates that they always botch by NOT allowing for a rotating cast of different-aged main characters right from season 1!). Scott and Stiles (Tyler Posey, Dylan O'Brien) are still pining for Alison (Crystal Reed) and Lydia (Holland Roden) who they've barely seen during the summer. Lydia's boyfriend and season 1 & 2's half villain / full hunk Jackson (Coulton Haynes) left the show *sniffle* so we learn that his rich daddy has moved him overseas. In a supernatural show where killing off a main character would be totally dramatic (and dramatically sensible) this feels like a cheat. It's obviously only Blighty so they can make an American Werewolf in London joke. That honor goes to Lydia. [more...]
Thursday, June 6, 2013 at 9:05PM 
