"Where were you in '62?"

Don't forget that Hit Me With Your Best Shot returns Wednesday evening July 3rd. In this series we all watch a movie together and post and write about our favorite image therein.

I chose American Graffiti (1973) for its Americana value for the Holiday week and for the simple fact that I've never seen it and I'm always trying to fill in those gaps in my Oscar knowledge. 

Are you joining us?

Queue them for the next three episodes: American Graffiti, Dead Ringers and Mary Poppins. 

Win the "I'm So Excited" Prize Pack

I would personally like to thank Sony Pictures Classics for latching on to Pedro Almodóvar all those years ago and nurturing his ongoing fandom in arthouse circles. As you may have heard his latest, I'm So Excited, is in the theaters this weekend. SPC is offering five prize packs to readers right here at TFE! 

Enter to win an I'm So Excited! Prize Pack!

The I'm So Excited Prize Pack includes one  I'm So Excited flight attendant t-shirt, one I'm So Excited flight inflatable neck pillow and one I'm So Excited pilot wing pin.

To enter just send me an email by Monday July 1st at Midnight with...

• "I'm So Excited" in the subject line
• Your name and shipping address
• And the answer to this question: If you found yourself on a full flight with all the characters from Pedro's filmography, who would you sit next to and why?

The official synopsis goes like so...

Click to read more ...

Cameron Diaz Joins the Cast of "Annie"

Anne Marie here to talk about the latest movie musical news. It’s official: Cameron Diaz will be the Miss Hannigan to Quvenzhané Wallis’s Little Orphan Annie in Will Smith’s Annie remake. Sandra Bullock turned it down so Diaz joins a brassy line of comediennes who've played this role including Dorothy Loudon, Betty Hutton, Carol Burnett, Nell Carter, Kathy Bates, Katie Finneran and most recently Jane Lynch in her Broadway musical debut.

Miss Hannigan History (Partial): Carol Burnett (82); Nell Carter (97); Kathy Bates (99); Cameron Diaz (14)

Accusations of stunt casting have already echoed through Hollywood and Broadway, but how true are they?

While the decision to cast an otherwise musically-untested star like Diaz (Her singing in The Mask was dubbed) may smack a bit of stunt casting, Diaz certainly has the comedic background to fulfill the terrifying-but-hilarious shoes of the booze-soaked orphanage matron. Cameron Diaz has shown all throughout her career the ability to be slapstick funny, lowbrow silly, and recently very, very bitchy. But, like every other Broadway geek, I had to ask: can she sing? I did some digging through past performances, and found three of note: My Best Friend's Wedding (in which terrible vocals were the point), Shrek, and this NSFW moment...

It’s hard to judge her voice quality from any of those numbers. This is usually a warning sign for me, but Miss Hannigan isn’t a musically difficult role. As long as Diaz relies on her comedic chops, she shouldn’t be Russell Crowe in Les Miz bad. I’m thinking more Julie Walters in Mamma Mia - musically acceptable and very funny.

Cameron Diaz’s movie roles have been a bit scattershot since she graduated from the ditz and dirty debutante phases of her career. With a few crowd pleaser comedies on the horizon, as well as this week’s teaser for The Counselor and this news about Annie - it looks like Diaz is finally finding a solid trajectory. (I refuse to use the word “comeback.”)

Thoughts?

Welcome to the Academy!

Every time I see a grumpy post on the internet about how the Oscars don't matter or the Oscars are irrelevant or passe or [insert gripe here] my face contorts into a 'oh, that's cute' type of look, the one you might give the very naive if possibly well meaning transfer in your high school comedy.

I love her, she's like a Martian.

The Oscars have always mattered. The very fact that people can't stop bitching about them, for 80 some years now, suggests that they still very much do and always will. The Oscars have been synonymous with movie greatness for so many generations that whether or not any greatness is actually happening in their selections is the point of discussion. It's also why one wishes the governing body of AMPAS wouldn't act like such nervous jittery freshmen themselves, forever worrying about what they're wearing ('does this rule-change make me look fat?') and if they're listening to the right music ('no, yeah, i totally love that ____. Didn't you see my expanded BP playlist?!'') .

The Oscars are the cool table that everyone wants to sit at and 276 new kids (after the jump) have been invited to do just that.

Click to read more ...

Cast This: Magic Mike 2

One year ago tomorrow Magic Mike opened to leggy box office becoming Channing Tatum's third $100+ million grosser of 2012, and the most definitive piece of his A List breakthrough.

He's still routinely asked about the proposed sequel Magic Mike 2 and he's still happy to answer questions about it. He's now claiming:

It will be a road trip movie, and it will essentially be the movie that everyone thought the first one was going to be—crazy and fun and less slice-of-life and less drama. The first one, we had to make not so cheesy and campy; this one we are going to swing for the fences"

I can't quite figure out how this works since (one year old spoiler alert!) Mike was tearing off his stripping lifestyle rather than his clothes at the end of the first film. Will Mike's journey of self-rediscovery magically involve realizing that 'gotting & flaunting it' weren't such bad life choices after all!?! Or will we get a new set of strippers? I'm hoping for the latter because -- and I mean this both artistically and literally and lustfully for the success of the franchise and my pants -- FRESH MEAT!

CAST THIS!
Let's pretend they don't get lazy and think part two of two but instead think long-term prospects with continually rotating cast and semi-annual strip-a-thons. If you were on scripting and casting couch duty, which characters would you keep and which actors would you be approaching for new roles?

Think realistically. Last time they used rising or underexploited TV and film actors with hot bodies, rather than fully fledged "stars" (apart from McConaughey who was still in Career Rehabilitation Mode and completely deserved the Oscar though he wasn't even nominated. CURSE THEM). So they aren't going to be all "Hey Brad & Clooney & Matt, join our little strip-a-thon! Ewan, learn to love getting naked again!" however badly you might like them to. Think unexpected but just right. Ready, Set, (Cue Music / Lights / Fog Machine)... Go!