Mad Men @ the Movies: Having & Holding

Hello! Deborah from Basket of Kisses back for another movie-free week of Mad Men at the Movies. In this week's Mad Men, actors and television figure prominently, so we'll have lots to talk about.

Episode 6.04, To Have and To Hold takes us (among other places) backstage of the soap opera where Megan has a growing role. The episode itself has a frothy, soapy sensibility, full of illicit goings-on and secrets revealed.

Don Draper: Does he look like James Garner to you? 

Soap opera trivia and Broadway Joe Namath after the jump.

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Monday Monologue: Kym from 'Rachel Getting Married'

Hello, lovelies. Beau here, filling in for Nathaniel on this week's Monday Monologue, featuring a film that is packed full of them.

Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married was, for my money, the best film of 2008. (Nathaniel shared my sentiments, though we don't always see eye to eye: note our complete polarized responses to the masterful Cloud Atlas last year.) That's not a title it earned easily, considering that it was also the year I was exposed to Charlie Kaufman's brilliant Synechdoche, New York as well as Christian Mungiu's Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days, a film I lovingly referred to as 'that Romanian abortion picture' to friends who recoiled and cocked their heads at the thought of sitting through something like that.

No, what moved me the most, what hurt me the most was this small, intimate picture filmed on digital with many striking nods to the Dogme movement of the nineties, (filmed on location, hand-held, diegetic music) and providing a piercing, at times intrusive look at the lives of this shattered family. In it, each actor does the best work of their career. [more]  

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Still there. Still there. Gone.

The new poster for Before Midnight has just been released via EW, reminding us all that the next chapter in the lives of Celine and Jesse is only 32 days away.

Are we all excited yet?

Also: for anyone living in the L.A. area, the LA County Museum of Art will be hosting a double feature of the first two films, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset on Friday, May 17th. Tickets are available here starting Thursday at 5:00, and at $10 for both films on the big screen, it's not even a bargain anymore. It's a freakin' steal.

Get them, lovelies. 
-Beau

Box Office: Tom Cruise On Top... Again

Amir here, to fill in for Nathaniel for the 411 on this weekend's box office. I haven't seen any new releases in quite a while, but I'll definitely get to Oblivion later in the week. Looking at the top ten, it turns out I'm not the only one who can't resist Tom Cruise on the screen. The man can do (almost) no wrong when it comes to opening a film at #1, his star power having endured many couch-jumpings, turbulent relationships, rock musical failures and all sorts of other crazy stuff. Oblivion's 38 million dollar gross isn't stellar but it's good enough to put the film on course to easily make its budget back. Ooh, what's that you say? International sales? Well, yes, considering that, Oblivion has already grossed more than its production budget, so we'll count it as a solid success. 

 

Box Office (Wide)

1. Oblivion ($38.1) (new) REVIEW

2. 42 ($18) (cum. 54)

3. The Croods ($9.5) (cum. 154)

4. Scary Movie 5 ($6.3) (cum. 22)

5. G.I. Joe: Retaliation ($5.7) (cum. 111)

6. The Place Beyond the Pines ($4.7) (cum. 11) REVIEW

7. Olympus Has Fallen ($4.5) (cum. 88)

8. Evil Dead ($4.1) (cum. 48)

9. Jurassic Park 3D ($4) (cum. 38) MEMORIES

10. Oz: The Great and Powerful ($3) (cum. 223) REVIEW

There were no other wide releases this weekend, but here's the story I'm interested in: The Croods has quietly become a sensation. It's barely lost any screens and is holding on to its sales really well. I threw a hissy fit when my aunt forced me to take my little cousin to watch it, but I ended up enjoying its cliched thrills quite a bit, high-fiving my cousin frequently when the unlikely cave-superheroes escaped doom at every turn. Could an Oscar nomination be on the cards? I'm skeptical but the massive box office might count for a lot if the field is weak and team DreamWorks play their cards right. 

Three new films ruled the day among limited releases. I'd personally only heard of Rob Zombie's Lords of Salem before I sat down for this post, but Home Run (a sports drama) and Filly Brown (a hip-hop drama) took the top two spots. Further down the screen count pecking order, Francois Ozon's superb new film In the House had the best screen average of any film this weekend ($11,738) and if you haven't seen it, get yourself to a theater as soon as possible. If your thirst for francophone cinema is still not quenched, hilarious Canadian sperm donation comedy, Starbuck, is still playing on 30 screens. 

What did you all see this weekend?
Tom Cruise in a space suit? Tattooed Ryan Gosling? Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan and the has-been team?

Smash: Opening Night

Glenn here, one of the few remaing Smashites who will be with this dear show until the bitter end. I'm not going to mince words here: "Opening Night" was the best episode of the season so far. This is for a multitude of reasons that we'll get in to briefly, but mostly it's because "Hit List" barely factored. And when it did it was in the shadow of "Bombshell", the musical gets hailed the hit of the season. Too bad they didn't get that "love letter from The Times" that Liza so beautifully sang about a couple of weeks back.

2.12 "Opening Night"

This week is "Bombshell" heavy as opening night occurs and all the anticipation and exhiliration and drama and disappointment that comes with it. This is a good thing, folks, and "Hit List" thankfully takes a sidestep (although the show's writers can't help but force it upon Smash even when there are far more important things to be worrying about).

Ivy is naturally worried about the reviews... [more]

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