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.)
Follow TFE on Substackd
Thursday, March 7, 2013 at 5:18PM ...did you click over hoping to read about right this second*? (In related news, it's reader appreciation month so I might be open to requests)
*I'm sorry that it wasn't here but do tell!
Thursday, March 7, 2013 at 1:31PM Hey lovelies. Beau here with a look at the newest indie darling.
It’s hard to pin down Noah Baumbach. While most of his nineties peers have vanished from the cinematic landscape or are reaping all the glory on the mountains, he’s that curious anomaly that no one is quite sure what to do with.
Since his resurgence and critical coup in 2005 with The Squid and the Whale, (a coming out party for Jesse Eisenberg post-Rodger Dodger) he’s only made two films in the seven/eight years after. Margot at the Wedding is an enormously divisive picture, but even that couldn’t prepare audiences and critics alike for his follow-up, Greenberg featuring a particularly acidic turn from Ben Stiller. It’s not many films that could inspire such vitriol as to warrant something like this on theater’s windows nationwide.
Eek.
Thursday, March 7, 2013 at 12:31PM first & last puzzles
the first image and the last lines of dialogue.
Take good care of her!"
[then the Title Song sung]
Can you guess the movie?
If you're still stumped the answer is after the jump
Wednesday, March 6, 2013 at 10:44PM A brief preface for new readers: "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" is a series in which we invite all movie lovers to share their choice of 'best shot' from a single pre-selected film on their own web space (twitpic, blogger, tumblr, whatever) each Wednesday night. The joy of the series is seeing the same film through multiple eyes. "Best", not just Beauty, being in the eye of the beholder.
I love the sepia opening scenes more than I can say...
So, what is the takeaway image of The Wizard of Oz (1939) for you? How do you define best and does that definition change with each movie? My choice and several others are somewhere over the rainbow after the jump
Wednesday, March 6, 2013 at 6:06PM 
What's happening on SMASH: They're trying to make Jennifer Hudson happen.Sometime last week between episodes four and five of Smash's ill-fated second season I had an unhappy epiphany: I was no longer looking forward to new episodes of "Smash". Last season, when everyone else was 'hate-watching' I was actually unironically enjoying. Yes, it had issues but where else were you going to see showtunes on TV? And besides, MANY shows have troubled first seasons as they find their voice. Bunheads, for example, recently leapfrogged from 'who-is-this-for?' curio to must-watch in the final episodes of its first season.
Yet, for all of my "Support the Musicals!" blog fervor, Smash is now a chore. They've basically cut the staged musical numbers and all we're left with is solos on bare stages or by pianos, usually by Jennifer Hudson. "The Song" as an episode was, and I couldn't believe it, a Jennifer Hudson concert. That was the plot! She's a fine singer but not a good actress and therefore hardly worth tuning into as the lead of a serialized scripted television. (I'm as surprised as you that the show suddenly thinks of her as the lead. I thought it was a guest arc!). Smash already fell on this sword in season 1 whilst trying to make Katharine McPhee happen.
Ivy & Karen are reduced to back-up singers... wth showrunners?
Jennifer Hudson, Smash, TV, musicals 