"Witches of Eastwick" Week!

Starts now!  Happy 25th Anniversary to The Witches of Eastwick (1987). Normal blogging will run concurrently but we'll pop on over to that supernatural New England town at least once a day this week. We'll discuss the famous vomiting scene, Michelle Pfeiffer's fruitful loins, Cher's sculptures and more. We'll also look for fun Witches-related articles online this week to share. 

But first... FUN FACTS

Title: The Witches of Eastwick (1987)
Director: George Miller of Mad Max fame. He directed every feature in that franchise and will also direct the reboot Mad Max: Fury Road to star Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron.
Release Date: June 12th, 1987
Based on: the novel of the same name by John Updike. I haven't read it but from my understanding it isn't what you'd call a "faithful" adaptation.
Legacy: The Witches of Eastwick has since been adapted into a television series a remarkable three times (only one version went to series, though) as well as a stage musical.
Movie's Running Time: 118 Minutes
Star Billing Hierarchy:

1. Jack Nicholson
   [TITLE]
2. Cher
3. Susan Sarandon
4. Michelle Pfeiffer
   [CO-STARRING] 
5. Veronica Cartwright
6. Richard Jenkins | Keith Jochim [shared title card]
7. "And Carel Struycken as Fidel"

Switcheroo: Cher's "Alexandra" role was supposed to be Susan Sarandon's and it was given to Cher without Sarandon's knowledge prior to shooting, leaving Sarandon with "Jane" instead. Sarandon was initially angry and coverage at the time suggested a very tense set. Yet Sarandon was the only Eastwick star to work with Miller again; they reteamed 5 years later for Lorenzo's Oil which won Susan her third Best Actress Oscar nomination.
Box Office: The tenth highest grossing film of 1987, just ahead of Dirty Dancing (Nobody puts These witches put Baby in a corner!)  Just below Lethal Weapon. i.e. as popular in its year as, like, Thor or Rise of the Planet of the Apes last year. It's the 2nd biggest hit movie about witches ever behind only The Blair Witch Project (1999).
Box Office Rank For Each Star's Whole Career: Jack's tenth biggest hit, Cher's second biggest hit (Moonstruck in the same year being #1), Sarandon & Pfeiffer's 5th biggest hit.

Are you ready, ladies?"

Oscar attention: 2 nominations for Score (John Williams) and Sound. Cher won the Oscar for Moonstruck released six months later and this movie couldn't have hurt; it was Her Year as they say (two #1 movies and a new platinum comeback album inbetween them titled simply "Cher")
Oscar-less: Only LaPfeiffer is Oscar-less now of the principal quartet.
Acting Kudos: Jack Nicholson took home Best Actor from the twin towers of critics awards: LAFCA and NYFCC (shared with Ironweed for which he was Oscar nominated). Nicholson, Sarandon and Cartwright all won Saturn Award nominations, too. Oddly there was zero attention from the Golden Globes despite the film being a hit prestige all star Comedy aimed at adult audiences.

Name your favorite personal "fact" about this movie in the comments. When did you first see it?

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Django Unchained"

If Quentin Tarantino can make us wait an average of 2 years and ten months between each movie (I'm counting Kill Bill as one and assuming Django Unchained will arrive on schedule. But will it?) than you can all forgive me for not jumping on every piece of Tarantino news-- even the excitement of a trailer -- the minute it arrives. 

What's your name?"

His name is Django. The D is silent. Let's stay silent no more about the trailer ... or the teaser the teasler... the traiser? Aren't teasers support to be 1 minute long? We'll break this traiser into three pieces as we do.

YES

• Things that are off the chain: the shot of the blood sprayed cotton, the self-aware zoom-in on Leonardo DiCaprio casts gleefully against type, Django throwing off his coat, the shot reverse shot of Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington in the water (dream sequence?). More after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Twins: Band of Marshall-Green-Hardy Brothers

twins daily @ 2:22 PM during Gemini

Rising star Logan Marshall-Green (Prometheus) --  who we were recently talking about since he's about to play Tennessee Williams --  is pictured left... or is it right? He has a twin brother named Taylor (who is not an actor) also pictured to your left... or right. They are not actually identical but fraternal according to Logan but they coulda fooled me.

To make things more confusing (and more delightful for the internets) people keep mistaking Logan for another rising star Tom Hardy (Bronson, Inception, This Means War). Hardy does not share DNA with the Marshall-Green twins having been born to totally different parents on a different continent 10 months apart. 

And yet...

 

To make things more confusing⁴...

• Tom and Logan both made their screen debut in Band of Brothers (2001). Tom played a Brit and Logan a German.... but still. How weird is that as coincidences go? 
• Tom & Logan seem to have similar taste in (changing) hair affectations.
• Tom (Lawless) & Logan (Prometheus) are both currently co-starring with Guy Pearce (albeit in separate movies).
• Tom came to the recent Prometheus premiere which Logan also naturally attended being one of its stars. Unfortunately the internet has (at this writing) denied us pictures of the two twin-like actors standing in each other's general vicinity. Damn you internets!

Over the course of the past four years Tom Hardy's career has been going supernova whilst Logan Marshall-Green has been sexing up Marisa Tomei. So it's kind of a draw.

Marisa & Logan, who aren't photographed much together, in 2010

Maybe Logan and Taylor and Tom should have all played "Number 14" together in Battlestar Galactica instead of wasting time with sci-fi pictures like Prometheus (Logan) and Star Trek: Nemesis (Hardy). Or maybe Marisa and Logan should've replaced Reese & Chris Pine and co-starred with Hardy in a better sexier smarter version of This Means War or maybe th--- okay, okay. I'll stop now. But the point being: The Film Experience ♥ twins.

P.S. I have not yet seen Prometheus but I'll rectify the situation tomorrow and we'll discuss.

New "Magic Mike" Stills in Ascending Order of Hotness

It's annoying that Magic Mike did not premiere in the Lusty Month of May and even more annoying that it did not premiere for my birthday. But at least it's arriving at the tail end of Gay Pride Month, because oglers of male beauty (aka roughly 70% ? of the population including gayz, women, and straight men who aren't insecure about such things) should thank the gays for this new era of male objectification. Unrealistic self-punishing beauty standards aren't just for women anywhere. Hooray.... ?

If someone will collect all the stills and trailers and clips into one YouTube reel maybe none of us will even need to see the movie. What? Studios release way too much pre-release material. We still don't know if Magic Mike the movie is any good or not but I did hear from a reader who loved the test screening he saw (especially Chan's dancing), adding:

I'm watching this 6 times and concentrating on one hot body per viewing.

LOL. If everyone interested does that, Channing Tatum will easily have his third $100 million blockbuster of the year.

20 new stills after the jump in totally subjective factual order of hotness. Here we go.

Click to read more ...

Unnecessary Sequel Alert: Queen White and The Huntsman

Well, last weekend's box office did it. Universal has OK'ed a sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman (reviewed right here). In retrospect, they really ought to have saved the current film's actual title for the sequel since Queen Ravenna (Charlize Diva Theron) is no more -- oops, Spoiler Alert!* -- and the film will now have no choice but to focus on the title characters. The Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) is likely to steal focus but do we really need him as the lead? Quoth The Film Doctor:

...the huntsman of Snow, proves to be a rabble-rousing drunk corralled by the evil Queen to retrieve Snow from the Dark Forest.  A blank drunk he remains.  I couldn't see why he's mentioned in the title, or what he's doing in the film except to look handsome backlit by the flames of a nocturnal fishing village set afire by the Queen's henchmen. 

But it's gotta be the Huntsman because surely they'd never push their luck and attempt a Queen White movie. I mean eve Kristen Stewart's most ardent Twilight fans wouldn't be interested in seeing her governance of a fairy tale kingdom dramatized. She isn't Streep or Mirren!

Kristen's Dilemma

If the new/old fairy tale's fresh stack of money was so lonely that it needed a sibling in 2014 wouldn't a prequel have been far more compelling since it was Evil Queen Ravenna that acted as Human Defribillator for the arrythmatic film? Not that a prequel could claim "Necessary!" either given the amount of flashback scenery Ravenna already chewed through.

Still and all... try to imagine staying awake through Snow White and the Huntsman WITHOUT Charlize Th-- hello? HELLO? WAKE UP! You can't possibly be this sleepy this early in the day.

*I apologize to all toddlers reading who are meeting Snow White for the first time. The Evil Queen dies and Santa Claus isn't real.