Team Experience: Queue Confessions

For this week's TFE contributors roundup, I thought I'd force a confession... but alas, I didn't manage to catch anything that embarrassed anyone, damnit! Except myself! My queue is stupid

WHAT'S NEXT ON YOUR DVD QUEUE?

Jose: The Red Shoes and the first four seasons of "Doc Martin" which I have to review for work.

JA: Simon Rumley's terrifically unsettling Red White and Blue which unsettled me, terrifically, last year and Undertow, that Peruvian movie which I think you interviewed the director. [Editor's Note: Yes, yes, I did.]

 Alexa (Curio): I'm really, really going to watch them when I'm not chasing my toddler or passing out: Gloria (John Cassavetes' film, not the one with Sharon Stone! This is a re-watch, I just like it) and Reform School Girls (the one with Wendy O Williams from 1986).

Robert (Distant Relatives): First up is The Circus, the only Chaplin silent comedy I haven't seen. It keeps coming back up and I keep bumping it back down because quite frankly, if I watch it then I'll never have the possibility of new Chaplin comedy in my life.  Then Soylent Green, part of the wife's ongoing attempt to school me in good sci-fi I've been too dismissive of.

Craig (Take Three): Lined up I have Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny And Girly (A wealthy clan kidnap bums and hippies and forces them to participate in an elaborate role-playing game in which they are the perfect family; those who refuse or attempt escape are ritualistically murdered) and pre-Ghostbusting Ivan Reitman's 1973 flick Cannibal Girls (A young couple spend the night in a restaurant, only to find out that it is haunted by three dead women who hunger for human flesh). So it's business as usual in my DVD player!

Michael (Unsung Heroes): First up is Let Me In. I'm caving on my anti-remake indignation and giving it a chance. After that is The Falcon and The Snowman. I've heard good things.

As for me, Nathaniel, I shall also confess. Next up for me is Dark Habits (Almodóvar) and uh... Ron Howard's The Dilemma.

WAIT. WHAT???

I think what happened was I starting this thing a few months ago where I started "saving" new releases thinking I would rent EVERYTHING that came out in 2011 and do some stupid little visual thing with it once they came out on DVD -- even if I didn't watch them -- and now I am realizing this means it is coming to my house, this Ron Howard movie with Kevin James.

NOOOooooOOOooooooo

What's up next in your DVD queues???
No cheating, people. CONFESS!

On Blogging, Stamina, Subscriptions and Rent.

I've been contemplating a hiatus in a week's time for creative recuperation but especially to catch up on some pressing life concerns, mostly involving dire finances. Blogging day in and day out is tough nonlucrative work -- not tough nonlucrative like slinging burgers I know (don't misunderstood) -- but taxing in a peculiar emotional/headspace/social way, as many forms of mostly solitary, intellectual and/or creative jobs are.

A few years back I held a fundraiser which went well (thanks to all of you!) and saved me from ridiculous overage charges which the site no longer incurs (I've since fused the site & blog and switched hosts -- a big win for everyone, I think, right?... NEVER go with Pro-Hosting people!)

But fundraisers aren't really sustainable financial models unless you do them very frequently --which is annoying -- and ad revenue isn't (currently) enough to pay bills on. Hope springs eternal, though. I was thinking the other day that if everyone reading daily, every other day or weekly treated The Film Experience to a cup of coffee every month we'd be very strung out on caffeine we would be earning a totally liveable wage! Of course not everyone will contribute to anything they're used to getting for free. And I don't really, at this point or any point in the near future, want to try to challenge the New York Times (teehee) to a Pay Model duel.

So if enough of you have it in your hearts (and bank accounts) to be the kind of people who would gift The Film Experience the price of a cup of coffee, tub of popcorn, movie ticket or even dinner, on a monthly basis -- it'd be greatly appreciated and make our existential dilemma about whether we should keep blogging for time and all eternity go away :)

I ♥ The Film Experience so...

I'll buy you a coffee : $2.50USD - monthly I'll get the popcorn : $5.00USD - monthly Movie tickets on me! : $10.00USD - monthly Dinner! My treat : $20.00USD - monthly

A solid stream of revenue for the site would also theoretically (if enough people pitched in) enable Nathaniel to go to (or send someone to) more of the big ticket festivals, make trips to LA during Oscar season, and make a video series we've been brainstorming possible. Everything costs either time or money but almost always both.

If you buy a "subscription" you'll get a discount on upcoming things we're working on to sell, too (mostly commemorative books). The point is Something's Gotta Give and Please Give (It's not Diane Keaton or Catherine Keener, so it's gotta be you.)

P.S. I realize it's bizarre to preface a request for patronage with "hiatus" talk, but if I get a slew of donations that would be loud motivation to keep it real real short-like (a week-like to tie up some loose ends) rather than something lengthier in which I would be searching for gainful employment.

P.P.S. If you don't want to do something regular-like, a one time donation would still help and it's my birthday next week anyway. Plug Plug. (There's donation buttons in the side bars or right here!)

P.P.P.S. Thanks to everyone who reads for this lovely community, whether or not you can give. (If you can't give you can always help sustain The Film Experience in other ways: Tweet or facebook or digg or otherwise share your favorite articles and spread the word. More traffic equals more opportunities for ad revenue.) It's great to wake up every morning and talk to other film fans... even the super quiet ones who never talk back ;)

Philip Seymour Hoffman Continues To Get Great Tail

As long as I live I'll be haunting by the opening shots of Before The Devil Knows You're Dead in which 'sex angel' Marisa Tomei is on all fours getting nailed by ... Philip Seymour Hoffman? This is the part in the accompanying score where the lovely romantic music deflates to a comic halt, throwing ice water on the "mood"

What?

This image came flashing back to me with the announcement that delicious honey AMY ADAMS will play his wife in The Master, a film that's supposedly about Scientology (however veiled) from the genius Paul Thomas Anderson.

The cast for that movie is looking topnotch: Laura Dern, Lena Endre, Adams, Joaquin Phoenix (and *just announced* Breaking Dawn's Rami Malek as the son-in-law of Adams and Hoffman. No word yet on who is playing his teenage wife.) 

But even geniuses like P.T. Anderson make inexplicable decisions somehow, since Hoffman will be playing a "charismatic leader", the kind of man people flock to, sex up, idolize or obey for reasons that will maybe defy human logic. [See also: Synecdoche New York.] Hoffman can conjure "charisma" onscreen as well as any confident actor -- if not the sexual kind -- but the ladies he snags on celluloid... Yeesh.

A sampling of beauties that PSH has sexed up onscreen (sometimes literally but usually just implied):

• Annie Morgan
• Anna Paquin
• Michelle Williams
• Marisa Tomei
• Catherine Keener
• Samantha Morton
• Sarah Jessica Parker
• Minnie Driver

I'm sure I forgot someone. Their numbers grow every film!

Synecdoche New York was the worst offender as PSH's miserably depressed "Caden", with his boils and bloody stool, the kind of man who would have a hard time finding even one woman in real life, was able to bed Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton, Emily Watson, and Michelle Williams all in the space of one film!

Women are just hot for him, okay?! Deal with it.

It wasn't always this way with PSH. In the beginning of his career, none of the hotties that he wanted to sleep with onscreen wanted him back: in Boogie Nights he pursued Mark Wahlberg to no avail and in Happiness he really wanted Lara Flynn Boyle but ended up in bed with Camryn Mannheim instead.

But then...  Was it State and Main where he managed to bed Sarah Jessica Parker as a bitchy starlet that changed it? Was it those gargantuan displays of actor/character ego in The Talented Mr Ripley or Cold Mountain? Somewhere along the line great filmmakers decided he was a ladykiller!

I realize that complaining about the looks of a revered actor wins me no friends, but please trust that I wouldn't say a word if they would only cast his wives and girlfriends differently. I can only suspend disbelief so far. By this coupling logic I should have slept with Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal and Uma Thurman by now, you know? JUST SAYIN'.

P.S. End of rant. I'm still excited for The Master, no matter what. P.T. Anderson is a wondrous gift to the movies.

Consider... Pee Wee

Hey, if it worked for Melissa Leo's Oscar run, maybe Pee Wee Herman can grab an Emmy nomination with his glamour shot?

image via Deadline via Facebook

...which is actually hers, but let's not split hairs tufts of fur. (Doesn't it seem like the Emmy nominations have the longest lead up time of any awards wait. I keep thinking they've got to have announced them by now but they're still six whole weeks away.)

Is Melissa Leo's "Consider..." the new "you like me. you really like me!"? Discuss.

P.S. I saw The Pee Wee Herman Show on Broadway on Broadway (duh) -- can't remember if I told you -- and though i had a g-r-e-a-t time it was basically an exercize in nostalgia. Which has its place, don't get me wrong, but I want NEW Pee Wee. I hope he has something cooking that actually gets served up in the near future.

Top Ten: Ewan McGregor Performances

Tuesday Thursday Top Ten

With Ewan McGregor back in theaters with Beginners and with it being Moulin Rouge! week and all, how about a list of our top Ewan performances?

I have only the dimmest recollection of A Life Less Ordinary and I just didn't want to include that awful Star Wars prequel trilogy on principle (though Ewan survived it better than most of the actors) and it's possible I forgot something else... but here we go.

10 "Jerome" in THE PILLOW BOOK (1996)
I love Ewan's ballsy (ahem) taste in material... at least at that point in his career. His screen persona often reads sweet but he's quite a wild child in terms of the cinema.

09  "The Ghost" in THE GHOST WRITER (2010)
A tricky cipher part -- who is he really? we can't know -- that he pulled off well. It helps that the movie is so damn good: top ten list!

Tilda and Ewan in "Young Adam"

08 "Joe Taylor" in YOUNG ADAM (2003)
Arriving so quickly on Moulin Rouge!'s warm heels this one was a shocker. Ewan re-embraced the amoral danger of his star-making roles in the 90s, absent the devilishly winking charisma that made his previous unsavories so palatable. Bonus points for sexing up Tilda Swinton and and expressing his love of condiments. We generally drown our burgers in them, but he prefers them on live flesh.

07  "Alex Law" in SHALLOW GRAVE (1994)
I haven't seen Danny Boyle's feature debut since the 90s but it was one sick and slick calling card with a very young long haired Ewan acing his soulless roommate act.

06 "Catcher Block" in DOWN WITH LOVE (2003)
He probably owed this flirty cocky shot at romantic comedy headlining via Moulin Rouge! but who is better suited to it. Plus, he looked so good in his suits. This is a movie I keep meaning to rewatch.

05 "Curt Wild" in VELVET GOLDMINE (1998)
We mentioned 'wild child' earlier. None of his roles embrace that concept quite as obviously. Ewan, who doesn't leash himself when acting (to our eternal gratitude), played the hell out of this unpredictable glitter-spraying, pants-dropping, drug-taking, boy-kissing, fucked-up rock star morphing from glam rock abandon to... sedated "Curt" Cobain?

NSFW

04 "Phillip Morris" in I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS (2010)
That twinkly-eyed sweetness was used to great fey affect in this uneven but funny romantic comedy about a gay romance that bloomed in prison and couldn't quite break wiggle out from behind those bars. Have any of you seen this yet? So many actors biff it when they play up "gayness" but Ewan, always so at ease on camera and free of judgements toward his characters (think about it) came across so naturally. Few actors are as good at playing romance onscreen, he nearly always makes a solid case for why the other actor/actress is gaga for him.

03  "Oliver" in BEGINNERS (2011)
A great part of the success of this whimsical melancholy exploration of a dying gay father (Christopher Plummer) and his lonely straight son (McGregor), is how sympathetically Ewan embodies the role and how much chemistry he always has with co-stars. Loneliness can be a huge self-sabotaging drag in real life -- often turning people off when the sufferer needs to connect -- but in the movies it tends to evoke empathy in audiences. You watch and you wait and you desperately want Oliver to find love and happiness and to smile broadly and often... partially because he's Ewan McGregor. Stop hiding that famous grin!

02 "Rent-boy" in TRAINSPOTTING (1996)
A performance worth diving into a toilet bowl to experience.

image via "fucking awesome ewan"

"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television to watch Ewan McGregor movies on!' (This film should have netted him his first Oscar nomination with ease. Alas... he's still waiting.)

1 "Christian" in MOULIN ROUGE! (2001)
When The Film Experience did a "Favorite Actors of the Aughts" in 2005, Ewan McGregor landed in the top 5 (yes, I hope to republish that later this year -- donate -- to look at the entire decade rather than just its first half) and here's what I had to say, paraphrased for this new context.

Ewan makes me feel. He makes me smile. Some actors we relate to as identity surrogates. We want to be them or see the story through their eyes. In the case of McGregor I find I'm always the other characters; I'm always with him. The apotheosis is the "Elephant Love Medley" scene. Like Nicole Kidman's 'Satine' I usually start out trying to resist Ewan McGregor (my critical/cynical self usually in control). As he keeps battering away at my defenses with his unique spark, humor, and openheartedness (both as character and actor), I start to cave. I resist, I complain, I explain all the reasons why not. But before long I am totally his.

It still applies. Come what may...