'it's linking men, hallelujah, it's linking men... Amen!'

The Film Experience likes the ladies best -- actresses forevah -- but today's links are curious phallocentric, hence the title.

Observations on Film Art one more piece on Sidney Lumet, something to fill out the "constrained" picture of the general mass of obituaries.
Tom Shone, in a wonderful concise piece, knows we're all more Brad Pitt than Terrence Malick in this Tree of Life.
Cinema Blend Katey worries that Hollywood is going to make us sick of Jeremy Renner. He's doing as many franchises as Samuel L Jackson adding The Bourne Legacy (lead role - taking over for Matt Damon) to the line-up. Ruh-roh.
The Wrap organized-crime-drama alert. There's always a few in production. Sean Penn and Josh Brolin, so memorably at odds in Milk, may be enemies again in Gangster Squad
Jezebel has a hilarious reel of men faking orgasm onscreen (in non-pornographic films). It's even a little bit interesting in a non-pervy way.
Movie|Line Joseph Gordon-Levitt trashes the Conan set for a Hesher promo.
Movie Morlocks RIP on the 1970s star Michael Sarrazin (They Shoot Horses Don't They, For Pete's Sake) who passed away last week. So many major goodbyes in showbiz lately. Sigh.
TVLine Strange Emmy development, ladies division: January Jones is still campaigning as a lead for Mad Men despite her screen time being at least halved this past season. Bad move? This puts her up against Elisabeth Moss, who is back to lead.

GayGayGay
Stale Popcorn Yay. Another convert to writer/director/actor/producer Xavier Dolan. I'll  have more on Heartbeats once it hits DVD... whenever that is.
Towleroad this weeks column by moi. I would have reviewed Water For Elephants but I was in Nashville. Is it wrong that I'm super excited to see it?
Out Magazine Thomas Dekker (Kaboom, Cinema Verite) is sending out all sorts of mixed signals about his sexuality. I guess we're still a couple years away from (male) movie actors coming out.

Streep. The Lady Turns Blue

A new photo of Jim Broadbent and Meryl Streep as Mr & Mrs Margaret Thatcher from The Iron Lady [via The Daily Mail]

This is apparently a recreation of her "The lady is not for turning" speech when she was at war with the unions. As much as I hated Mamma Mia! from her Iron Lady director and as much as I am largely suspect about this movie and whether it will lionize (perhaps accidentally?) an über conservative doing the kind of thing everyone is correctly pissed at the Wisconsin Governor for doing, I'll have to admit I'm getting more curious about the movie.

If only because it's so hard to read this far out. Did I underestimate it in my Oscar predictions?

April Showers: Don't Flirt With Pierce Brosnan!

waterworks each weeknight at 11

Have you ever seen the British gangster drama The Long Good Friday (1980)? I had never heard of it until a few years ago. It starred Helen Mirren and Bob Hoskins before I knew who they were and was released well before I started seeing R rated movies that only adults would like. I was wildly in love with the TV show Remington Steele (1982-1987) as a kid but back then I never considered whether actors had existed before I knew who they were (unless they were older actors and clearly MOVIE STARS like Liz Taylor & Jane Fonda and those types.) Pierce Brosnan existed before Remington Steele!!! Who knew?

26 year old's Pierce Brosnan's film debut "The Long Good Friday"

But there he is pre-Remington Steele, pre James Bond, pre Mamma Mia!. This is his big screen debut and he is billed as "1st Irishman" He has two scenes and no lines. He doesn't even utter a sound in the movie. (A mute Pierce Brosnan! Why didn't the makers of Mamma Mia! think of that?). But you don't need vocal chords when you look like this.

The Long Good Friday is a pretty tense crime movie all told and it uses that out-of-fashion tactic of keeping you in the dark about what's going on for at least one reel (today's movies love exposition too much to do this frequently anymore). The first 20 minutes are very disorienting as there's virtually no dialogue for half of that and we see a theft, a gay bar pickup, three murders, a funeral, an old woman spitting in the face of a young man and a yacht party thrown by Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren all of which have little context or connective tissue that we can make sense of.

But the man who lifted the money in the first scene, Colin (Paul Freeman) goes swimming whilst young Pierce keeps leering at him. To complete the cruising bait, Pierce heads for a literal April Shower, it being Good Friday and all. More after the jump.)

Click to read more ...

Yes, No, Maybe So: "The Change-Up"

If Freaky Friday, 17 Again, Switch and Freaky Friday (again) are your four all time favorite movies, but they aren't quite manly enough for you, you're going to be so excited for the latest body switcheroo comedy. It's called The Change-Up and the people switching bodies are Green (as in Horny) Lantern Ryan Reynolds and straight man (as in comedy) MVP Jason Bateman.

How do you think this will fare against that other August comedy Crazy Stupid Love (see previous post)

YES, NO, MAYBE SO.

Let's break it down after the jump with the red band trailer. Warning: relatively mild nudity and a super classy urination sequence follow.

Click to read more ...

Stage Door: Kathleen Turner in "High"

The Film Experience has always loved talking up theater, the true 3D experience. So let's do it weekly, even if it's brief. We'll make it movie adjacent: films adapted from stage, movies hitting the boards in a new form or worthy crossovers of any sort... that sort of thing. The lines in entertainment are much blurrier these days, aren't they? Many actors now do all three (tv, film, theater) with increasing regularity, don'cha know, no longer defining themselves as one medium actors.

Kathleen Turner on Opening Night | Turner w/ Evan Jonigkeit in "High"

I recently had the opportunity to see one of my all time favorite actresses on stage again: Kathleen Turner. Her major film career dwindled in the 90s but she's become a regular on Broadway and she's now starring as a foul-mouthed nun in Matthew Lombardo's drama "High". But not for much longer. It was announced yesterday that the show is closing Sunday after only 8 regular performances. Ouch. We're two weeks away from Tony nominations and we'd assumed that Kathleen would be nominated. But maybe not.

So is the play really that bad? The answer is a simple no. But it is a play that lacks the mythic enormity that you sometimes just have to have to fill up a big house with energy if not ticket buyers. Lombardo's last play "Looped" about the final movie performance of Tallulah Bankhead (played by Valerie Harper) had a similar problem though it was a much stronger show all told and was really helped by a transcendent sequence in the second act that was creatively staged as Tallulah remembers performing Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire. Both Looped and High are very simple in format -- which is not really a problem if the writing or story are superb -- but they rely too entirely on the star charisma of the lead actress, who is often monologuing, to really push them over.  High recounts the counselling sessions between a recovering alcoholic nun / social worker who is working with an unrepentant gay hustler and drug addict who has recently been involved in the overdose death of a teenager. How involved he was he won't say. The show has only three characters and while the nun and the drug addict have somewhat meaty if very traditional arcs, the Father character who pushes them together, just doesn't work in the writing or performing.

I'm glad I saw it and I hope Kathleen is Tony nominated being much stronger than the show but even she of that inimitable arresting rasp and considerable star charisma is unable to elevate it beyond its limitations. It might have worked far better as a made for TV movie, not for the subject matter exactly but for the intimacy that that medium can bring to small human struggle stories.

Stage/Screen News of the Moment
New York City Opera remember that Oscar nominated 60s movie Seance on a Wet Afternoon? It's now an opera by Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz. Should I see it and write about it?
Playbill an unauthorized musical parody of The Silence of the Lambs comes to Off Broadway in June.
Rama's Screen has the breakdown on the Rock of Ages cast -- who is playing who -- including a new character to be played by Catherine Zeta-Jones. So happy about this one as we needed Velma in another musical. I haven't seen the show -- I was put off by the American Idol stunt casting at the opening -- but now I'm curious and I have heard that it's very funny.