Monday, October 12, 2015 at 9:20AM Groggy this morning. MORE COFFEE. Please to enjoy these celebrities doing their casual things as we get our act together for the week. An exciting new week. One in which your host is not sick. What could it possibly hold? Any requests.
Let's begin with Jessica Chastain reading about Diane Keaton (as one does should)... "bookworm"
Amanda Seyfried, Hugh Jackman, Jared Leto and more after the jump...
Monday, September 29, 2014 at 1:10PM Our NYFF coverage continues with Matthew Eng on this year's surprise screening -- which was less of a secret than usual this year, continually hinted at by the NYFF themselves, even spoiled ahead of time by IndieWire...
Ben Stiller & Naomi Watts star in "While We're Young"
Noah Baumbach is showing his age.
Not that this is the first time, mind you. Anyone who stuck through his exquisitely harsh and thus totally divisive Greenberg will surely remember Ben Stiller’s crusty, titular protagonist sourly announcing to a party full of fuzzed-out twentysomethings, “I hope I die before I end up meeting one of you in a job interview.”
There’s something instantly more pronounced about Baumbach’s evident unease towards the current generational divide in his latest adult dramedy, While We’re Young, in which Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts star as Josh and Cornelia, a deceptively comfortable urban couple who are surprised to find themselves befriended and seduced by Jamie and Darby, a married pair of kind-eyed, porkpie-wearing, Bushwick-dwelling hipsters, played by Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried. What starts as a casual, multi-generational friendship soon transitions into something more consuming, as Josh, a struggling documentary filmmaker whose sophomore follow-up has taken ten years to finish, finds himself both aping and inspiring Jamie, who just so happens to be an aspiring documentarian himself. [more...]
Tuesday, April 29, 2014 at 9:00PM For this week's Hit Me With Your Best Shot, we're reairing one of the earliest of episodes. We invited new readers to select a shot if they weren't around in 2010 when "Best Shot" first began so this survey of Mean Girls best shots, as chosen by each participant (click on the link for the corresponding article) is an fusion of old and new pieces 'round the web. Here's my choice:
And what I originally wrote:
The camera tracks Regina through the hallway after she's hatched her brilliant revenge plan. She's regained control of the screaming rage we saw in the prior scene and she's just gliding through the hallways, with a neat hint of actressy athleticism. Gone is the sex kitten and in her place the marathon runner.
The shot functions like a reverse Hansel & Gretel; the witch leaving a bread crumb trail. In the bookend shot that follows the camera is still moving, gliding away from her, but the witch isn't. Witness her hungry self-satisfaction while she watches the children gobble up the crumbs; They're already baking in her oven!
So, that's my choice. What's yours?
14 MORE BEST SHOT(s)
as chosen by 16 of the greatest people you'll ever know
click on the image for the corresponding article
a blink-and-you-miss moment in the film... absolutely hilarious."
-Sorta That Guy
The best performance of her career..."
-Coco Hits New York
The conspicuous gap between them...
-Antagony & Ecstasy
No shot in the film makes me bust out loud laughing more..."
-Best Shot in the Dark
I love to think about Regina...
-Intifada
Each of "The Plastics" has great lines, but Karen takes the cake"
- Dean A
This could not be more on point."
- I Want to Believe
...captured the insanely fun spirit of the film but also encapsulated the plot really well."
- Awkward is What We Aim For
And she's not just maintaining a place among North Shore royalty, she's threatening to take over..."
-Cinemamelie
She even describes herself as 'a woman possessed'..."
-Film Actually
...a wicked Madonna from a Renaissance tableaux."
-Movies Kick Ass
The queen of the jungle..."
-The Entertainment Junkie
Daniel Franzese, far and away the funniest part of Mean Girls"
- Serious Film
Her flock who've come to worship..."
-Musings and Stuff
My pick for Best Shot has actually accrued more meaning over time....
-Dancin Dan
Oh you girls keep me young I luv ya..."
-The Film's The Thing
like TFE on facebook, you grotsky little byotch
Next on 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot' - JOIN US
05/06 Altman's strange / wonderful Three Women (1977) with Shelley Duvall & Sissy Spacek
05/13 Antontioni's mod classic Blow-Up (1965) Vanessa Redgrave and a mysterious murder
05/20 Choose any or multiple Batman films. Pick and post your fav shot for his 75th
Monday, April 28, 2014 at 11:45PM 
You own a copy of Mean Girls (2004), right?
Pull it off the shelf, rent it or Netflix Instant it (it expires May 1st!) so you can watch as you listen to this podcast. In this very special 10th anniversary celebration, Nathaniel R (The Film Experience) and Joe Reid (The Wire) return to North Shore High to watch Mean Girls together and provide you with our very own DVD commentary track. If you don't watch while you listen we'll sound like mad men giggling out of context or merely like we're too gay to function.
We discuss everything: performance, writing, costumes, set design, scoring and even casting that almost was -- it would have been such a different film. We also talk the reliable time capsule worthiness of the high school comedy film genre and tangents occur. Due to file sizes and the 97 minutes of running time, I can't embed both parts here in the post but you can download the 2 part conversation on iTunes. Or, if you are seeing this post much later, both parts are here on the podcast upload page from 2014.
Joe and I would really love you to continue the conversation in the comments. (Katey and Nick couldn't attend. But they love Ladysmith Black Mambazo!)
Articles referenced in The Podcast
Mean Girls Cast power rankings
Hit Me With Your Best Shot
'let me tell you something about Lindsay Lohan'
IndieWire: Daniel Franzese's coming out letter
The Map of North Shore High's Cafeteria
Wednesday, April 23, 2014 at 7:00PM Mean Girls Week Begins! For the next seven days (betwixt the normal blogging) we'll be dropping in occasionally on the students of North Shore High to celebrate 10 years of Mean Girls which opened April 30th, 2004.
For now please to enjoy this very pink gallery with a lavender note from Damian...
