YNMS: "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk"

Not to be outdone by all the Cannes buzz starting this week, we have our first teaser trailer for Oscar hopeful Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. Ang Lee follows up his Oscar winning Life of Pi with this film about a young veteran's Victory Tour after fighting in Iraq. Like Pi, his new work blends a flashback narrative with technical wizardry: Lee utilized a high frame rate to create hyperreal action, aiming to create unprecidentally real 3D.

Backed by a massive ensemble including Kristen Stewart, Vin Diesel, Garrett Hedlund, Chris Tucker, Ben Platt, and Steve Martin, the master director looks to be back in the Oscar hunt once again.

Let's break down the highs, lows and inbetweens of the first look:

Click to read more ...

Team Experience: The Best of Brokeback Mountain

Ten years ago Brokeback Mountain arrived with truly bracing power.

10 years later Brokeback Mountain has lost none of its power

It was the rarest of things: an honest to god "instant classic". The phrase is overused but once in a while hyperbole proves true. The Oscars were stingy with it (just three prizes) but ten years on the film is as sturdy and majestically irreducible as the mountains that haunt the protagonists. When you're watching it you're breathing rarified air - not from the high altitudes of Wyoming but further on up, think cinematic heaven. The invaluable Ang Lee won his first Best Director Oscar for the film and it's easy to see why given the sensitivity of the performances (early career peaks from four promising ascendant stars), the classicism of the filmmaking, and his unshakeable hand as he sutures the neo western to the romantic tragedy with the thread of American masculinity.

I asked our contributors if they had a favorite scene they'd like to share with us and here were their responses.

FAVORITE SCENES IN BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

Click to read more ...

Beauty vs Beast: The Red Jungles of High Society

Jason from MNPP here with this week's episode of "Beauty vs Beast" for your fun-time entertainment -- while it's certainly not as important numerically as the approaching 100 year anniversary of Ingrid Bergman (which we're celebrating with great enthusiasm here at TFE) I think it's a happy enough happenstance that today marks the 113th anniversary of the birth of the terrific actress Norma Shearer and we should likewise celebrate her. And what better way than with that grand dame of cinematic cattiness, George Cukor's 1939 classic The Women? Shearer plays the betrayed society wife Mary, whose husband can't resist the shopgirl charms of (one two three - hiss!) Miss Crystal Allen, played by a totally game Joan Crawford. There's no way to play if you don't enter the kennel...

PREVIOUSLY Last week we also took on a "good wife" trampled by some dark-haired hussy, facing down Joan Allen and Sigourney Weaver in The Ice Storm. And the hussy won! The hussy always wins. (As we'll probably find out in another week when this Women poll's results come in.) Said Joe:

"Both women were brilliant in this. This is my favorite Ang Lee film. I'd give the edge to Sigourney. Outside of the Alien films, this is her best work. It's SHOCKING that she was not nominated for an Oscar that year. I mean, Minnie Driver??"

Beauty vs Beast: Mothers in the Storm

Jason from MNPP here wishing all of you a happy Monday and a happier August - where has the time flown? I've been off "Beauty vs Beast" duties for a couple of weeks because of real-world-stuff that's all quite boring, but I'm back now and rarin' to go. Positively rarin'. Today's pick it a little random but not really when I lay it out -- there was that article about Brokeback Mountain's upcoming 10 Year Anniversary last week which got me thinking about Ang Lee and then yesterday's Supporting Actress Smackdown got me thinking about Joan Allen and yadda yadda I re-watched The Ice Storm last night and yadda yadda here we are. See? Simple. More difficult I think will be the choosing... but let's reach in the bowl and fish somebody's keys out...

PREVIOUSLY Whilst I was away Nathaniel whispered my favorite siren song of sweet sweet Gyllenhaals and asked you guys to pick your favorite Jake flavor -- he's basically a box of Neopolitan Ice Cream; they're all so delicious, why choose? But choose we had to and straight-up Beautiful Jake (a la Brokeback and Love and Other Drugs) beat out his more Beastly iterations. Said San FranCinema:

"Had to vote for Beauty. Brokeback Jake...I just can't quit him!"

Podcast Smackdown (Pt 1) Sense & Sensibility & Mighty Aphrodite

You've read the Smackdown proper. Now, it's time for its podcast companion piece in which Nathaniel and his guests discuss the movies in greater detail.

Part 1: 40 Minutes
00:01 Introductions & who were we rooting for back in '95
05:45 Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite and broad comic caricatures in this particular category
14:30 Mira Sorvino’s career
17:26 Apollo 13
23:30 Ang Lee’s Sense & Sensibility, editing and ensemble work
34:00 Sister movies (Supporting or Lead for Kate & Mare?)

continue to part two

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes.  

Smackdown 1995. Part 1