A Conversation About "Westworld" - Part 1

This week, Team Experience members Lynn Lee and Kieran Scarlett have tackled the first two episodes of new HBO sci-fi drama, "Westworld," which has captured the interest, fascination (or ire, depending on who you talk to) of audiences. Here's Part 1 of the 2 part discussion...

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

KIERAN: Watching the “Westworld” pilot and then the second episode, my immediate reaction—even in thinking that the pilot was relatively strong and an intriguing opening statement to the show—was that these two episodes should be reversed.   I might even go so far as to say that the pilot, with all of its beautifully creepy, world-establishing glory (more on this later) is missable when held up against the power (both narratively and stylistically) of the second episode...

Click to read more ...

Silence of the Lambs Pt 3: Quid Pro Quo

image via FangoriaTeam Experience is revisiting 1991's Best Picture, Silence of the Lambs for its 25th anniversary.

In Pt 1 We met Clarice and Hannibal and heard about the horrifying Buffalo Bill case.
In Pt 2 The FBI's investigation picked up steam with the discovery of another victim and The Death's Head Moth. Finally, we met Buffalo Bill and his latest victim Catherine, now "the girl in the pit." When we left her she was a disembodied voice shouting for help. Why won't you answer me please?

Answers are coming but not without a price. 

Pt 3 by Nathaniel R

00:49:50 A smartly judged sharp cut takes us from the dark abyss of Bill's pit to the brightly lit FBI training facility. It's like blinking from too much sun when you leave a movie theater in the middle of the day. Though Silence of the Lambs deals with gruesomely complex psychology its binaries of good and evil are the lifeline for mass appeal I think. (Craig McKay was nominated for Best Film Editing, losing to JFK's collage and barrage of characters and information)

The students. Demme never gets any credit for his multi-ethnic casting but he was doing it long before people were hating on Hollywood for *not* doing it.

00:51:34 A news broadcast about Buffalo Bill at the training center attracts a large group of students. Turns out the Girl in the Pit is actually a US Senator's daughter so there's yet more pressure to get this case solved. Ardelia whispers to Clarice that it's so smart what the Senator is doing, repeating Catherine's name so often; get her would be killer to see her as human and maybe he'll show mercy.

00:51:35 Another jarring cut and we're back at the asylum. Chilton has had it with Clarice's secrecy. Jodie Foster's performance is so sharp in this movie. You can see our heroine getting bolder and more confident each time she steps out; her body language is more confrontational, too. [More after the jump...]

Click to read more ...

Robert Wise Centenary: Audrey Rose (1977)

We've been celebrating 100 years of director Robert Wise all week by looking at some of his lesser known efforts. Previously: Tim on "Curse of the Cat People", Nathaniel on "Somebody Up There...", David on "I Want To Live!", and Manuel on "Star!" -- now here's Jason wrapping it up with "Audrey Rose"

It says a lot about the breadth of Robert Wise's filmography that the team of writers that tackled his Centennial this week here at The Film Experience have had such a gigantic stage to play upon. I mean here I am an avowed musical-agnostic taking on the director of two of the biggest movie musicals of all time, and even with the tossing aside The Sound of Music and West Side Story (although strangely I did write that movie up at TFE back in the day) I had multiple films which I could've tackled with glee. His early pair with producer Val Lewton, Curse of the Cat People (which Tim beautifully wrote up) and The Body Snatcher, are amongst the finest horror films of the 1940s; The Day the Earth Stood Still is one of the most memorable expressions of the 50s sci-fi landscape; and well 1963's The Haunting is probably in my top five horror movies of ever -- to watch sad Nell lose herself amongst the shadows of Hill House is to feel your own edges fading away, bit by bit.

But my confidence in Wise convinced me that tackling an unknown was the way to go - had I really never seen 1977's Audrey Rose? I really hadn't. [more...]

Click to read more ...

Beauty Vs Beast: Two Girls, One Nut

JA from MNPP here with this week's round of "Beauty Vs Beast" fun - it's only the start of the week here but I think it's pretty clear that we've already got to cede ownership of the whole seven days to the biggest female movie star in the world. Not only did Angelina Jolie have her biggest box office opening ever with the Sleeping Beauty re-write Maleficent (which, well, I feel so very alone among my online-critic friends having really enjoyed the movie) but she's turning 39 on Wednesday to boot. You got this one, Angie.

This fall marks the 15th anniversary of the Winona Ryder vehicle Girl, Interrupted, meaning we're coming up on 15 years since Angelina's Oscar win and adjacent meteoric rise to top of the heap. So let's look back there for this week's cinematic tête-à-tête...

poll by twiigs.com

Light a candle for Angie or Winona in the comments - you've got one week to grab one of them by the hand and make your break for it.

PREVIOUSLY And speaking of mental patients, last week we came in like a lion to leave with the Silence of the Lambs, facing down the two serial killers at the black heart of Jonathan Demme's 1991 Oscar horror - I don't think anybody was too srurpised to see Dr. Lecter walk free on this one. As Sonja put it...

"I mean.... he's literally "eating" all the other psycho killer wannabes for breakfast."

Beauty Vs Beast: Lions Vs Lambs

JA from MNPP here - last night I learned that one way to know a specific horror movie has left a deep mark on your brain is if you can identify it down to a scene just by hearing the screams of the actor(s) in said horror movie. It's like Name That Tune, but the nightmare version. I was minding my own business last night watching TV when what should erupt from the other room but horrible, blood-curdling shrieks. Thankfully I immediately knew the shrieks and felt no need to call 911 - my boyfriend was watching The Silence of the Lambs and those were the cries of Catherine Martin (Brooke Smith) as she first gets a good look at the walls of the hole she's been tossed in by her captor Buffalo Bill.

A terrifying moment, to be sure, in a movie filled to the brink with them. And that alone might've been enough to inspire this week's edition of "Beauty Vs. Beast," but if you add on the second season finale of NBC's series Hannibal just aired this past week (please tell me we've got some fans up in here - it's blowing everything else on TV out of the water right now) along with the fact that last week was Brooke Smith's birthday (love her) and it's Ted "Buffalo Bill" Levine's birthday in two days, and we've smack-dab in a cannibal maelstrom. What a delicious place to be!

Instead of having her face off against one of the killers it seemed best to leave Clarice Starling out of this competition - partially because she'd clearly be the easy winner, but moreso because the film itself uses the over-the-top grotesquerie of Bill as a mask to deflect us from Hannibal's true face. Are we fooled? Do Hannibal's manners trump Bill's, uh, dancing skills? Let it be known!

poll by twiigs.com

You've got until Monday to vote, and to spill some love and chianti out for your picks in the comments.

PREVIOUSLY Last week we pit the difficult-to-love ladies of Notes on a Scandal against each other, and y'all told Sheba to find herself another park-bench to sit on, the spot next to Baraba (Judi Dench) was taken. Armondo summed up the thought process it seems like most of us went through in the choosing...

"Sheba is hot and all, but apart from being immoral, she is so superficial and selfish that you cannot help but find her grating. It is like she has never matured and still thinks she is a young girl without nothing to worry about. And she is guilty of her own downfall (though she still thinks herself blameless). Barbara in the other hand is just a sociopath and a weirdo, but she's still aware of the effects of her actions (for better or for worse). So there's that at least."