On this day: Butch Cassidy, Catherine de Medici, the '63 Oscars, and more

On this day in history as it relates to showbiz

1519 Catherine de Medici, Queen consort, born. She's been played in movies and TV by Kerry Fox, Megan Follows, Françoise Rosay, Maria Palmer, and many more but none so brilliantly as Virna Lisi in her Cannes winning performance in the sensational French epic Queen Margot (1994)

1570 Guy Fawkes born in England. V for Vendetta's "V" wears his face as a mask.

1743 Founding Father Thomas Jefferson born in Virginia. He's been played in movies and TV by actors like Nick Nolte, Jerry O'Connell, Stephen Dillane, Sam Waterston, Ken Howard, and many more...

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Thelma & Louise Part 1: Girls' Trip, Interrupted

25th Anniversary Five-Part Mini Series Event 

Thelma & Louise
Directed by Ridley Scott
Written by Callie Khouri
Released by MGM on May 24th, 1991
Nominated for Six Oscars

To celebrate the anniversary of this bonafide girls gone wild classic from 1991, Team Experience is revisiting the picture, tag-team style all week long (like we did with Rebecca & Silence of the Lambs, y'all!).

While the film begins in Arkansas, we're taking an alternate route. Grabbing the keys to begin this road trip is our own dazzling female duo over in Los Angeles, Anne Marie and Margaret. - Editor

Pt 1 by Anne Marie and Margaret

Anne Marie: 00:01. Fade in on an opening credit sequence that pulls every single late 80s/early 90s cliche. Heat-baked street? Check. Twanging guitar? Check. Harmonica solo? Check.

Margaret: Based on this alone, I would definitely expect to be watching a serious action-drama about a lovable renegade cop

Anne Marie: I mean, it's in that vein. As Susan Sarandon has pointed out (love this woman, and love how much she talks about this movie), Thelma & Louise basically is an outlaw buddy movie in the vein of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid.

01:10 But more on that later. Right now let's talk about HANS ZIMMER WROTE THIS SCORE?!?

Margaret: Hans Zimmer contains multitudes.

Anne Marie: As long as those multitudes contain at least one louder-than-necessary instrument solo. In all seriousness, there is a lot of talent behind Thelma & Louise, which you get to see just in the opening credits roll: Besides our two incredible leading ladies, the incomparable Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, we've got baby Brad Pitt without an ounce of baby fat on him, Harvey Keitel (happy belated birthday!), Michael Madsen, Christopher McDonald, and it's written by Callie Khouri, who would one day give us Nashville. Not the Altman.

Margaret: And never let us forget character actor workhorse Stephen Tobolowsky, who also appears here in compliance with state law. I also often forget that this is a Ridley Scott film. It doesn't have a "Ridley Scott film" kind of place in our cultural discourse, though it's got at least as much pop permanence as Blade Runner. (When was the last time Blade Runner got referenced in a Country radio hit?)

Anne Marie: Definitely.

02:15. Moving on, we introduce Our Fair Heroes. It's actually a great bit of screenwriting, because we learn exactly who each lady is just by this introduction

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Visual Index ~ Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid

We're celebrating the career of Robert Redford on and off this fall as All is Lost approaches. It's startling how many classic films he appeared in!

Hit Me With Your Best Shot is nearly ready to ride off into the sunset for the season (one more week - Spring Breakers is next Wednesday!) so we put it on horseback with luscious cinematography by the Oscar winning legend Conrad L Hall. Here were the shots chosen by our Best Shot club in what narrative order I remembered them in... hopefully correct. Click on the images for the accompanying articles on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and by all means watch this popular free-spirited winner on Netflix Instant Watch. 

BUTCH CASSIDY & THE SUNDANCE KID
Best Shot(s) 

The Film's The Thing
We Recycle Movies

The Entertainment Junkie

The Film Experience
Film ActuallySorta That Guy
Stranger Than MostAntagony & Ecstasy

Next Wednesday: Join us in gazing drop-jawed at Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers (2013). Choose your own best shot and we'll link up

Wanted: Yankee Bandits

Are you joining us for this week's Hit Me With Your Best Shot movie? It's the penultimate episode of Season 4 and we're looking at the Best Cinematography winner of 1969, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid which you can Netflix Instant Watch before Wednesday night to join us. Just make your choice for best shot and post it. We'll link up.

Please note: The Bolivian police station needs to fire the sketch artist who made this Wanted poster in the movie - Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid are not played by the Brawny paper towel man and Patrick Swayze. Jeez. It's Robert Redford and Paul Newman and they're worth a lot more than this posters 'recompensa'

Just look at them. 

A million pesos doesn't even begin to cover it. Those faces! Those perfect perfect movie faces.

"Hit Me" Season 4 - Last Three Movies !

As we move into prestige Oscar buzz season and restore old internet favorites like the Smackdown and _____ time gets tighter. Hit Me With Your Best Shot must ride off into the sunset until its revival in the spring. So here are your last three movies. Let's go out with a bang. 

08/21
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
Amazon Instant | Netflix Rental
Vincent Minnelli's noir was up for a ton of Oscars and Minnelli's films always look great. Which will be your favorite shot and will it incorporate Gloria Grahame's Oscar winning turn in Supporting Actress (which we'll be discussing on Sunday 08/25 in the Supporting Actress Smackdown)?

08/28
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Netflix Instant Watch |  Amazon Instant 
We'll be looking back at a few key Robert Redford classics in the build up to All is Lost, his comeback Oscar bid in October. Let's start right here since we've never done a Western in this series. This buddy movie with Redford and Paul Newman won Best Cinematography at the Oscars. 

09/04
Spring Breakers (2013)
We never do anything brand new in this series so let's investigate this divisive hypno-oddity before everyone (and the blog) goes 'Back to School' for the fall. We're talking a cue from Nick's suggestion on the podcast that this cinematography is worth fussing & FYCing over. 

On a Housekeeping Note: You wouldn't believe how hard it is to choose films for this series as so many movies that are suggested or that I think would be good choices are increasingly difficult to find with the ever fragmented dvd/bluray/streaming wars going on among studios/stores/sites/netflix. Even things as recent as the 80s are often hard to get a hold of. For instance, I wanted to do Married to the Mob (1988) for its 25th anniversary and given that Michelle Pfeiffer is returning to the mob comedy genre but it's not available for rental on iTunes, Netflix OR Amazon if you can believe it! And the movie is from an Oscar winning director, stars familiar actors who are still working and is only 25 years old.  I own it but the whole point of the series is for many people to be able to talk about the same movie (sigh)

In the comments, please let me know how / what service you use to rent movies since Netflix no longer has the huge library they used to have but their vault is still better than anyone else's. These are dark dark days for non new-releases.