Friday, January 3, 2014 at 7:45AM Since we're very serious about cinema here at The Film Experience, we earn our silly. I've been remiss in choosing winners for the last few Say What goofs so let's do that after the jump...
Tuesday, November 26, 2013 at 7:01AM
[Editor's Note: The FYC series brings together all Film Experience contributors to highlight our favorite fringe Oscar contenders. Jose Solis asks you to reconsider Cameron Diaz's supporting performance in The Counselor.]
It’s not only her scenery chewing, her car-fucking skills, her ability to pull off excess jewelry and animal print or the lustful-yet-motherly way in which she looks at her pet cheetahs. It's her commitment to this insanity that makes Cameron Diaz brilliant in The Counselor. Playing the heartless envoy from hell, Malkina, she creates one of the most compelling visions of evil contemporary cinema has given us. Because her evil seems to have roots in a horrifying childhood (her parents were thrown out of a helicopter!) she escapes the burden of just being a universal symbol of cruelty (a la Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men). She even shows us a glimpse of what might be underlying human qualities underneath her faux-bronzed skin when she shows envy and certain disappointment at not being able to love the way her friend Laura (Pé) does. Diaz delivers Cormac McCarthy’s senselessly beautiful lines with such passion and purpose that we can’t help but pretend we know what on Earth she’s going on about or why anything is in this movie.
The film was trashed by both critics and audiences; they failed to see beyond the movie's failure as a thriller and recognize that this is experimental film of the highest order, with references to American literature, Italian excess cinema and one of the most chilling reinterpretations of a Tennessee Williams scene I’ve seen. The Counselor is post-noir cinema. The best way I've found to explain why I loved Diaz was to compare the film to classic noir and suggest that if The Counselor had been made in the 1940’s, Malkina would have been played by Gloria Grahame. Like that Oscar winning actress, Diaz is the kind of “dame” who would make us kill for her and then slit our throats when we came back looking for the reward she promised us.
previously: World War Z
Monday, November 18, 2013 at 10:01AM Amuse us by adding dialogue or caption to this image of Cameron Diaz (from the set of Annie). I'll reveal the winner tomorrow!
Annie, Cameron Diaz, Say What?, on the set Sunday, October 27, 2013 at 3:35PM 
Nathaniel, Nick and Joe welcome back Katey, who's been in London gazing into Chris Hemsworth's eyes at the Thor junket. We gathered to discuss J.C. Chandor's All is Lost but as per usual, the conversation turned.
Topics include but are not limited to...
Friday, October 25, 2013 at 6:00PM Three makes a trend, right? This weekend will open to you like an oyster. No... not like an oyster. The weekend will open to you like a magnificent vagina.
1. I must begin by warning you away from Ridley Scott's The Counselor. It's quite nihilistically repulsive despite elements you'd think would add up to an enjoyable watch, particularly Cameron Diaz's cheetah-obsessed bad girl. In one of the film's best moments -- and I use the term "best" only in the sense of grading on a curve -- Cameron spread-eagles on the windshield of her car. I'm sure Cameron Diaz has beautiful lady parts but, rather amusingly, her screen boyfriend Javier Bardem seems less aroused than shell-shocked. He finds the moment difficult to recover from describing it, dumbfounded, as "gynecological"
2. Not one to miss out on an impending internet meme, Jennifer Lawrence's big moment in the X-Men Days of Future Past teaser of a teaser is a spread eagle attack.
3. Finally... the coveted ticket this weekend is the Cannes winning Blue is the Warmest Color, finally opening up to you. In this three hour lesbian romantic drama Léa Seydoux and Adele Exarchoupolos get naked (but for their prosthetic vaginas) for an explicit seven minute sex scene... a sex scene that so excited Cannes-watchers that the length of the scene was widely misreported to be twenty minutes. Despite my genuine love of sapphic drama I've managed to miss every critics screening so I'm seeing it this weekend with the masses.
Happy spelunking!
