Review: "The Edge of Seventeen"

by Chris Feil

You may have already been reading plentiful superlatives thrown at the new teen comedy The Edge of Seventeen starring Hailee Steinfeld. Perhaps a lot of that love comes from its refreshing lack of condescension or cynicism - Seventeen definitely comes with its share of authenticity. The film is actually a (mostly) good time, thanks to Steinfeld delivering what feels like a second breakthrough after her Oscar-nominated debut in The Coen Brothers' True Grit.

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One Mississippi Burning (Episodes 3-6)

By Steven Fenton

Welcome back to Bay Saint Lucille, readers. Join me in wrapping up the last few episodes of this fine comedy's short first season.

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“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” S1 in Ten Songs

With Crazy Ex Girlfriend returning Friday evening for Season 2, here's new contributor Jorge Molina surveying season 1's songs

Season 2 premieres Fri 10/21 at 9 pm on The CWMaking a Top 10 Best [blank] is pretty much impossible. Top 10s are never final, accurate, or objective. 

So I decided not to do one. 

After all, how could I rank and, even worse, decide on the best musical numbers of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s amazing first season? They all represent a different aspect of the show, and it would be unfair to compare them on equal terms.  So I instead came up with a compilation of what are not necessarily the ten better numbers, but the ones that best showcase the show’s style, tone, and humor. What would be in a “Crazy XGF 101” course.

TEN SHOWCASE NUMBERS FROM SEASON 1

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National Coming Out Day (and other things to celebrate today)

Happy National Coming Out Day! Coming out may be a political act but it's also a personal one, and life-saving for most because who wants to live a lie? It also shifts the world like nothing else when it comes to civil rights for LGBT people. If you had told us in the 1980s how many celebrities would be "out" by 2016 we'd have cried tears of joy. Thanks to everyone who has been brave enough to change the larger world by changing their own. Ripple effects, people. One of my favorite annual events in this regard is Towleroad's "Most Powerful Coming Out" lists for each year. Here's 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2012. The most recent celebrity to publicly out themselves is Sara Ramirez of Grey's Anatomy and Spamalot! fame who is bisexual. 

We don't watch Grey's Anatomy but any excuse to share Sara singing "Whatever Happened to My Part?" we'll take it.

IT'S THE UNOFFICIAL ANTHEM OF (SUPPORTING) ACTRESSING

But that's not the only thing to celebrate today, not even within Supporting Actressing. On this day in history as it relates to showbiz after the jump...

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NYFF: "Toni Erdmann" is Astonishing

Here's Jason reporting from the NYFF on a Cannes favorite and Oscar hopeful

It's not often you hear an audience of movie critics gasp out loud at something on-screen, but Toni Erdmann, the new comedy of forced familial closeness from German director Maren Ade, has a comic moment so perfectly timed that it got the civilized cinema-set of New York City to jump out of their seats like this was an Evil Dead movie in 3D. You know you've got 'em hooked when you can conjure up such a response - Hitchcock called it playing the audience like a piano. The fact that it comes via a comic-beat here, and not via a cat jumping onto a final girl's shoulder or a shower stabbing, makes it all the more astonishing.

And make no mistake - Toni Erdmann is astonishing...

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