Review: Magic Mike XXL

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad. It is reprinted here with in the Director's Cut version. i.e. it's longer this time...

When Magic Mike opened three years ago it was something of a risky proposition. Male stars exploiting their bodies for a young male star’s dream project loosely based on his own stripping career which he felt no shame about? Who would have guessed? Cut to three years later: Magic Mike and Friends (minus The Kid and Dallas “alright alright alright”) have returned to movie theaters with much teasing and blockbuster fanfare to a relatively new pop cultural context they helped create: male objectification is increasingly the norm. Just ask Chris Pratt, the ascendant superstar of the moment (Guardians of the Galaxy, Jurassic World) who has acknowledged that his new body was key to his ascendance and that he’s all for it… the objectification.

This wondrous new world of happily exposed man-flesh makes Magic Mike XXL feel curiously demure. Usually sequels go for more-more-more but XXL (the title is a misnomer) downsizes even as the stages get larger. There’s less plot since it’s essentially a road trip movie but most curiously there’s much less nudity even if the women this time around seem a lot more eager to see it.

This withholding is smart and funny at the beginning of the film in a sensational opening dance number starring Mike alone in his workroom. [More...]

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CAST THIS: Clueless, The Musical

Manuel here still recovering for a wonderful Pride weekend which I'm greedily extending for two more days with Bette Midler tonight and Fun Home tomorrow. Needless to say, movies and musicals, and movie musicals are on my mind. Thankfully, Amy Heckerling is here to tide me over, stoking Clueless fandom by letting us know she's finished writing the book for a stage musical adaptation of her 1995 film (though dampening the excitement a bit by confessing it's a jukebox musical to be directed by ??, of Rock of Ages fame). And so, since she acknowledged casting would be a big hurdle before we see "As if!" being uttered on stage, I thought we could help her out brainstorming names for the central three performances.

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Team Experience: Collective Emmy Ballot, Comedy

HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT: RED SHOES WILL BE UP IN THE MORNING. RUNNING LATE !

See Part 1 for Drama
Here's Part 2 of 2... COMEDY!

Eleven members of our team, those most excited by television, turned in full Emmy ballots. So here is what we communally hope for when the real Emmy nominations are announced. Nomination ballots are due tomorrow, June 26th so if you happen to be an Emmy voter, check out our FYC series (shameless plug).  The Emmy nominations will be announced on July 16th though who knows why it takes them over three weeks to tally the results. Slackers. 

Comedy Series and acting races after the jump...

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FYC: Lauren Weedman for Supporting Actress, Comedy

Team Experience shares their personal dream picks in multiple Emmy categories as voting begins. Here's Adam on an actress we're all hoping to see a lot more of... - Editor

Lauren Weedman was to the first season of Looking what Joan Cusack was to Working Girl. They each drifted in and out of the main narrative, never the primary focus, but neither restricted entirely to the background. Their sharply delivered lines punctured their scenes, dick-slapping the audience, demanding attention. While they may have been vital to their best friend’s stories, they couldn’t tell their own stories. 

During the second season, Looking realized the strength of Weedman’s performance, allowing the indispensable Doris to come into her own as a character. Adding another individual to their mosaic of souls wholeheartedly discovering who she was, searching for where she wanted to be, and loving the people that surrounded her elevated the show. We followed Doris as she dealt with the repercussions of losing a parent and revealing her childhood of abuse. We championed Doris when she reclaimed her autonomy by confronting an unhealthy codependent relationship. We swooned when she allowed herself the possibility of a romantic future by finally exposing her vulnerabilities without the masking of her humor.  

Lauren Weedman positively throttled me like a famished crocodile death-rolling a dehydrated antelope during the Doric-centric episode, “Looking for Plot.” That raw, acerbic wit, and melancholic longing Weedman was able to express with only the constricting of her chin muscles split my sides and welled my tear ducts simultaneously. Her fucking CHIN made me feel feels I didn’t even know I was capable of feeling. Jesus.

We will no longer be able to follow this group of friends and lovers around each week but when I reminisce on my times spent with the boys and gal of Looking, I’ll always cherish Lauren Weedman’s performance as Doris. I'll cherish it in much the same way I once, while at a funeral, devoured an entire Edible Arrangement centerpiece while fellow mourners shot me disapproving looks as I selfishly grieved. It may seem reductive to compare Lauren Weedman’s affecting, poignant, barbed performance to that of a gloriously displayed collection of sculpted fruit, but each supported me while I accepted circumstances I couldn’t change, and helped me move on. 

Previously:
The Americans
Jane the Virgin
Cara Seymour, The Knick
Lisa Kudrow, The Comeback
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Ruth Wilson, The Affair 
Matt Czuchry, The Good Wife 
Gwendolyn Christie, Game of Thrones 

Coming This Week:
Ann Dowd, The Leftovers ...and more!

FYC: Amy Schumer for Best Actress, Comedy

Members of Team Experience were asked to share personal dream picks for this year's impending Emmy nominations. Here's Jose...

Amy Schumer often gets credit for her ingenious writing, larger than life personality and her lack of fear when it comes to addressing controversial topics like the media’s obsession with youth, the importance of the female orgasm and Bill Cosby. However, like most stand up comedians, she rarely is commended for her acting on the assumption that she’s playing herself. And yet, in just a handful of episodes during the third season of "Inside Amy Schumer "she has played everything from clueless spouses, to child beauty queens and even a black & white heroine.

She was recently rewarded with the Critics Choice Award for Best Actress in a Comedy, and if the Emmys dare to break out of their rut of picking perennial faves, they would do much good including her in a lineup with more established actresses:  her timing is as flawless as Julia Louis Dreyfuss’ Selina Meyer, her lack of vanity is akin to Lisa Kudrow’s Valerie Cherish, and her idealism (while slightly more infused with cynicism) makes her as strong a role model as Amy Poehler’s Leslie Knope. For someone who’s always playing self conscious characters, it’s astonishing to see how self aware and controlled Schumer can be as a performer. And unless she has multiple personality disorder, she's not just playing herself.