Submit Yourself to Processing. Win "The Master" on Blu-Ray

One of the creepiest and most clever FYC items I received this winter was a proselytizing newspaper "The Cause Footpath" for Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master, featuring mostly articles and reviews praising the film but peppered with ads and items from Lancaster Dodd and The Cause.

So I've used that to guide me in this new Blu-Ray contest. The Blu-Ray comes out on Tuesday just after the Oscars and includes a WWII veterans documentary from 1946 called Let There Be Light by the legendary John Huston. And your normal mix of outtakes and additional scenes, a short called "Unguided Message" and so on.

I have two copies to give away. Do you want it?

To enter the contest you must submit yourself to processing...

You can answer those questions by Monday February 25th either by e-mail or by sharing your responses on facebook, twitter, your blog or whatever (so long as you link back here & comment so I know you've done so). You can answer as yourself or in character or with simple text, photos, videos, however you want to answer it. The point is just do it somehow. Submit yourself to processing! Without blinking.

I'll announced the winners by Wednesday next week. I'll choose two winners based on the responses I most feel compelled to share with the group ;) 

20 Musicals From Warner Bros

It would be incorrect to say that musicals were made to lift one's spirits since plenty of great musicals are as grim as any ruthless drama. But the genre lifts mine even through tears. So I was instantly in love with the new box set that Warner Bros sent. It's called Best of Warner Bros: 20 Film Collection Musicals (on sale now) and it will serve me well in March once I have time to settle in with some older movies again. I wish I had a copy to give away but I'm keeping this one all to myself - mine! mine! mine!

The collection consists of the following films, packaged in chronological order: The Jazz Singer (1927), The Broadway Melody (1929), 42nd Street (1933), The Great Ziegfeld (1936), The Wizard of Oz (1939), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), An American in Paris (1951), Show Boat (1951), Singin' in the Rain (1952), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), A Star is Born (1954), The Music Man (1962), Viva Las Vegas (1964), Camelot (1967), Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), Cabaret (1972), That's Entertainment! (1974), Victor/Victoria (1982), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), and Hairspray (1988).

Wanna know which musical I watched the first time last night? Continue reading...

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Cabaret Winners!

"Beedle dee, dee dee dee,
Two winners.
Beedle dee, dee dee dee,
And I'm the only man,
Ja!"

It's time to announce the winners of the Cabaret contest, pulled randomly from your entries which were doubled if you sent along a Cabaret inspired photo along with your note about your favorite moment in the 1972 masterpiece.

I had fun reading all of your opinions and even more fun watching the film again... though the strangest thing about seeing it on the big screen for the first time after a lifetime spent watching it on various sizes of screens at home was that it suddenly seemed to have less musical numbers. Minnelli's peak razzle dazzle and Joel Grey's indeligible emcee suck up all the oxygen in terms of memories of the movie but there is so much more to the movie which is a really brilliant and disturbing drama about a world(s) about to collapse, specifically Weimar Era Germany (and its funhouse mirror in the Kit Kat Club).

Anyway... I asked you to either "like" the film experience facebook page and tell us your favorite bit of Cabaret or do the same thing by email with a "photo" inspired by Cabaret to win yourself an extra contest entry. The winners of the remastered restored and booklet-beautiful 40th anniversary blu-ray, chosen randomly are:

JOSHUA FLOWER who writes:

My favorite moment comes right at the top - the opening shot that pulls back off the reflection of Joel Grey as he turns to the camera/audience and starts singing "Vilkommen." It might be my favorite opening shot, period. The precision and energy of the camerawork, the hall of mirrors distortion of the reflection, in contrast to the reality, which is kind of garish and severe, combined with the music, which is peppy and weirdly melancholy at the same time... That one shot has always felt like a perfect little encapsulation of the movie as a whole, somehow.

KATE IMY who sent a photo of herself performing "Money Money Money" - how cool is that? She writes:

...a too-literal entry into your "inspired" photo challenge. These are from when a friend and I sang the song "Money Money" in our high school Broadway review style show "Knights on Broadway." Thankfully they hide the fact that I was/am an atrocious singer. My friend with the fantastic makeup was actually quite good. So for purely selfish and awkwardly self-promotional reasons "Money Money" has a special place for me in the movie. Especially the "When you haven't any coal in the stove..." bit. So hard to do but so exciting to watch when it's done well (in the movie). 

CONGRATULATIONS TO JOSHUA & KATE!

After the jump, I thought you might enjoy a few more losing but great contest entries from readers. I'm sorry I didn't have dozens of blu-rays to give away but you all won my heart and that has to count for something!

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Win "Cabaret" on Blu-Ray

I have two copies of Cabaret, one of my personal top ten favorite films of all time, remastered on Blu-ray™ for its 40th anniversary, to give away to musical-lovin' readers!

Flamboyant and eccentric American entertainer Sally Bowles (Minnelli) sings in Berlin’s decadent Kit Kat Club, even as Nazism rises in Germany in 1931. She falls in love with a British language teacher (York) – whom she shares with a homosexual German baron (Griem). But Sally's insular, carefree, tolerant and fragile cabaret world is about to be crushed under the boot of the Nazis as Berlin becomes a trap from which Sally's German friends will not escape.

 

Remastered for the first time in over 20 years with new and vintage special features! 

The new BluRay comes with a little book as well... 40 pages of insightful photos and text. (This special edition will also be available on DVD next week.) I haven't yet watched the blu-ray and I know that the negatives needed to be cleaned up but I hope they haven't scrubbed all the grain out of the movie. I love how filthy Cabaret always looks. Filthy and Gorgeous.

WILKOMMEN

To enter the Cabaret contest...

1) "like" The Film Experience on Facebook and tell us your favorite moment in Cabaret in a comment here or there. (You'll have to do both for it to count... since some of you have already liked the page)

No Facebook? if you are a Facebook agnostic (I understand some of you exist) you can e-mail me your entry instead with "Come to the Cabaret" in the subject line.

2) for a bonus entry send a photo of yourself inspired in any way by Cabaret along with a bit about your favorite moment in the film that I can share in a "life is a Cabaret" post with your fellow readers right here.

I'll announce winners on Monday February 4th.

after the jump the Cabaret cast on the Today show to celebrate the anniversary...

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With Regards to Lena Dunham

Hello, lovelies. Beau here, discussing a unique talent whose first foray into television just released on DVD and Blu-Ray for all the sorry souls deprived of the best network on television.

Lena Dunham might be the most divisive director of her generation. Self-deprecating, incisive, witty, aware to a fault, she’s what would happen if Diane Keaton and Miranda July met and had tea using Amy Heckerling as a footstool. But at the same time, her characters and their individual dilemmas are direct reflections of their generation, behaviors indicative of a group of twenty-somethings who devoured Palahniuk and shit out Klosterman. They Know What They’re Doing And They Are Smarter Than You. Hipsters cum Proselytizers. Join us or be deemed irrelevant.

I’ve talked with several co-workers, friends, relatives who’ve watched either Tiny Furniture or Girls (or both) and find her writing and her characterizations insufferable. Others still find it remarkable and on-the-nose, a young woman (or girl, if you will) entirely aware of her faults and vices and dealing with them through humor and observation.

The question then is: is that something we want to watch?

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