What's the best scene from summer movie season?

Team Experience will be sharing highlights of their summer viewing in a week but until then, out of curiousity... What would you name the best single scene of the summer movie season? Here are a bakers dozen of candidates that thrilled yours truly...

• Chez Andie. Magic Mike XXL 
• The Opera House. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (and where the hell has this Rebecca Ferguson woman been all our lives?)
• The Dream. Inside Out
• A Dangerous Dance. Tom at the Farm 
• Furiosa vs. Max. Mad Max: Fury Road - That chained throwdown with Immortan Joe's harem as audience
• Saving the Barn. Far From the Madding Crowd. Schoenaerts to the rescue!
• Karaoke Night. I'll See You In My Dreams 
• Birth of The Vision. Avengers: Age of Ultron. Damn but it's good to see Paul Bettany floating, mysterious, forehead bejewelled, and airbrushed red 
• Laced Drink. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Elizabeth Debicki is everything, in OR out of focus
• Nested Flashback. Ant-Man. Starring Michael Peña 
• Commercial on Loop. The D Train Jack Black's James Marsden obsession begins
• Stepmom Stakes Claim. Ricki and the Flash. It's always special and too rare to see an actress challenge Meryl Streep to a duel in a face off scene. Go Audra!
• Visiting an Old Friend. Grandma. It's been a good summer for Sam Elliott. See also: I'll See You In My Dreams

I wanted to list something from A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence but since the whole thing is brilliant short vignettes, it would take up half the list.

Please do share your favorites! 

Two Guys and Two Gals from U.N.C.L.E.

Here is Kyle with a review of Guy Ritchie's The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

 

Last week, if you told me that I’d be in love with a Guy Ritchie film, I’d have snatched you by your smoking barrels and given you what for. Yet here I am, utterly enamored of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. In a summer bloated with franchises and (ugh) reboots that willfully avoid originality—save Mad Max: Fury Road, of course—Man from U.N.C.L.E. is a welcome demonstration that a flick can be fun without being dumb. The film subverts the formula of “action” blockbusters to make us feel tense or anxious most of the time. Fight/chase scenes are not suspenseful tent poles but undercut by humor or condensed through stylish montages. Indeed, style is the subject of the film; the narrative is so patently pat that it shifts focus to the way it’s told. It’s upsetting that audiences did not flock to it in its all-important opening weekend, though it may almost be a compliment these days that the name recognition of the original property is so low that it didn’t push audiences into theaters. If Man from U.N.C.L.E. succeeds—and I still hope it will—it will be based on its own merits, of which it has plenty...

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Debicki F.E.A.R.

Jose here. While watching The Man From U.N.C.L.E. yesterday and getting endless cinephile-boners from watching Elizabeth Debicki slink her way through the senseless plot - as she played the sexiest villain this side of Eartha Kitt as Catwoman - a pervading fear entered my mind: will Hollywood know what to do with her?

Combining the voice of la Blanchett, the statuesque-ness of Nicole and the effortless class of both Hepburns (although she's much more Kate than Audrey), Debicki might find spineless studio honchos not knowing what to do with her! Will they stick her to playing villains forever (she might've been a much more interesting Bond baddie than what hammy Christoph Waltz is doing in the Spectre trailers)? Will they stick her to playing icy sidekicks like she did in The Great Gatsby? If they saw what she was up to onstage in The Maids where she stole the show from both Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert (!!!), casting agents should be dreaming roles for her 24/7. However we know how these things usually turn out, and now I'm worried, we'll never see her again! *breathes into paper bag*

Dear readers, what movie-related fears invade your mind today?


Let Elizabeth whisk you away into dreamland as you come up with witty answers in the comments, we're all ears...

The Woman from U.N.C.L.E.

Murtada here to praise the images released so far from next weekend's wide release The Man from U.N.C.L.E. 

Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer are lookers and judging from the trailer seem to be having fun. It’s Alicia Vikander’s big year and of course she’ll be entertaining. However the most exciting proposition the marketing has offered so far is Elizabeth Debicki as the villain. And her gorgeous costumes.

Debicki is the big baddie of the movie. Her name is Victoria Vinciguerra, the mastermind behind the criminal organization that our spies must stop before she throws the world into calamity. [More...]

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We Can't Wait #3: Macbeth

Team Experience is counting down our 15 most anticipated for 2015. Here's David to kick off the top 3...

Who & What: Yes, there have been countless Shakespeare adaptations through cinematic history, although the Scottish play is one of the Bard’s biggest plays that (perhaps) hasn’t landed a definitive English language adaptation as of yet (Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood will admittedly take some beating) – and that’s with auteurs as legendary as Orson Welles and Roman Polanski having taken a crack at it. Justin Kurzel, the Australian newbie who was much admired for the jagged savagery of his debut feature The Snowtown Murders, is in the directing chair, and has the awesome pairing of Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard as his royal Scottish schemers. 

People getting in the way of their bloodthirsty lust for power include David Thewlis’ Duncan, Paddy Considine’s Banquo, rising star Jack Reynor as Malcolm and The Great Gatsby’s Elizabeth Debicki as Lady MacDuff. Behind the camera, talent includes cinematographer Adam Arkapaw (Snowtown, Animal Kingdom), production designer Fiona Crombie (Snowtown, Top of the Lake) and our beloved costumer Jacqueline Durran.


Why we're excited about it: Ever since it was announced, Kurzel taking on what might be the Bard’s most gruesome pieces of work has seemed like a delectable proposition, with Snowtown’s eerie form promising a take on the greed, manipulation and psychological demonics of Macbeth that doesn’t skimp on the utter blackness at its heart. Add two of the world’s finest – not to mention most beautiful – performers at the centre, plus all of that additional talent, and this apparently ‘gothic’ take on the material can hardly fail.

What if it all goes wrong?: Well, it’s been a long wait – is that something to be worried about? Hopefully not; a preview at Cannes last year seemed to impress, and Kurzel probably didn’t want to rush it out of the editing room just for awards. Natalie Portman’s exit from the project was never explained, but it doesn’t seem to have augured any rumours of trouble in the production.

When: What with those Oscar rumblings last year, we’d wager it’ll be a long, impatient wait until some time near the end of the year, ready for next Oscar season, especially with The Weinstein Company involved. IMDb lists November and December dates for France and Sweden, but every other country is still awaiting news of when the latest take on the Bard’s most infamous play will arrive.

Previously...

#4 Mad Max: Fury Road #5 The Lobster #6 Crimson Peak #7 45 Years #8 Bridge of Spies #9 Taxi #10 Freeheld #11 A Bigger Splash #12 The Dressmaker #13 The Hateful Eight #14 Knight of Cups #15 Arabian Nights Sidebar 3 Animated Films Sidebar 2 Tomorrowland Sidebar 1 Avengers: Age of Ultron Intro Pick a Blockbuster