Breaking: Cara Seymour to Guest Blog!

Sister Harriett. Hellcat Maggie. Pat Archer. Linda Houston. Mrs. Contie. Amelia Kavan. Marjorie Mellor. And 'Christie'...

One of the screen's best character actresses is taking over The Film Experience on June 9th. You've seen her in Gangs of New York, Hotel Rwanda, Dancer in the Dark, Birth, Adaptation, An Education, and American Psycho, among others. 

She wowed again as the unconventional nun "Sister Harriet" in Steven Soderbergh's Emmy hopeful "The Knick" (which just finished shooting Season 2). Now meet the actress behind the indelible characters.

Have any question for this fine talent?

Mad Men @ the Movies: "Lost Horizon"

Lynn Lee, back again with Mad Men at the Movies.

With just two episodes left, “Mad Men” still has too much business to wrap up to spend much time on or at the movies.  But it’s surely no accident that the title of this week’s episode was “Lost Horizon” – a reference that’s popped up before on this show, but never with such direct resonance.

Lost Horizon, a bestselling novel written by James Hilton (who also penned Goodbye, Mr. Chips) between the two world wars, was made into a successful 1937 movie starring Ronald Colman and is most famous for introducing Shangri-La, fabled utopia of blissful ease and tranquility.  But while Shangri-La may be a haven, it’s also a prison—and, even within the narrative of Lost Horizon, possibly an illusion.  The entire plot is driven by a plan to deceive and kidnap a small group of random strangers and bring them by force to Shangri-La, where they each react very differently to what it offers them.

The parallels are obvious as our Sterling Cooper survivors gingerly transition to their new roles at McCann Erickson.  More...

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Critics Choice TV Nominations 2015

The BFCA's sibling, the BTJA (Broadcast Television Journalist Association) has released their nominations for the 2014/2015 television season. Let it serve as your annual reminder that for as much as the world likes to complain about official industry-insider nominations each year, sometimes critics don't improve it a whole lot. I mean this is a whole separate organization and they still can't bother to nomination RuPaul for reality television categories? The Shade of It All. They're still nominating Jessica Lange for American Horror Story even though she looked fairly bored to be there this year doing the same ole thing (faded has been beauty desperate to hold on to her glory) in a show that's meant to give its actors new characters to play each year. They also skipped on Mad Men's final season which is pretty unforgiveable if you ask me given how excellent it's been. But perhaps with the nominations hitting this early, they voted before they had seen much of it. 

The best thing I can say for them is that they don't seem to be trying to predict the Emmys at all (witness the low showing for Game of Thrones and Modern Family for example) which we can only hope will happen one of these years with the BFCAs in relation to the Oscars. Their nominations, which you've already guessed horrify me beyond a surprise nod for horrified Eva Green are after the jump...

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Daredevil - Final Thoughts on Season 1

Previously on Daredevil. It felt lonely reviewing each of the first seven episodes since there wasn't much discussion here. Presumably those of you who were interested have now finished this series so here are much quicker thoughts on the last half of the season as well as some overall takeaways and dreams for Season 2. 

1.8 "Shadows in the Glass"
We might safely call this episode "Daredevil Origins: Kingpin" but it is admirable how deeply invested the show wants you to be in its characters, even the villains. We begin with a shoutout to "Rabbit in a Snowstorm" and we spend the entire pre-title prologue in the silent company of Wilson Fisk who sees his younger damned self in the mirror. That's before we segueway into his backstory but structurally it's a very smart episode as we see Vanessa disrupting his routines... but in a way that's good for him. Daredevil decides to trust Ben Ulrich but Fisk throws them all for a loop when he comes out publicly as the city's secret philanthropist. B+

final episodes and hopes for season 2 after the jump...

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Q&A Part 2: Wanting EGOTs and Missing BSG

For this week's "Ask Nathaniel" party, I asked people to be inspired by the theater (Tony season is upon us) or by the science fiction genre. I promised 10 questions. 10 answers but that's too long. So in Part One yesterday I answered four of them (topics: Avatar, Streep, Instant Classics, and Sci-Fi on stage - why haven't you commented?) and here are the remaining chosen questions that ended up organizing themselves around me missing Battlestar Galactica somehow.

LADYEDITH: If you could put any actress in charge of a Starship in a movie (doesn't have to be Star Trek) which actress would you choose? 

the answer and 5 more questions after the jump...

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