Team Experience: "Maleficent" and More

I'm always curious about your film experiences out there in the dark. That curiousity extends to the contributors here at TFE, not all of whom I know in real life given that they're spread across the globe. You know them, virtually speaking. Hopefully you love them. But I thought we'd ask them a couple of questions each week. Feel free to answer yourself in the comments and join the conversation.

WHAT'S THE BEST THING YOU SAW THIS WEEK?

JA: A tie between every single second of Emmanuel Lubeszki's photography for The Tree of Life (it's a gorgeous film that left me cold), and that probably photoshopped image of Jake Gyllenhaal doing the Grace Jones pose in his underpants. I see beautiful things!

Andreas: John Carpenter's The Thing -- after several viewings, it retains all of its original power.

Robert: Ramin Bahrani's short film Plastic Bag. I stumbled upon it while attempting to keep my Herzog high going after being enthralled by Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Bahrani's film follows and anthropomorphized plastic bag (shades of American Beauty are minimal) and finds itself spiraling into themes of life, death, and meaning and best of all, it's narrated by Werner Herzog himself... as the plastic bag of course!

Michael (Unsung Heroes). The best thing I saw this week was, without question, the montage of drunk cast members from the latest episode of Parks and Recreation. I want an episode length edit of all the improv that went into that scene.

Jose: Since theaters here are only playing four movies (Rio, Fast and Furious 5, Thor and Priest) I re-watched Gone With the Wind in HD. Mind blowing!  Sure gives any new movie a run for its money. It also felt much shorter than Thor.

WHAT'S THE WORST?

Michael : the worst thing I saw, or rather didn't see, was screen time for Rene Russo in Thor. It's been forever since Russo had a high-profile gig and she gets 30 measly seconds of screen time? You can't tease me like that Thor.

Andreas: The first 10 minutes of I Know Who Killed Me. (Nonetheless, I may revisit it later; I'm a glutton for punishment.)

JA: The worst thing I saw was the original ending to Alexander Payne's Election. Truly, stupefyingly awful.

TIM BURTON HAS OFFICIALLY LEFT DISNEY'S "MALEFICENT".

Robert: The marriage between Tim Burton and Disney makes me so sad. They're like two people who were really sexy back in high school, still trying to fit into their cheerleading and football uniforms, telling each other how great they still look, and wondering how that dorky kid Quentin got so popular (this metaphor has gotten away from me). But I still want to like them very much. So I guess what I'm saying is I wish they'd split and find new partners who could convince them to hit the gym... cinematically speaking.

JA: Never much loved Sleeping Beauty as a kid - I was all up in Alice in Wonderland and Fantasia - so I was never attached, beyond really liking the way the word "Maleficent" rolls off the tongue. Maaaalefahcint! I don't understand why people didn't take it up as a name for their children. Little Maleficent would rule pre-school with an iron fist.

Jose:  Maleficent would serve itself better from a director with an eye for actual Gothic, I say call Jane Campion or Catherine Breillat!

YOUR TURN...

• Who do you think should direct MALEFICENT with Burton gone? 
• What's the best & worst anything you saw this week? I've been enjoying True Blood and Ishtar (more on the later in a bit.)

Centennial: Butterfly McQueen

Today is the Centennial of Butterfly McQueen, she of the famously squeaky voice, immortalized in her very first picture Gone With the Wind (1939). She died from an unfortunate kerosene heater accident 15 years ago but since it's the 100th anniversary of her birth today we send her a warm "Thank You" to the great beyond. Butterfly was a staunch Atheist but we think she'd approve of our church. In the church of cinema, everyone involved with classic films lives on for eternity (provided the negatives weren't destroyed).

"Gone With the Wind" (her first) and "Mosquito Coast" (her last feature film)

McQueen quit early, discouraged by endless servant roles. That's all black actresses could get in the Golden Age of Hollywood. In short: it wasn't golden for people of color.

"I don't know nuthin' bout birthin' babies!"

...which she shrieked hysterically in Gone With the Wind (1939) may have been her most famous cinematic moment, but you can also spot her in early classics like The Women (1939) and Mildred Pierce (1945). Her last feature film arrived when she was in her seventies. Peter Weir cast her in a key role opposite Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren in The Mosquito Coast (1986).

Broaden the Biopics!
Hollywood has such insatiable true story fever, that you wish filmmakers would broaden their scope a little about who to dramatize in non-fiction based films. Most biopics are about über famous entertainers or political leaders. Perhaps that's for box office reasons but maybe it's just a lack of imagination. Couldn't biopics about lesser known players involved with some hugely famous historical event or milieu, be both marketable and aesthetically riveting for the fresh light they would cast on our familiar mythologized histories?

Nobodies ever planned a Butterfly McQueen biopic so cross your fingers that last year's Supporting Actress winner Mo'Nique (Precious) actually gets to do that rumored biopic about another Supporting Actress winner, Butterfly's Gone With the Wind's co-star Hattie McDaniel. Think how fascinating that film could be. It's enough to give you shivers.

But who would you cast to star opposite Hattie/Mo'Nique as "Prissy"/Butterly and "Scarlett"/Vivien in that sure-to-be interesting film?