Monday Monologue: "The Perfect Servant"

Editor's Note: I am pleased to announce that Andrew Kendall of Encore's World has joined "Team Experience". Here is his first post, looking back on a truly fine performance in Best Picture nominated Gosford Park (2000) - Nathaniel R

I would not say that finding a monologue (or monologue adjacent) scenes for Monday Monologues is an impossibility, although it can get somewhat difficult when so many films seems to revel in single sentence conversations and the like. Finding a monologue in an ensemble film, though, is particularly daunting. For with ensemble films, at least in theory, no one character takes precedence and as far as ensembles of the last three decades are concerned I would rank Gosford Park near the top. Maggie Smith, Clive Owen, Emily Watson, Bob Balaban, Kristin Scott Thomas, and even Ryan Philippe all battle for my top honours depending on the scene even as the “resolution” of the film rests on a scene between two of the quieter characters of the film.

More often than not cinematic monologues tend to take on the role of a confessional – the character is bursting over with something, a secret, a regret, a plan – and it needs to be expelled. [more]

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Beauty Break: Horizontal Lovelies

From top to bottom chronologically: Natalie Wood, Jane Fonda as Barbarella, Burt Reynolds as The Cosmopolitan Man, Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia Organa, Miss Piggy, La Pfeiffer as Catwoman, Rollergirl of Boogie Nights fame, Charlize Theron as Aeon Flux, and Dame Helen Mirren.

P.S. If you would like to replay this post at maximum volume, might I suggest queueing up the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack whilst doing so?

 

Links, Inc.

i09 Monster University has a recruiting ad
i09 and character designs - Helen Mirren being dragon-like as the Dean in this Pixar sequel
Interiors picks a great topic this month: the apartment in Amour. All mapped out. 
NPR Tony Kushner's research and characterizatin of Lincoln
Pakoto illustrated tribute to Jurassic Park
Movie|Line talks to the Ryan Gosling of the porn set who keeps getting cast in XXX versions of Gosling hits

Details interviews James Franco on this moment in his career including Oz the Great and Powerful and...
MNPP brilliantly dissects those page 3 answers about deep throating a pistol for his next picture Spring Breakers
Stale Popcorn Naomi Watts on stardom and breakthroughs
Vanity Fair Quentin Tarantino Kill Chart in infographic form. Wow his movies are gruesome 
Grantland has a snarky Oscar bracket for worst travesties ever while...
A Blog Next Door has some snark for Grantland's fratboy leanings

/Film Jason Reitman's next live reading of a famous picture is Glengarry Glen Ross. This time it's gender-flipped. Normally I am quite happy to be a New Yorker but these events in LA sound so enticing every time. Alec Baldwin's famous role has yet to be cast but Robin Wright will be doing her best Pacino and Catherine O'Hara gets the plum Jack Lemmon role. 

Finally... I wasn't aware of this but Encore Entertainment is hosting a blog-a-thon of some sort called Motifs in Cinema so far I've seen two articles. They are: Motifs: Aging featuring Skyfall, The Dark Knight Rises, Hope Springs, and Amour; Motifs Fantasy & Reality featuring Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Hobbit, and Savages; 

BAFTAs "live"

David here, bringing you the least live 'live blog' in TFE's history. Nowhere on the planet are the British Academy Film (and Television) Awards broadcast live - not even in their home country. No, we Brits struggle along with the rest of you as the BBC stubbornly refuses to move with the times and shows the edited ceremony two hours after its begun.

But let's make the best of it. Over the next few hours I'll bring you a melange of results and commentary, mostly surmised until the ceremony comes in, which will hopefully have some individual flavour worth reporting. The celebrities have already walked up the foaming red carpet in London's famous torrential rain, so, to kick off, here are a few highlights from the BBC's brief coverage so far.

Chilled to the rust and boneMarion Cotillard couldn't even muster a brave face as she was persuaded to stop racing down the carpet and pose for a few photos. Has it ever NOT rained on BAFTA night?

Marion's here tonight as a Best Actress nominee for Rust & Bone - BAFTA also nominated Helen Mirren, leaving Quvenzhane Wallis and Naomi Watts on the sidelines for tonight - but it's Emmanuelle Riva, who wisely skipped the long route into the building, who I've got my fingers crossed for tonight. Can she add a little flavour to the Best Actress race by surprising J-Law here?

Helen Mirren. Pink hair. The interviewer here oddly didn't even attempt to ask what's going on with this. MORE...

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Review: "Hitchcock"

This review was originally published in my column at Towleroad

The first thing HITCHCOCK gets right about Hitchcock is the humor. Director Sacha Gervasi's serio-comic adaptation of the book "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho" starts with a playful dodge, beginning not with a shot of that infamous house on the hill or the Bates Motel or even a Hollywood soundstage but in the rather humble yard of a Wisconsin farm. It's home to Ed Gein, the gruesome 1950s killer who inspired Psycho. The camera pans away from Gein's (fictional) murder to reveal the iconic plump suited figure of The Master of Suspense cooly observing him (Sir Anthony Hopkins in Sir Alfred Hitchcock drag).

Hopkins addresses the camera directly as if he's welcoming you to a very special edition of television's "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" or recording a promo for his latest cinematic thrill ride. He'll break the fourth wall again to bookend this film with an even better visual joke that's absurdly hokey.

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