Tweets and Where To Find Them

Before we get to this week's best and most amusing tweets on topics like HBO's Westworld, film reviews, Ben Affleck, Hillary Clinton and more after the jump, let's start with a few tweets on the next franchise no one has seen yet but is still eager to spend billions on... Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them. (sigh)

The direction I'd take the Harry Potter franchise in... #LetsGetWiested pic.twitter.com/JzuaWRtYzV

— Mark (@dublin_zoetrope) October 16, 2016

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A Conversation About "Westworld" - Part 2

A conversation between Lynn Lee and Kieran Scarlett. At the end of Part 1 of the discussion, Lynn left us to wonder just how long "Westworld" can keep this story going. We pick up where we left off.

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

Kieran:  That’s an excellent point about Marsden and Wood’s performances that I hadn’t considered. I did think Wood was much more compelling in the second episode than she was in the pilot. I found myself adjusting to the tonal rhythms of her performance, which are quite specific. I appreciate that there isn’t a rigid uniformity to how the actors portray AIs. Each has their own texture and we’re not just watching actors play mindless automatons, which would have been so boring. That we get insight into their creators and programmers based on how each AI behaves is also an intriguing facet to the performances that I suspect will be explored more fully as the series progresses.

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A Conversation About "Westworld" - Part 1

This week, Team Experience members Lynn Lee and Kieran Scarlett have tackled the first two episodes of new HBO sci-fi drama, "Westworld," which has captured the interest, fascination (or ire, depending on who you talk to) of audiences. Here's Part 1 of the 2 part discussion...

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

KIERAN: Watching the “Westworld” pilot and then the second episode, my immediate reaction—even in thinking that the pilot was relatively strong and an intriguing opening statement to the show—was that these two episodes should be reversed.   I might even go so far as to say that the pilot, with all of its beautifully creepy, world-establishing glory (more on this later) is missable when held up against the power (both narratively and stylistically) of the second episode...

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HMWYBS: Angels in America (2003)

What follows is a republishing of a piece I'm proud of from our very first season of Hit Me With Your Best Shot (you can see the index of all six seasons here) when I was somehow far more concise with "Best Shot" despite feeling like I was overdoing it. I've added in notes and links for contributions from other Best Shot participants and I'd like to thank Manuel heartily before we begin for his fascinating contextual work on HBO's long history of LGBT films and series this summer and for sharing this week's HBO LGBT episode with us for our redo episode of this Great Work. Read that piece before you read this. Ready? Let's begin...

Tony Kushner's extraordinary two part stage epic Angels in America centers around two overlapping young couples in the mid 80s, struggling married Mormons, pill popping Harper and her closeted husband Joe and the gay couple Louis and Prior they become connected spiritually (Harper befriends Prior... in her dreams) and physically (Joe becomes Louis's other lover). But it's also about politics, immigration, religion, identity, and evolution and encompasses multiple other characters from Louis's outspoken gay friend Belize, to Joe's mother, to the evil lawyer Roy Cohn, the dead Communist Ethel Rosenberg, and a frequently orgasmic Angel who descends on many of the players. This masterpiece was adapted for the screen in 2003 by Oscar winner Mike Nichols. Along its journey it won 7 Tonys, The Pulitzer, and later 5 Golden Globes and 11 Emmys and here's the thing: it deserved every single prize. If you haven't seen it drop everything (seriously everything) because it is unmissable. I've seen it performed on stage three times in three different states with wildly different budgets and casts and seen the miniseries a few times too... and every single time it's a fascinating prismatic living thing, like it will always be teaching you, entertaining you, and provoking you.

Rather than limit myself to one shot I'm picking one from each of its chapter. This I can manage!

Chapter 1 "Bad News"

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