Oscar History
Film Bitch History
Welcome

The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)

Follow TFE on Substackd

Powered by Squarespace
Keep TFE Strong

We're looking for 500... no 390 SubscribersIf you read us daily, please be one.  

I ♥ The Film Experience

THANKS IN ADVANCE

What'cha Looking For?
Subscribe

Entries in Lauren Ambrose (5)

Tuesday
Aug232022

Too Many Links

We haven't done a link roundup in a several days in a quiet week at the site (apologies - I've been sick) so a few of these you might have already read but they're worth noting in case you haven't!

Esquire Harvey Guillén (What We Do in the Shadows) writes about his coming out journey
Action Figures was it a good idea to let your cat watch Neil Gaman's Sandman on Netflix?
Deadline Brendan Fraser (The Whale) getting a tribute at TIFF (the Oscar campaign is already in motion)
Deadline Elijah Wood and Lauren Ambrose (double-yay) joining the cast of Yellowjackets for season two

A smart project for Jason Momoa, more callousness from HBOMax, season 2 of Feud (six years later), Harry Styles, and more after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Sunday
Jun102018

Hello Linky

Just two handfuls of links this morning. I'm still on my birthday tear for Tony weekend -- finally saw Hello, Dolly! on Broadway last night with Bernadette Peters and as usual she was an adorable diva. Laughed my ass off. A friend of mine revealed that he had already seen the show four times to see all three leading ladies (Bette, Donna Murphy x 2, Bernadette). Bette returns to the show (with the magical Donna Murphy on Bette's off days since Bette can't handle 8 shows a week) on July 17th. I don't have the funds for three trips but would definitely see again if the chance occurs.

Vulture what would Sex and the City plotlines be like if the show were still on. Vulture asks members of the original writing team
THR With other companies pursuin g him Warner Bros reups with prolific TV producer Greg Berlanti (who also directs the occasional movie - hi, Love Simon) for $400 million. In cash no less!
The Daily Beast talks to Sutton Foster about Younger's evolution
Rewire great reflective piece by Kieran Scarlett on black fathers in TV (Black-ish and Cosby)
i09 John Lasseter is leaving Disney after his suspension for misconduct with female co-workers
Awards Daily a glitzy Emmy FYC event to celebrate the costumes of RuPaul's Drag Race
Words Seem Out of Place writes a letter to Angela (Michelle Pfeiffer) from Married to the Mob 


It's Tony Weekend so a bit of theatah for you
Vulture hilarious article ranking all 41 Broadway theaters
Time Out New York first headshots of all the Tony nominees. These are priceless! Especially the ones of Mark Rylance, Lauren Ambrose, Grey Henson, Amy Schumer, and Ari'el Stachel
MNPP Corey Stoll is wearing leather pants as Iago in the Shakespeare in the Park production of Othello 

Friday
Mar092018

Stage Door: "My Fair Lady" through the Years

by Nathaniel R

Tony season is (nearly) upon us so we're reviving the Stage Door column toward the end of March. But before we start reviewing shows, a history lesson.

Julie Andrews and Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Dolittle

My Fair Lady began its classic life in 1956 as a Broadway musical. No, that's not quite right. It began its life as George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, which premiered way back in 1913, over a century ago! That play inspired the stage musical by Lerner & Loewe. On March 15th previews will begin for the latest Broadway revival. Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) headlines as Eliza Dolittle, with Harry Hadden-Paton as Professor Henry Higgins, two time Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz (♥︎) as Eliza's father, and showbiz legend Dame Diana Rigg (The Avengers, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Game of Thrones, etc...) as Higgins' mother. 

This will be the sixth major incarnation of the hit musical. Let's recap...

Click to read more ...

Tuesday
Aug022011

Linkface

Scouting New York Fun/creepy. Take a retro tour of American Psycho's New York City landmarks. 
Pajiba Speaking of Christian Bale. The web is abuzz with all those Dark Knight Rises on set photos now that filming has commenced. I agree with Iggy on Tom Hardy's lipless "Bane" look, however true to character it may be. Iggy wrote...

Hardy. Better with lips.

it must be a cinematic crime hiring Hardy, the most lusciuous male lips, and make him wear that thing. Could this be considered playing against type?

Geekscape Since Batman is in the air, why not a ranking of all filmed Catwomen? I find it hilarious that Anne Hathaway is included in this six-wide field since she hasn't even purred yet. Who knows how good she will or won't be? The Pfeiffer write up is insightful.
Twitch Superhero fatigue has not yet set in. Commissioned scripts for Ant Man and Doctor Strange have been turned in to Marvel Studios. 
My New Plaid Pants surveys the current wanting cinema crop 
Twitch Forbes Highest Paid Actors list: Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio are up top but the list is soooo 1990s as if nothing ever changes in Hollywood. 

La Daily Musto Hello Gorgeous. Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) will star in the revival of Funny Girl. I'm stunned and happy. Here's a video making the rounds of her doing the famous closing number "My Man"

It's such an interesting choice because it clearly signifies that the producers are NOT trying to duplicate Barbra. Which is, I think most people of sound minds would admit, the only sane way to approach reviving such an iconic connected-to-one-legend piece of theater.

Austin Translation "there's a snape in my boots" 
Regretsy Zombie Golden Girls 
Broadway Blog the original Evita and Che, Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin are reuniting for a limited run concert on Broadway. 

Finally, mark your calendars for August 31st. Gonzo 80s 'classic' Scarface will be showing at 500 screens nationwide to celebrate an epic Blu-Ray release. I'm not wild about the movie which is so widely embraced by gangstas who love its excess unironically and ignore its cautionary tale finale. But if you've never seen it you'd be crazy to miss the chance to see Michelle Pfeiffer's first great performance on the big screen. That year's supporting actress nominees can kiss her skinny pampered ass. Imagine that arguably star-making backless dress / elevator descent entrance on the big screen! Al Pacino's ambitious criminal is hypnotized and so were movie audiences, rescuing La Pfeiffer from her then status as 'Grease 2 girl'. If her entrance isn't enough imagine those 80s dance moves, or the huge-ass sunglasses. Chase those Pfeiffer visuals with mounds and mounds of coke snorting and utter icy contempt for everyone in her field of vision... including herself. She's mesmerizing. Oh and, yeah, some people would describe the movie that way, too.

Wednesday
Jun082011

Reader Request: "The Other Woman"

We held a poll for new DVD write-ups and you chose this one. It's your fault! ;)

You're familiar with the ol' term "edited with a chainsaw", yes? Thist post will surely be written by one. Edited with a chainsaw is an odd phrase since it scapegoats the editor when messy jumbled narrative choices and general incoherence are just as often the fault of screenwriters and directors. Not that editing can't make things worse. Quick, explain what happened in that final battle on the rainbow bridge in Thor because I still don't know. If I ever meet Paul Rubell I will definitely ask him. I don't mean to single Mr Rubell out among editors but my mind lept to Thor because The Other Woman -- our topic du jour -- also stars Her Lady of Ubiquity Natalie Portman. But, really, Thor isn't particularly egregious as incoherent actioners go. Continuity and visual coherence are no longer the end goals they once were. (Thanks for nothing, Paul Greengrass!)

Bad Lawyer! Natalie's sexting when she ought to be working.

When people use that chainsaw phrase today -- if they do at all - it merely means "this makes no sense!" or perhaps  "I hate this". It's flexible which is why it's still useful as verbal shorthand even though there's been no actual "cutting" of film in some time.

What are we even talking about? Oh, yes, The Other Woman: It makes no sense. I hated it.

I wish flexibility were a trait we could assign to writer/director Don Roos' latest but for as much as the new movie twists and bends, frequently and often in its attempt to be several different movies or perhaps a television series, it's always snapping and breaking rather than stretching and settling into new poses. My first urge is to call it incoherent (hence the editing cliché) but that's not quite right. The narrative is neither ambitious nor inept enough for true incoherence. But one thing is for certain, The Other Woman does not know itself. It's vague whenever it needs to be precise and bloated whenever it needs to trim.

Is it a romantic drama? Quite often but only for a few minutes at a time.

Is it a flashback picture about a hasty romantic decision? Well, it's structured a bit like that at first but then you realize the flashback is over and it was more like oddly placed first act decorative exposition and you're back in the present.

Is it a comedy? Not really, although there are a few jokes.

Is it a story about a woman who is way too immature to parent, suddenly thrust into the Stepmom role? It seems like that but then why all the romance? It keeps hinting that there's more to her than immaturity though that "more" never shows itself.

This blended family isn't blending well at all. Both moms, biological & step, like to verbally lash out at everyone around them.

Is it a thorny drama about blended families? Yes, half the time.

Is it a piercing drama about grief and the fragility of new life and love? At times but not for very long at a time.

Do all of these separate movies star two hugely unlikable women, who are members of the First Wives Club and the Young Homewreckers of America club? Ding! Ding! Ding!

Lisa Kudrow and Don Roos have been frequent collaborators for years now, and though he usually casts her as very bitter or frustrated women, they've been able to find such interesting layers of hurt and comedy in the roles. Sometimes she's an outright revelation (particularly in The Opposite of Sex and in her online series Web Therapy). Natalie Portman, who was in the process of winning the Oscar when this film finally arrived, is an uneven actress and she hits some notes here very well (she doesn't shy away from Amelia's immaturity or difficulty at thinking beyond the moment) but it's a repetitive and undercooked performance.

You can forgive a lot when you watch bad movies if the protagonist or antagonist or supporting characters are either straight up likeable or charismatically flawed. But virtually no one in The Other Woman lays claim to your heart. Two of the most generally "likeable" characters, played by Lauren Ambrose and Anthony Rapp, pop in from time to time to provide a laugh line or a sympathetic ear but they're in so little of the movie that it's difficult to get any sort of bead on who they are outside of their trio friendship with Natalie Portman and The Other Woman doesn't care enough about these friendships to suggest anything about their strength.

Rapp, Portman and Ambrose are friends. But how much and for how long?

The three main characters are walking wounded nightmares: Amelia (Natalie Portman) is bitchy, self-deluding, immature and hypocritical (she married a cheater and despises cheaters and doesn't view her actions as inappropriate even though she actively pursues the married man); Carolyne (Lisa Kudrow) is the shrewish ex-wife who is so brittle and unforgiving that you can't help but be glad that her husband escaped her; Jack (Scott Cohen) doesn't make a whole lot of sense and remains a cypher since the film keeps drifting away from him towards the women and his son. You know there's more to him but he only reveals his hurt in the final moments and then, promptly and all too easily, seems to segue immediately back into Father Knows Best mode.

The same day I watched the film I attended a party and I was trying to explain my problem with the film to a friend. Since I was a little buzzed from drinks my critique veered uncomfortably away from the verbal into something approaching charades format; I played Natalie Portman and acted out One Scene As Every Scene, if you know what I mean. It went exactly like this (verbatim!) ...though I wasn't wearing a wig.

This happens over and over again in the movie whether we're in coming-of-age land, the flashback movie, in romantic drama territory, the family strife issues film or baby grief catharsis. All five of the movies we're watching have the same scene: Natalie lashes out, apologizes, feels bad about herself, and continues to blame other people; Repeat for the entire movie until she grows up a teensy bit at the end in an unconvincing and unclimactic way.

Don Roos has made two very good features in the past (The Opposite of Sex and Happy Endings) which both demonstrated a unique voice with a deft command of interlocking character arcs, plotty developments that inform the arcs in question, and the ability to conjure a whole passel of hugely flawed somewhat off-putting characters that manage to be endearing or fascinating because of the good humor, complexity and depth of the characterizations. The Other Woman shares many of these same structural elements but none of the success with them. It's tough to say what went wrong but it went very wrong. Best to call this one That Other Movie, ignore it, and rewatch one of those earlier fine pictures instead. D