HBO’s LGBT History: Mildred Pierce (2011)

Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.

Last week we talked about polygamy and homosexuality in Big Love, all the while singing Chloe Sevigny’s praises. This week, we focus on the “genius” Todd Haynes, who's obviously on our minds what with our infatuation with Carol. HBO, as we’ve seen, has always celebrated and supported out gay filmmakers, from Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (Common Threads, The Celluloid Closet) and Cheryl Dunye (Stranger Inside) to Gus Van Sant (Elephant) and Alan Ball (Six Feet Under). It makes sense that Haynes’s adaptation of Mildred Pierce, led by the incomparable Kate Winslet found a home at the cable network.

We could spend all day gabbing about this languid adaptation but I’ll keep it short and sweet today with 5 Reasons Todd Haynes’s Mildred Pierce is deliciously gay...

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Mad Men @ the Movies: Ali + Brigitte = Megan?

Julia Ormond returns to her Emmy-nominated role as Megan's motherLynn Lee, back again to discuss Mad Men at the Movies.  

The title of this week’s episode was “New Business,” which may or may not be meant ironically. The episode felt contrived to strike certain thematic chords at the expense of developing the characters believably.  Diana the waitress feels more like a construct than a person, designed to appeal to Don’s hang-ups (the lover to be saved, the mother who abandoned her child); even their awkward elevator encounter with Sylvia Rosen just reminded me of how bored I was with that affair.  Megan does a 180 from the regretful wife bidding Don a tearful goodbye to the bitter ex-wife who accuses him of stealing her youth.  And her bickering French Canadian family shows up for no discernible purpose other than to bring back Julia Ormond and leave Don with a literally empty home.

That said, it’s Megan who brings Mad Men as close to the movies as it can get in an episode without any specific movie mentions. Megan’s film career has stalled, to the point that she’s subsisting on handouts from Don while their lawyers fight about divorce terms. She’s apparently desperate enough to seek help from Harry Crane, of all people - Harry, the noob who's been lusting after her since her show-stopping performance of “Zou Bisou Bisou.”

After seeking permission (sort of) from Don, Harry meets Megan for lunch and loses no time buttering her up.  He can’t believe she hasn’t gotten bigger parts!  He compares her to movie stars, both foreign and domestic...

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Mad Men @ The Movies "Hey, Mildred Pierce!"

Please welcome new member of Team Experience, Lynn Lee (who you may remember from the Reader Spotlight and Furlough Guest Blog) here to continue our unofficial Joan Crawford week - Editor 

Lynn here, filling in for Nathaniel as Mad Men – and with it, Mad Men at the Movies – returns for the final seven episodes.  The show has had a good run but from a filmgoing perspective I'm sorry we won't get to see what Don would make of the weird and wonderful cornucopia of movies in the ’70s, from gritty crime sagas to paranoid conspiracy thrillers to, well, “Star Wars.” 

Curiously, the only obvious movie reference that popped up in tonight’s episode was to a movie from decades earlier – Mildred Pierce (1945), the half-soap, half-noir blockbuster that revived Joan Crawford’s flagging career and won her the only Oscar of her career.  Fittingly, the shout-out comes from Roger Sterling, our most senior character now that Bert Cooper is gone.  Even more fittingly, it’s delivered as slightly derisive banter wrapped around an order to an underling: Roger’s in a diner with Don and three ladies, all decked out in evening wear, and he wants the waitress to bring him the bill.

Hey, Mildred Pierce, can I get the check?”

It's not exactly a flattering sobriquet...

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Cinema Swimwear: Mildred Pierce

This summer The Film Experience is launching its own swimwear line! *not really

◀ Back to Results | You are in: Swimwear

larger viewThe Two-Piece Pierce
★★★★★ - 6 Reviews

Color 
Only available in matron white

Size 
Only available in small

Product Details
Buttoned-up, hard-working, unappreciated single mother/entrepeneur by day? Wardrobe Master Milo Anderson brings you this little number to knock out your unsuspecting suitor when he brings you to his beach house. Our luxurious men's-style cover-up (sold separately) will keep your still-slim dancer's body comfortable while lulling him into submission, until that moment when it comes off and.. BAM!

Just don't expect a whistle. He'll need a police siren to show his affection for your body in this!

Price
Bill it to your wealthy trust-fund paramour

Estimated Arrival
...In fact, he probably already has one waiting at his beach house!

Details and Care 
Matching swim cap also available! Order Now! This flirty, feminine two-piece is sexy enough or him and lady-like enough for you. Just don't let your teenage daughter grab hold of it... who knows what might happen?

also available from this retailer

Take Three: Melissa Leo

Craig here, back with the third and final season of 'Take Three'.

This week: Melissa Leo

Take One: Red State (2011)
Leo gives an ugly yet riveting supporting performance as Sara in Kevin Smith’s Red State. She’s the matriarch with no maternal manners of the Five Points Trinity Church and wife to Michael Parks’ Phelps-like religious nutjob. We first see her open a trailer door to three horny teens who, we eventually gather, she entraps with the promise of a ‘good time’. She’s chugging a beer, resignedly eyeing these unsuspecting victims, playing her part in their “punishment”. Leo makes Sara immediately unlikeable. She’s a fully paid-up cult member either lost in ecstatic zeal (when Parks’ Abin spouts his bile-filled sermons) or riddled with utter contempt for ‘outsiders’ (all other times). But at no point does Leo deliver a two-dimensional portrait of hatefulness.

It takes a seasoned pro to make such a distanced and indefinably spiteful presence feel truly compelling. There’s something horribly absorbing about the way Leo carries herself. [More after the jump]

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