Review: Captain Fantastic

Here's Murtada with thoughts on an essential hero for these particular times, Viggo Mortensen as Captain Fantasic  (opening this weekend).

Captain Fantastic opens by immediately throwing the viewer into its physical world. Forests, mountains, people hunting and gathering. If I didn’t know the synopsis beforehand I’d have thought I was watching a update of Lord of the Flies. Instead the film is about a fiercely independent patriarch (Viggo Mortensen) raising his six children in forests of the Pacific Northwest, teaching them how to thrive while turning his back on a conventional contemporary life and what it means and may offer.

This particular fantasy felt extremely appealing in a post-Brexit, Trump world...

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"I Wanna F*** You Up"

It's here. Awesome multi-hyphenate actress/singer/goddess Missi Pyle is recording again (yeehaw) and here's her brand spanking new, baseball bat bonking, beer bottle busting, new video co-starring Jaime Pressley, Nora Kirkpatrick, Tyler Hilton and more...

They wanna fuck you up!

Who would you like to dedicate this incredibly important song to? 

Uggie (2002-2015)

Sad news. Uggie, the dog star of 2011's Best Picture The Artist is no longer with us. He lived to be 13. I'm not even a dog person as you know but he was a cinematic delight and my chin started trembling when I read the news.

After the jump, some adorable photos of this superstar dog and celebrities he loved and licked. Join us in a sing-along of "God Loves a Terrier" via Best in Show while you peruse the pics.

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Finger-Linking Good

No Screen
Indie Wire Patricia Arquette will pen a memoir on her career and single motherhood  
EW A chocolate sculpture of Benedict Cumberbatch. eek.
Tony Awards what's eligible? We'll be revving up more theater posts for Tony Season (everything is about to open... April being the theater's December if you will)
NY Times profiles the "Hand to God" playwright Robert Askins. ("Hand to God" is the latest risque puppet comedy post Avenue Q -- though not really like it otherwise -- and it's very funny)

Big Screen
IndieWire Manoel de Oliveira RIP (1908-2015)

Small Screen
Buzzfeed the greatest article ever written about the Starz series Outlander Season 1
Melanie Lynskey teases a second season of Togetherness. Did you watch it? So funny-sad and endearing
AV Club the 7 defining pitches of Mad Men

Computer Screen
Dartboard Patton Oswalt goes on an epic twitter rant about comedy and our delicate sensibilities in 2015
Variety thinks Marvel & Netflix have nothing to worry about with the impending launch Daredevil though correct me if I'm wrong... this review of 5 episodes (no spoilers) doesn't really say if it's any good or not, does it? 

Today's Must Watch
MISSI PYLE WANTS TO F*** YOU UP. Watch this amusing commercial and then help Missi raise funds to shoot her music video (multiple celebrity cameos promised) for her awesome revenge anthem "I Wanna Fuck You Up" -- Consider your donation a thank you for her awesomely generous guest blogging day right here at TFE. Yes, I am donating. Although I haven't decided who I want to fuck up the most. You can name your target in her video!

ICYMI: Missi's Memoirs, Bellucci's Bond, Freakshow's Find

Christian Bale moonlighting as Natalie Portman's hairdresser

7 Highlights You May Have Missed
Grand Budapest sounds as good as it looks
Bellucci + Bond. Where does the Italian goddess stand in the Bond Babes Age Stats?
A Year With Kate: Love Affair *sobbing* The series is almost over.
From Freakshow to Magic Mike XXL - meet actress Kathy Deitch
Reader Questions Podcast Globes & SAG discussed
Rhett vs. Ashley! Do you give a damn on Scarlett's 75th anniversary?
Knight of Cups trailer. Like flipping through Chivo's Instagram

But Most Importantly...
One more round of applause for this week's Celebrity Guest Blogger, Missi Pyle. Her long-legged box office hit Gone Girl, with features Missi memorably nailing Nancy Grace journalism, comes to DVD on January 13th! (Will it get any Oscar nominations that week?).

2015 should be a good year for Missi fans since she promises she has a new album and a handful of indies wrapped. Missi was also kind enough to share thoughts and advice on being a working actor, reveal her all time favorite movie (and a few favored actors), offer up a bunch of silly photos, and share her HILARIOUS memoir from the 84th Academy Awards.

Basically Missi is everything, okay?! Okay. 

As you can imagine, dear readers, I'd love to do make the One Day Celebrity Blog Takeover thing a quarterly event but it's tough to find goddesses as awesome and generous as Missi & Melanie & Dana & Leslye who are not just talented but also into talking movies/tv as showbiz fans. Who will be our next victim? We'll find out together in 2015. Stay tuned!