Links: Death Scenes, Star Salaries, and Filmmaker Arrests

Today's Must Read
• Slate examines the "50 Greatest Fictional Deaths of All Time". For a piece on death it's surprisingly fun and life-affirming. But the best reason to read it is that, unlike 95% of "all time" lists unline, it's genuinely far reaching stretching across all storytelling mediums and time periods. At this point it's a miracle to see an "all time" list that acknowledges that the world existed before the 1990s! Obviously spoilers abound though...

Movie and tv salaries at the moment, Jafar Panahi's prison sentence, Amanda Seyfried's Wicked audition, Bollywood anxiety and more after the jump ...

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Last day for our summer fundraiser - reader requests!

Thank you to those who donated in our summer fundraiser. Though we didn't earn enough to get to Venice for the festival the donations will help keep the roof over TFE's head. If you donated one of the following amounts we'll be in touch for your requests...

$50 - Choose a topic for an upcoming post
$150 - A long piece on the movie or actor or topic of your choice
$200 - "Supporting Actress Smackdown Special". Pick one movie with multiple supporting actresses in it and we'll do a mini Smackdown debating those performances!
$400 - For you high rollers out there, order up a whole theme week of your own choice. Daily posts on that topic! Could make a fun gift for yourself or someone you love with their favourite movie/star/thematic element/genre whatever. (Unless you give us a date a month in advance we'll pick the week)

If you've already donated those amounts, which a few of you have, email us to make your request!

In Defense of "The Bling Ring"

by Matt St Clair

After first making her mark as a director with her one-two punch of The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation, for which she won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and became the third woman in history to be a Best Director nominee, Sofia Coppola’s work has been met with rather mixed reception. Thankfully, the response to her latest feature On the Rocks, which premiered at NYFF, has leaned positive. But this post is dedicated to what is a rather misunderstood masterpiece from the auteur and that is 2013’s The Bling Ring. A fictionalized account of a series of real-life burglaries, The Bling Ring  unexpectedly served as a prelude to our recent renaissance of “eat the rich” pictures...

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Cabaret Pt 2: 'It makes the world go 'round'

Occasionally Team Experience will take a classic movie and pass it around for a deep dive. Cabaret is showing onscreen this weekend at The Quad. Don't miss your chance to see it in an actual movie theater if you're in NYC.

In Part One of our tag team look at Cabaret (1972 being our 'year of the month'), Nathaniel investigated the way director/choreographer Bob Fosse introduced the musical's three major players at the cliff end of the Weimar Era in Germany. He also touched on Liza Minnelli's physical expressiveness in creating one of the most memorable protagonists of all time. When we left off, Fritz and Sally had just forced themselves into their friend Brian's English lessons for a Jewish heiress. Here's Dancin' Dan with Part Two of our Cabaret roundelay - Editor

Part 2 by Dancin' Dan

34:45 "Bobby! A Landauer. In my house!" I love the little glimpses we get of the other residents of the boarding house. In the stage show, Fräulein Schneider is much more fleshed out and has some truly lovely moments. I can't say I miss it entirely in this film, but I still love seeing them.

35:00 Meine damen und herren, the most awkward tea party EVER. There are so many great moments in this scene, from Fritz pulling his jacket down to hide his fraying shirtsleeves to Marissa Berenson's accidental double entendres as Natalia ("This was a cold of the bosom, not of the nose." "Ze plegma? Zat comes in der tubes?"), which are even more cringe-worthy since she is so beautiful and nearly regal in her bearing. And the sass she gives Brian when he can't explain the spelling of "phlegm" is delightful!

36:30 Sally is VERY unimpressed with Fritz's overeager laughter at Natalia's jokes...

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On the Linkfront

VF Hollywood Charlize Theron's son loves Emily Blunt... and Frozen
Pajiba posits that Grease 2 is the superior Grease and a feminist triumph
Gothamist On the Waterfront is coming back to movie screens on April 24th and 27th as a Fathom Event. It's rarely seen on the big screen, so go
Variety there is a Three's Company movie in the works. Because.
Guy Goald "The Garlic Awakens"

The Retro Set the 8 most cinematic Duran Duran music videos. They stole from Mad Max, The Night Porter and even Indiana Jones
Towleroad This is awesome. Salt Lake City is renaming 900 South (a pretty cool street as it goes in SLC) "Harvey Milk Blvd". In related news: SLC must have changed a heap since I lived there for this to happen
NY Post Cher: The Musical. It could happen on Broadway
The New York Times Abolitionist Harriet Tubman is coming to the $20 bill. Albeit in 2020. That'll be a fun follow up to the HBO biopic starring Viola Davis (if that one is still on... who knows?)

Vulture Mark Harris's must read piece on Hollywood's strange disrespect for Melissa McCarthy, ICYMI
Pop Matters Duncan Sheik talks about his music for American Psycho on Broadway 
Tracking Board interesting casting: Debra Winger and Tracy Letts will co-star in The Lovers for A24 as a couple planning to break up but having second thoughts  
Stage Buddy Jose interviews Joachim Trier on his first English language film Louder than Bombs

RIP
Variety famous wrestler and TV reality star Chynna, who even played superheroine She Hulk in a porn parody, is found dead in her home 
Guardian remembers director Guy Hamilton who made four James Bond films (including Goldfinger) and other films like Force 10 From Navarone and The Mirror Crack'd 

Oops
We forgot to share the first trailer to Oscar hopeful The Birth of a Nation. If you haven't yet seen it, here it is.