Happy Birthday, Robin Weigert!

How will you celebrate the birth of one of our most underrated supporting actresses of the stage and screen today? Will you:

• hang out in a diorama and monologue about pain, as she did in Angels in America?
• drink and cuss up a storm, like her Emmy nominated Calamity Jane from Deadwood?
• break from procedure to help someone in need, like her Big Little Lies therapist?
• bump your head and get kinky, a la Concussion?
• have three distinct personas, like each different woman she played on Law and Order?

When did you fall in love with this scene stealer?

Big Little Lies MVPs: Episode 5 "Once Bitten"

Previously: episode 1 and 2, episode 3 and episode 4. Here's Nathaniel's take on Episode 5

In the fifth episode, we've reached what has to be a boiling point as Jane, Madeline, Celeste and Renata all seem to be coming absolutely unhinged simultaneously. Spoiler alert for the rest of this post: this show is just superb and it's giving us more actressing than we even know what to do with. *tosses roses at television*

Top Ten MVPs of Big Little Lies. Episode 5 "Once Bitten"

10. Madeline's Dream
Bonus points to the show for having a sense of humor about its hardcore annoying refusal to let us know who was murdered. Also any Avenue Q reference is golden.  

09 "Bully Free Zone"
That damn bright yellow & red sign. 

Don't you feel like it's constantly just taunting everyone in the school? At least half of the adults in this show are bullies themselves and everyone seems so helplessly ill equipped to deal with bullying in school on top of their other issues... 

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TV @ The Movies: "Damien" Flashes Back

Though I know not why it's so, considering I prefer original material in nearly all mediums to rehashes, I sample nearly every TV series that's based on a movie. Not that the interest tends to last. So it was that I binge watched the first four episodes of A&E's new series Dam♰en.  The Omen (1976) was the first horror film I ever watched that didn't involve vampires (I was really into vampires for some reason as a little boy, even though I was never a horror film aficianado). I snuck watched The Omen one night during one of its television airings in the early 80s.

Though the new series never mentions Damien's birthday, the wee Antichrist's birthdate was June 6th in the original movie (6/6 natch) which is also my birthday. Little me actually ran to the bathroom to make sure there was no mark of the beast on his scalp after the movie. (He had so many nightmares that week, poor little guy.)

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Interview: 'Take Me to the River' Director Matt Sobel and Stars Robin Weigert and Logan Miller

Jose here. When Ryder (Logan Miller) and his parents Cindy (Robin Weigert) and Don (Richard Schiff) arrive in Nebraska for a family reunion, things spiral out of hand when the teenager is implicitly accused of molesting one of his younger cousins. Tensions rise, and family secrets come to the surface, and yet nothing in this plot description makes justice to the uniqueness of Take Me to the River. Matt Sobel’s debut feature combines the eerie mood of a horror film, with the droll work of the best Finnish masters, to create a dreamlike experience that creeps under your skin. I sat down with director Sobel, and stars Weigert and Miller to discuss the film’s mood, their approach to the enigmatic screenplay, and the reaction the film sparks in audiences.

JOSE: Take Me to the River feels like it’s always a second away from turning into a horror movie. How did you set up that mood with your cast and crew?

MATT SOBEL: Years before making the film I was describing what I wanted to do to a friend, who said it sounded like I wanted to do something “uncanny”. I said it was more than just strange, so my friend suggested I looked up the definition of the word in the dictionary, and he was exactly right, the very specific meaning of it is: something that is simultaneously familiar and welcoming, and off putting and unfamiliar. That dissonance creates a very strong feeling of discomfort in everyone, so I spoke to my DP about how to achieve this every step of the way.

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HBO’s LGBT History: Television Period Dramas

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

Last week we looked at the oh-so-boring if earnest doc The Case Against 8. This week we’re taking stock of three of HBO’s period dramas to see how the network has tackled LGBT characters in robes, frocks, and spurs.

When putting on shows (or films) set in the past, you always have to walk a fine line between keeping it “period” — you want to stay authentic — while also making a case for its existence today — you want it to resonate today. Mad Men is to me, the standard in this regard, ably walking that fine line; never shying away from the rampant sexism of the time, for example, but also never arching its eyebrow to audiences and smirking to itself saying “Can you believe this?” This is particularly tricky when it comes to LGBT issues and even more so when the shows are not about issues of sexuality. Do you push contemporary understandings of gays, lesbians and trans people and risk being called out for anachronisms, or do you simply feed into a narrative of heterosexism that states that gay desire was somehow always hidden and tragic and risk instead being called out for regressive ideas?

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