I'm not aware of too many things, i link what I link, if you know what I mean

Hello Cinema has a really fascinating conversation about the reception of foreign films, Iranian and elsewhere, in North America referencing interesting movies like A Separation, Leila, Mother of George, Children of Heaven, City of God, and many more
Man, I Love Films on the beloved 40s noir horror Cat People (such a good flick, huh?) 
My New Plaid Pants falls in love with (nsfw) 1966's Georgy Girl with Lynn Redgrave & Alan Bates 
Guardian George Clooney, perpetual bachelor, is engaged! 

ABC Musicians Paul Simon and his wife Edie Brickell arrested for disorderly conduct. The New Bohemians were not brought in for questioning
Theater Mania Grease Live! will be the next TV musical event after The Sound of Music's success. No cast yet (and good luck strying ot out Stockard/Olivia/John) but it's aiming for 2015 
Serious Film my friend Michael liked Match, the Tribeca film starring Patrick Stewart I reviewed yesterday, a helluva lot more than me so it's worth sharing an opposing opinion
First Showing footage from Russell Crowe's directorial debut, The Water Diviner
Empire the WB triples down on director Zach Snyder giving in both the Man of Steel sequel and the Justice League movie  (but why? People have already turned on Man of Steel as a 'meh' which doesn't bode well for enthusiasm next time)
Cinema Blend ...is on rumor control: Matt Damon as Aquaman? 
Towleroad so that's what Teen Wolf's departed cast member Colton Haynes has been up to. (side note: Towleroad has been killing it with the post titles of late)
The Wire revisiting Mean Girls with the woman who wrote the non-fiction / non-comedy book it's adapted from 

Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People" List
The full list has been revealed with these 27 people in the "arts" section: Marina Abramovic, Amy Adams, Diane Paulus, Matthew McConaughey, John Green, Beyoncé, Sheika al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Donna Tartt, Jordan Peele, Seth Meyers, Benedict Cumberbatch, Robin Wright, Binyavanga Wainaina, Miley Cyrus, Robert Redford, Jenji Kohan, Yao Chen, Arundhati Roy, Megan Ellison, Carrie Underwood,  Kerry Washington, and Keegan Michael Key. Weird eclectic lineup. (This last season renewed my love for Amy Adams but I've never thought of her as "influential" per se.) Interestingly enough -- at least for The Film Experience's purposes -- five of the slots are taken up by recent hotly-contested Oscar contests. Best Directors Steve McQueen & Alfonso Cuarón are both accounted for as are the leading "Original Song" nominees Robert and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (from Frozen) and "Happy" Pharrell Williams.  All of the celebrities get tributary write-ups by other starry folk: Oscar whisperer Harvey Weinstein honors film legend Redford; James Franco writes about Abramovic (OF COURSE HE DOES); Naomi Watts talks up Robin Wright who had her best year; and Jessica Chastain has the good sense to worship Megan Ellison...

The Italian Renaissance flourished because patrons like the Medici family sponsored artists and valued their craft. Today the film industry has been blessed with a modern version of the Medicis — a single benefactor who has the utmost respect for cinema: Megan Ellison.
         -Jessica Chastain 

The magazine has multiple covers as most event issues do these days. Who would you have placed on the list that didn't make it?

Beauty Vs Beast: Happy Mutant Monday

JA from MNPP here wishing you a very happy Mutant Monday, which is the brand new holiday that comes right after Easter Sunday, as of right this second, says me. Why am I making up this brand new holiday here off the cuff (besides more holidays meaning more days off from work, of course)? Well... because it suits my immediate purpose of course, which is to turn James McAvoy's birthday (which yes, is indeed today, he's turning 35) into an epic celebration! And by epic celebration I mean to have this week's edition of "Beauty Vs. Beast" ask one of my favorite questions...

Who do you prefer between the heads of X-Men: First Class? The Dudes of Future Past? Charles Xavier please do meet Erik Lehnsherr...

poll by twiigs.com

X:Men: Days of Future Past hits in about four weeks, but you've only got one week to answer this question, and please do take to the comments to tell us why you're picking which side. Speaking of...

PREVIOUSLY ON Last week was another birthday, that of the great Robert Carlyle, and we spun ourselves back to the year 1996 to tackle a Trainspotting showdown... who did you choose? You chose good health low cholesterol and dental insurance, you chose life, you chose Renton (Ewan McGregor). With 3/4s of the vote! Maybe it would've been more of a battle if I'd listened to par though...

"With all due respect to Renton, the true beauty in Trainspotting is Sick Boy."

Panel Culture: The Winter Soldier

I had the pleasure of returning as guest on the Panel Culture podcast. It's a weekly comics podcast but they do movie episodes every once in a while and this one is on Captain America: The Winter Soldier. If you've read my review you might feel I'm repeating myself but it bears repeating. It's a fine movie and we discuss why. 

Towards the end of the podcast, Charles mentions that he thinks the blockbuster is helping Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. finally find its voice on TV. I've been hearing that a lot. It's true that the last two episodes have been newly energized, but two episodes is not much to go on. If the corporate mandated Marvel Universe show can sustain this new tension through the end of the season maybe Season 2 will actually be worth watching and not something you tune in to out of habit and because you're tired after a long day at work? 

I also ask the guys which female superheroes they'd like to see get a solo picture. Because I am me, these guys know comics, and I couldn't help myself. 

In case you missed the announcement, The Film Experience's own podcast returns this Sunday. That's my little Easter gift to you. It is risen

Strictly 4 My L.I.N.K.A.Z.

The Wire Joe & Mark predict the Tony nominees in the play categories. Could Audra McDonald win a sixth Tony? (The nominations are only two weeks away)
Defamer Paul Walker's incomplete scenes from Fast and Furious 7 will be played by his real life brothers
AV Club a TV series on Sigmund Freud is ALSO going to be a cop show because every other television series is required to be. Gross.

Just Jared Magic Mike XXL gets a release date: July 3rd, 2015. That's only 443 days away, pervs
YouTube final X-Men Days of Future Past trailer, to spell out the plot though the notion of Professor X laughing in disbelief about time travel is unintentionally funny given the company he keeps: shapeshifters, psychics, blue skinned freaks, weather goddesses, people with laser eryes, fancy-skeletons berzerkers...
Pajiba 7 ways tv shows have covered up unexpected pregnancies from Mad Men to Sex & the City
My New Plaid Pants Yay. Picks of Jake Gyllenhaal on the set of his boxing film Southpaw 
MNPP Which is hotter? Charlie Chaplin: Führer, Tramp or Thief?

Cast This?
Variety the Tupac biopic via John Singleton is happening. Expect casting announcements soon. Wouldn't it be hilarious if Chadwick Boseman gets a third consecutive biopic? (no) WHO WOULD YOU WANT IN THE LEADING ROLE? And unknown or...

Finally...
Geek Dad has lots of fun quotes from Anthony Mackie about superheroes and Captain America: The Winter Soldier including this delightful bit on getting in shape for it...

Fitness is a lifestyle, you have to eat a certain way... So you know, me and my homeboy Jack Daniels stopped talking. You know, no more pizza. Me and my girlfriend Häagen-Dazs broke up. She’s French; it was crazy.

And then I show up and you know, Chris looks like a Greek god. And I’m feeling good about myself, I’m like Spandex-ready, you know. And I show up and he’s like, Captain Tiny Ass. And I’m like, “Dude, how’d you get your ass that small?” Like this [GESTURES AS THOUGH SQUEEZING A SMALL BOTTOM], it’s that big – you know. And I’m man size, like I can lift the whole building. And I look at his butt and I’m like, “What did you do? What did you do to it?”

If only there was video!

Channing "Gambit" Tatum and Your Favorite Superheroes

I've been quite blocked today (apologies) so I'd like to turn the time over to you for an open discussion. With news coming that Channing Tatum would love to play Gambit in a movie (poor Taylor Kitsch. It's not his fault everyone has tried to scrub X-Men Origins: Wolverine from their memory) Fox will surely be jumping all over that to make it happen.

Though the superhero movie boom will surely die out as all movie trends do eventually, we have no idea how long it will last so we'll just try to enjoy it while it does rather than bristle against it.

The other day on Facebook Stan Lee posted a 'name your five favorite superheroes' thread and I answered more quickly than I knew I could. Without thinking about it five names popped right into mind: Nightcrawler, The Human Torch, Storm, Spider-Man, and The Scarlet Witch. Other than Sam Raimi's perfect Spider-Man 2 I haven't had much luck getting my favorite characters translated to my taste on the screen though, so I've tended to enjoy characters I didn't much at all care for in the comics the most onscreen. Like Captain America. Speaking of... my eyes bugged out seeing a brief glimpse of The Scarlet Witch in that film and I'll be curious to see how Joss Whedon and Elizabeth Olsen dramatize her in The Avengers: Age of Ulton. But still, I hate those post-movie tags which are the heighth of pandering narrative inelegance. They're very much like "next week on..." TV tags

But I'm curious. Name your five favorite superheroes in the comments.  I perused through some answers on Facebook and was surprised to see that very few people chose heroes beyond the truly iconic household name ones - batman, superman, spider-man, and wolverine were constantly name-checked.