Tribeca: Women Behaving Badly

Coverage of the Tribeca Film Festival continues with abstew's thoughts on 'Lucky Them' and 'Bright Days Ahead'

Film is packed with male anti-heroes, men with arrested development, or the classic older man / younger woman love affair that at this point you'd have to do something completely out of the box for it to feel different or unique. While those storylines more often than not seem to carry a male sensibility about them, that hasn't stopped a couple of new films attempting to take those tried and true scenarios and mix them up with a feminine point of view. The latest films to do so (Lucky Them and Bright Days Ahead) have a couple of female directors (Megan Griffiths and Marion Vernoux) giving their leading ladies (Toni Collette and Fanny Ardant) a chance to indulge in their inner (wo)man-child. Unfortunately, in both cases, the gender swap doesn't bring any new insight. 

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I'm Just A Girl Who Can't Say No (To Links)

HAPPY OKLAHOMA DAY! For serious that's what it is today so any of you reading from the Sooner state enjoy yourselves just a little bit more for the rest of us today

I'm just a girl who cain't say no,
I'm in a turrible fix I always say "come on, let's go"
Just when I outta say nix!

It's also Earth Day today and we'll celebrate when we look at Pocahontas for "Best Shot" tonight. Have you rescreened in yet to choose your shot. You've only got 6 more hours to get your link in. We'll post at 10 tonight

And now, the linkage...

Rope of Silicon David Cronenberg apparently wrote a book due out this fall and Viggo Mortensen loves it and the mad director also made a trailer for it involving a plastic surgeon and a naked woman
Allure's Nude Issue" has 4 actresses talking about their bodies while naked (Nia Long, Minnie Driver, Mrs Channing Tatum, and Kristen Bell). Shameless click-bait sure but also interesting interviews
The Black Brick Road of Oz a complex webcomic with partially animated visuals that seems to be retelling The Wizard of Oz through a twisted Alice in Wonderland kind of lens
New York Theater the Outer Critics Circle nominations are in which means the Tony nods are ever closer. Of the musicals that are Tony Eligible, they seem to like “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder”, "Rocky" and Disney's “Aladdin” best. Their Off Broadway favorite is clearly "Fun Home" with Michael Cerveris

Coming Soon Rachel Weisz and Toni Collette to star in Miss You Already a British drama about friends falling out. Interesting combo of actresses, right?
Awards Daily Foxcatcher gets a release date of November 14th. Great choice, SPC
Pajiba wonders what happened to Alison Lohman. She hasn't made a movie in a long time
The Wire Archer will return to its spying roots next season after an experimental latest season
Vulture Whoa, I hadn't heard about this (because I don't watch ESPN) but on Monday's they're reairing those Battle of the Network Stars specials that were so popular in the 70s and 80s - a precursor to modern shows like Dancing With the Stars only populated with less has-beens and more stars that were actually popular at that moment showing off their athleticism
Empire pics from Denzel Washington as The Equalizer. Funny that his great actor cred can remain so intact when he keeps pissing away the years in all these C grade projects, right? I guess one Flight every few years or so we'll keep you in critical good graces. That's a lesson other male stars with Denzel's bad taste (and there are so many of them!) should have probably learned

Directors Fortnight at Cannes
In Contention Sundance hits Whiplash and Cold in July have been accepted
Playbill this is the first we're hearing of a movie called Pride but its set to debut at Cannes and has a pretty stellar cast Bill Nighy, Imedla Staunton, Paddy Considine and Dominic West among them. It's a true story about gay activists raising funds for striking miners in the UK in the 1980s.

Today's Watch
Nicole Kidman gets sassy with an ABC news reporter. Be prepared for your interview, kids

Contest: See Toni Collette & Marisa Tomei on Broadway!

I have a special surprise for you NYC-area readers whose actressexuality extends beyond the silver screen to the stage. I have one pair of tickets for the March 12th dress rehearsal of the new Broadway play The Realistic Joneses to give away. It stars Toni Collette, Michael C Hall, and Marisa Tomei. I've seen all of them perform live and they're every bit as good on stage as they are onscreen (not something that can be said of all film actors!).

"How well do you know your neighbors?" THE REALISTIC JONESES asks.

...a new play about love and life, friends and neighbors.

Written by Pulitzer Prize finalist WILL ENO and directed by SAM GOLD (Fun Home, Seminar), it's an outrageous, inside look at the people who live next door, the truths we think we know and the secrets we never imagined we all might share. Hailed by The New York Times as "a tender, funny and terrific new play with the spring's most enticing new cast," THE REALISTIC JONESES moves into Broadway's Lyceum Theatre on March 13.

Marisa Tomei at a Golden Globes party recentlyTickets are not on sale for this event. This is an invite only performance so you'd be with the very first audience to see it! The show begins previews the following day. 

The play also stars Tracy Letts, the playwright, of Killer Joe, Bug, and August: Osage County fame (you've seen him act on Homeland and he won the Tony recently for yet another revival of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"). I spoke to him at the Critics Choice Awards and he told me that he'd be in rehearsals for this very thing on Oscar night when Meryl & Julia are competing for statues in his August: Osage County. 

TO ENTER THE CONTEST: Email The Film Experience by Sunday February 23rd with the following information:

1. "Joneses" in the subject line
2. Your full name and email
3. And a sentence or two naming your favorite Toni Collette & Marisa Tomei performances or your favorite neighbor-to-neighbor relationship from a movie (so many to choose from)

Good luck! 

Interview: Brie Larson Does Not Want Her Own Reality Show

Short Term 12 opens in 9 more cities this Friday and 30+ more the following week. Time to talk to its star Brie Larson.

This is not going to be one of those interviews where I describe what the actress is wearing. This is not going to be one of those interviews where I talk about what the actress was eating. This is not the kind of interview that The Film Experience does which is just fine with Brie Larson. As it turns out we're completely sympatico on the subject of actresses and fame. She loves the work and prefers retaining her mystery to indulging in her celebrity. Or as she puts it.

I enjoy being confusing."

But here's the catch. When you do consistently great work as an actor as Brie Larson has done in roles large (United States of Tara) medium (21 Jump Street, The Spectacular Now) and small (Scott Pilgrim, Rampart), and then you hit a new peak with a revelatory personal best (Short Term 12) celebrity will often follow.

Brie frames this rising stardom predicament more memorably than I could while munching on a very green salad in a very blue dress (oops) in a day full of interviews. Morning Joe and Sirius XM were also on the docket that day:

I think with my age and gender --  it gets very easy for the conversation to go in the direction of 'What is your summer salad?’ It doesn’t matter. It’s not important. If we’re going to talk about stuff, let’s talk about stuff."

Which is exactly what we did from her Short Term 12 triumph to the chameleon wonders of United States of Tara to her feelings about Best Actress Oscar buzz. We'll skip ahead past my incoherent gushing about how Short Term 12 is the besty-best to the rest of the interview after the jump.

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Remember When...

...Gwyneth Paltrow and Toni Collette were the hot new actresses Hollywood had to cast in everything?