Toshiro Mifune @ 100: The Hidden Fortress

Team Experience is celebrating the Centennial of Japan's great movie star Toshiro Mifune for the next few days. Here's Nathaniel R...

Raised as an American child (through no fault of my own) in the era when the original Star Wars trilogy first captured the world's hearts, it's perhaps unsurprising that I knew Star Wars before any of its influences. Though my innate interest in cinema led me eventually to "Akira Kurosawa's greatest hits" somehow The Hidden Fortress (1958), always escaped my eyes. I knew of it mainly only as 'that movie that everyone says inspired George Lucas's space opera.' 

It would be foolish to pretend with snobbish cinephilia that the original Star Wars film doesn't improve on its then 19 year-old inspiration, but The Hidden Fortress deserves more than this footnote status; minor Kurosawa is still Kurosawa...

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Toshiro Mifune @ 100: Stray Dog

Team Experience will be celebrating the Centennial of Japan's great movie star Toshiro Mifune for the next five nights. Here's Lynn Lee...

It’s impossible to think of Toshiro Mifune without thinking of Akira Kurosawa—and vice versa.  Their partnership was unparalleled in its cinematic impact, spanning 16 films between 1948 and 1965 that included stone-cold classics like Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, and Yojimbo.  While Mifune and Kurosawa did significant work independent of each other, it’s not exaggerating to say they made each other; both men would acknowledge as much even after their falling out.  In Mifune, Kurosawa found the perfect player to convey the outsize emotions and imposing physical presence of his most memorable protagonists—typically men of strong passions and even stronger will, whether turned to honorable or horrible ends...

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There's a link in my soup

This is Just My Face is on sale nowNPR Gabourey Sidibe has a book out, now "This is Just My Face: Try Not To Stare" (great title). It's about her rise to fame, body image, and being confused with her fame-making character in Precious which she finds both frustrating and powerful
Time Out New York publishes its own TONY* nominations. Get it, their initials are TONY. Not to be confused with the actual Tony Award nominations which are due tomorrow to honor the best of Broadway. Consider this their "should be nominated" article
The Retro Set looks at the new documentary Mifune: The Last Samurai, narrated by Keanu Reeves, and now available to stream on Netflix. Can't wait to watch this. 

Deadline republished an interesting history of the making of Silence of the Lambs. I didn't know that the project started with Gene Hackman who was going to direct and star. 
Variety shared a really good interview with Geena Davis. I love what she says about the gender neutral movement with some awards bodies, combining male and female actors into the same category. It's a terrible idea and Geena eloquently explains why
Playbill Chita Rivera flashes back to her West Side Story audition in the 1950s, the show that put her on the map
Awards Daily looks at the prospects for Limited Series Actor... a far more shallow field than its Actress counterpart this year but at least that means its looking good for Riz Ahmed and Ewan McGregor
Playbill Come From Away, a new Broadway musical that's expected to do very well in tomorrow's Tony nominations, is getting its own documentary feature called Come From Away: From Gander to Broadway. It's the true story of a group of strangers diverted into a small town after the 9/11 terrorist attacks grounded airplanes.

Finally...
Interview has Kate Hudson interview her mom Goldie Hawn. It starts enjoyably silly and familial but gets deep into "mindfulness." Goldie is almost back onscreen (Snatched) after a 15 year retirement (that they're somehow calling a "hiatus"). Love this bit about how therapy (which she started around the time of Laugh-In) helped her keep sane despite becoming a household name in her early 20s:

I realized that the way people see me, as a star, has nothing to do with me. It's like a Rorschach test, like I am something they can identify with, learn to love, learn to hate, learn to resent ... but I gave it back to them. So if somebody said to me, "Oh, I love you!"—that makes me happy to see them happy, but I wouldn't take it in as something that builds my ego. And that's how I stabilized myself. 

Have a lovely Monday, everyone. How do you plan to "stabilize" yourself this week?

On this day: Dietrich Ascends, Elvis Screen-Tests, and Leslie Cheung Dies

on this day in history as it relates to showbiz...

Lon Chaney as The Phantom of the Opera1776 Pioneering mathematician Sophie Germain born. She's mentioned in the movie Proof but where's her biopic? There are so many 'hidden figures' out there to tell stories about
1883 Silent film star and "Man of a Thousand Faces" Lon Chaney is born. Becomes legendary doing monstrous film roles with early horror makeup: clowns, phantoms, hunchbacks, you name it...

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