10th Anniversary Top Ten: "Once More With Feeling"

One of the all time best episodes of anything ever turned ten just a week(ish) ago... but I wanted to celebrate on a Tuesday.

Dawn's in trouble? Must be Tuesday."

That means for the past week and for many weeks after circa 2001 I had the songs from Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "Once More With Feeling" in heavy rotation in my head and or ipod. 

One of my favorite moments of any awards season, obscure though it be, is the moment during the AFI's one and only televised award ceremony in January 2002 (anyone remember that? They combined TV and film like the Globes do) when Buffy the Vampire Slayer was nominated for best drama series. When they announced the category a clip from this very episode played proudly alongside clips from its three fellow nominees, all traditional awards heavyweights: The West Wing, The Sopranos and Six Feet Under. This is the sort of company Buffy should have been keeping during its run though Emmy voters just couldn't see it*.

For today's top ten, because I can never find a good excuse to talk about my #1 favorite TV series of all time, here's a top ten of that historic episode, in chronological order because the episode is so beautifully constructed.

TEN BEST MOMENTS IN "ONCE MORE WITH FEELING"

• Intro Once More With Feeling proclaims itself 'a very special episode' immediately, dispatching the usual credits for an overture style opening credits with each cast member smiling inside the (spot)light of the moon. It then surprises by 'going through the motions' of a typical day without dialogue before getting to its first number "Going Through the Motions", instantly recalling the gold standardepisode Hush. It's a ballsy confident move and, as it turns out, telling: Aren't those two episodes essentially fraternal twin classics, each riffing imaginatively on the difficulty of truly communicating with the people we love most?

• "Going Through The Motions" manages to answer all the complaints about Season 6's Sad Sloggy Buffy Summers and respond with a knowing and compelling cry for help. And it performs this dramatic spell with hilarious little sung asides (Demon Just Realizing He's Been Killed: "She's not even half the girl she --owwww!" | Hot Guy Rescued: "How can I repay... " Buffy: "Whatever...")

♫ I don't want to be... going through the motions
Losing all my drive
I can't even see, if this is really me
And I just want to be
Aliiiiiiiiivvve ♪" 

The best part is the ending which reworks a now excessively familiar sight, a vampire being dusted, into something newly magical; Buffy emerges from the cloud singing beautifully, like it's fairy dust not ashes. 

8 other 'best' moments & grudge-holding Emmy bitching

Click to read more ...

Top Ten: Actress Centerfolds

Given the recent cancellation of The Playboy Club which we mourned mainly because Laura Benanti deserves to be famous.... Given James Franco's Flaunting and pants-dropping... Given the waves the oft-naked Shame has been causing at festivals ... Given disgraced actress Lindsay Lohan's newly announced decision to pose for "Playboy" for a million bucks (only a million? I hope she realizes she used to make more than that for acting) today feels like the unofficial Mandatory Day of Nude Celebrity Appreciation. [Disclaimer: I type this fully clothed.]

So let's celebrate the movie actresses who have gone before Lindsay!

Oh sure, sure. The common wisdom is that this is La Lohan's new rock bottom and we shouldn't be celebrating but -- please -- actresses take off their clothes all the time for totally worthwhile purposes (Acting!) and the only thing that's shameful about the human body is that we're ashamed of it. Plus, it's worth noting that actresses have won Oscars AFTER doing this so this isn't rock bottom so much as a lame opportunity to have just said "Lindsay Lohan" and "Oscars" in the same sentence!

If anything this might be her first smart move in years. But only time and Lindsay herself will be able to confirm that.

TOP TEN PLAYBOY ACTRESS PICTORIALS

#10 MARILYN MONROE 1953
#09 SANDRA BERNHARD 1992
I thought I'd kick off with this perverse double bill, and I have a reason. Marilyn Monroe was on the first cover of Playboy in 1953 the year of her definitive ascent (Niagara, How To Marry A Millionaire) but she didn't actually pose for the magazine. The famous nude was shot years prior to her stardom, in 1949 to be exact. Sandra, one of Hollywood's most consistent provocateurs, posed purposefully for reasons of her own 40 years later. We won't deign to speak for her as to why but it did carry a certain exegetic charge as an imagined passive/aggressive (aggressive/aggresive?) response to ex-friend Madonna's "Sex" book which also debuted that year. All of which is to say these are the two poles between which the general truth of nude photospreads lies: first what Playboy imagined itself to be with women as commodity specifically for male pleasure (again, Marilyn wasn't actually involved) and second what Playboy pictorials often become with women as entrepeneurs of their own career/bodies and the pleasure of men of secondary, tertiary, or even no concern at all.

Not to get all fancy about T&A. 

NSFW Beauties after the jump: Julie, Charlize, Drew, Kim and more...

Click to read more ...

Tuesday Ten: "Abduction"

Earlier today I got booted from an Oscar contender screening (Mexico's Miss Bala) that was over capacity. There was once this great thing called a "book store" (sound it out. I know it's unfamiliar) where it was easy to kill a couple of hours when you didn't have a laptop with you and something went wrong schedule wise. I've yet to find a suitable alternative so I went to the multiplex. The only movie starting at the right time to fill my schedule gap? ABDUCTION. I feel terrible about contributing to its box office gross but I will make it up to the cinema gods somehow (my first born child?). Don't judge me too harshly. I'm sure you've done something terribly terribly wrong in your life!

I'm opting to stay positive by listing... The Ten Best Things About Abduction

Best Trailer Screen Cap: Sigourney Weaver and Taylor Lautner with a huge black title card celebrating Sigourney Weaver covering his face. YES!!!

01 Sigourney Weaver has a fun entrance in one scene carrying a huge bouquet of balloons. 

02 At one point the villain threatens to kill all of Taylor Lautner's fans* on Facebook. (*okay he says "friends" but some people deserve to die.)

03 The star's girlfriend's eyebrows are more masculine than his.

04 In the movie's best stunt Lautner hurts his ankle and he remembers to limp for most of the rest of the scene. ACTING!

05 The movie hides the face of one key character the whole time but the lips were enough to give him away. Hi, Dermot Mulroney! Also: I will now fantasize that Dermot Mulroney did this for the money and was smart enough to put it in his contract that his whole face not be shown and thus associated with this movie. If Maria Bello, Jason Isaac, and Sigourney Weaver had all done the same this movie would have been very avant garde what with the entire adult supporting cast only shown through extreme closeups of lips and eyes.

06 The climax takes place at a ball game and I was able to reminisce about how good Moneyball is.

07 Maria Bello has this really emotional scene opposite a block of wood that questions its provenance "Are you my mother?" And she totally sells her love for the block of wood! "I'm not your mother but you are my son." That's what a damn fine actor she is!

08 It ended.

I tried to get to ten. I honestly did! 

It was terr-i-ble.

Tuesday Top Ten: MADONNA Day!

Madonna then'ish and now'ish.

Has anyone hogged more mental, academic, celebrity, music, sexual and pop culture real estate combined than Madonna over the last 25+ years? I think not. We salute the Queen today on her birthday. August 16th ought to be an international holiday. Make it happen, citizens of earth.

So herewith two top ten lists and one of them is catered specifically to The Film Experience so as to make this post more at home! Madonna has had a problematic journey with film, aside from three indisputable highlights: time capsule 80s comedy Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), the wondrous super quotable documentary Truth or Dare (1991) and her Golden Globe win as Evita (1996). Will she be able to add a fourth success to that list when her Oscar-seeking directorial effort W.E. (2011) comes out? [All previous posts on W.E.]

Two+ Lists If You Continue...

Click to read more ...

Top Ten Wish List?

We're hoping to reboot all the major TFE series when Labor Day rolls around and the fall season begins. On that note, what kind of lists would you like to see pop up as future Tuesday Top Tens? Y'all kill me when you don't speak up -- there I was dying to know how you'd answer the "tea with famous ladies" and "The Hours for men" questions and you're all speechless?! And with such juicy fellow-reader-provided questions? Anyway here's a quickie list.

Nathaniel's Top 10 Wish List for the Fall

1. A least 6* movies worth debating, loving, building blog shrines to. 
2. Steady stream of blogging inspiration (our job) and increased reader participation (your job)
3. For precursor voting bodies and critics to have their own unique spin on "best" this year, rather than joining Oscar bandwagons.
4. Actress Mania to spread like wildfire starting here and in a new series we're working on.
5. Release of Film Bitch Awards book, debut of video series and best film festival coverage yet.
6. An actual budget to achieve such things. See right hand sidebar if you'd like to become a patron saint of TFE's universe for the low low price of one cup of coffee a month.
7. Michael Fassbender.
8. World Peace. (It's impolite not to ask for it when you're granted wishes)
9. To be hired as a consultant for AMPAS. Good lord but they need the help sometimes. We'll start with their issues with Honorary Oscars and then we'll tackle the other problem areas.
10. Three more wishes **. (It's not cheating unless the genie tells you you can't do that.)

* I didn't want to be greedy
** Oops.