Friday, August 14, 2015 at 12:39PM Margaret here with your live TV musical update. NBC has just announced the final principal cast members for its live production of The Wiz: R&B singer Ne-Yo as the Tin Man, Elijah Kelley (aka the showstopping dreamboat from Hairspray) as the Scarecrow, and Common as the Emerald City gatekeeper.
The full cast, then, is set:
Wednesday, August 12, 2015 at 2:00PM 
Still annoyed that Reese Witherspoon blew her post Wild goodwill on Hot Pursuit, to be honest. Was hoping for a Legally Blonde level mainstream comedy, though that's an admittedly high bar to clear. It's too strenuously acted to be truly fun though it might well play better on cable and DVD when it will likely be seen in pieces because some of it is funny. Its part of this week's DVD/BluRay batch which includes:
But the big news this week is that The Knick's 1st Season is finally available which means that if you don't get Cinemax you can finally see what the fuss was about Steven Soderbergh's series and why TFE was so thrilled to have Cara Seymour guest blogging earlier this summer to celebrate her terrific work as a tough talking complicated nun.
It's a hospital show but not, thankfully, a procedural. Instead it's about scientific advances, urban madness, and the state of public heaelth and medicine at the turn of the 20th century. Clive Owen plays a brilliant Chief of Medicine who is also a junkie. It's an uneven show all told (though the design team does a super 1900s New York, not all of the performances are eager to go for period texture so it sometimes feels out of time) but when its on it's really on. Perhaps the show aired too long ago to catch Emmy's attention or perhaps Emmy votesr just won't look at Cinemax when they're too busy with HBO and Showtime series, but it did win a Globe nod for Clive's performance and one Emmy nomination for Soderbergh's direction of the pilot.
Clive Owen, DVD, Hot Pursuit, Steven Soderbergh, TV, The Knick Tuesday, August 11, 2015 at 9:30PM 
Welcome readers to a new series, currently without a name (help?), in which various members of Team Experience will be discussing a television show or shows each Tuesday. It's our way of expanding our horizons a bit but without drowning the site in TV or limiting us to only one show as has previously been our habit with "Mad Men" or "American Horror Story". To begin, please glance furtively around, turn up your paranoia sensors, and slip into something uncomfortable with us as Lynn and Nathaniel discuss the somewhat menacing pair of "Mr Robot" (USA) and "Humans" (AMC).
NATHANIEL R: Hi Lynn. If you want to know why I'm pairing these two shows it's because I fear we've reached the tipping point of contemporary film and television's obsession with autism or any one on the spectrum thereof (i.e. everyone in our age of staring at our phones instead of each other). Lately I've been thinking a lot about E.M. Forster's Howards End and its edict "only connect" It seems so transgressive now, to demand as much.
This preference for disconnection paired with the still raging epidemic of antiheroes has made the television landscape rather chilly. The danger is that everything starts feeling the same or at least like variations on the same. How radical would a really warm and friendly prestige cable series feel now? I bring this up mainly because, though, "Mr Robot" is confidently acted/written/directed and does feel like its own show... I couldn't stop thinking of "CSI: Cyber"(my deepest apologies) as its sort of brain-damaged country bumpkin cousin because of the cyber crimes that feel like sci-fi and "Dexter" as its more sociopathic father because of the confessional 'i am deeply crazy but I'll attempt to explain myself' narration.
Mostly I bring up "only connect" because I find both shows almost painful to watch; everyone needs a hug. Do you want to hug them? [More...]
Tuesday, August 11, 2015 at 6:03PM Surprising news broke today that John Logan (Penny Dreadful) has successfully won a behind the scenes battle to adapt the best-selling memoir "Just Kids" as a limited series for Showtime. Why is the news surprising? Well, right here at The Film Experience, as you may recall, Patti Smith was horrified by the idea of this happening in our 2014 interview.
Our exchange went like this...
She appears to have had quite a change of heart as she was emphatic on this point when we spoke and she is still very much among the living!
So since she's changed her mind, it's time for CAST THIS!
Who should play these two iconic American artists in their twenty-something years for the miniseries? You'll need actors who can play raw emotion, uninhibited sexuality and bohemian charisma (For extra credit you can also cast playwright/actor/ex-partner of Jessica Lange Sam Shepard since he was also Patti's lover in the early 1970s and Sam Wagstaff who became Robert's older lover around the same time and his devoted mentor/patron/lover until his death.)
Both Smith and Mapplethorpe were poor 21 year-old transplants to NYC in 1967 (they were the exact same age) and lived together as roommates and lovers and later, he was homosexual after all, as devoted friends until 1974. Their fates were tied together and they both became famous, she as a musician with the release of her debut album "Horses" in 1975. His fame built more gradually as the fame of photographers and artists, tends to.
Photos from the early 70s after the jump... (NSFW)
Monday, August 10, 2015 at 8:40AM 
Here's a little 'In Your Face, Emmys!' news. The Television Critics Association has handed out its awards and all three of its big winners (Empire, The Americans, and Inside Amy Schumer) are NOT actually nominated for the Emmy top categories of Best Drama and Best Comedy. (To be fair, Inside Amy Schumer is not eligible for the Comedy category at the Emmys because it competes in variety series. But still...)
It's also worth noting that only one of its winners also won the same category last year (The Fosters for "Youth Programming"). Let that be another reminder that Emmy needs a quality control Executive Committee type panel since their top categories are usually unmoveable from year to year as if nothing ever changes on TV when we all know it is quite an evolving artform.
This news provides the perfect opportunity to talk about The Fosters. Do any of you watch it? It's my guilty pleasure. I say "guilty" because even though I admire much of it, enough of it embarrasses me to feel guilt. At heart it's a weirdly overemphatic treacly progressive lesbian utopia series painted with way too broad strokes but it's also damn addictive and a super warm family drama with moments of incredible charm, organic humor, and even insight. It works.
Everyone says this is the golden age of television but I personally think the opinion is overstated. Certainly it's the golden age of premiere channel television but one genre of TV that I think is still leagues behind 1990s television is the regular people/family drama genre. Certainly none of them approach the amazing quality of 1990s shows like My So Called Life or Once & Again. And that's largely because today's family dramas are really obsessed with DRAMA in all caps -- is it the desperation from knowing their are 500+ more channels you could flip to? -- and feel the need to have every character have some major life crises or decision in each 45 minute episode. I call this The Brothers & Sisters Efect. That show became more and more unwatchable each season despite so many winning elements. It wasn't content to dramatize the fascinating details of basic human interaction and family role dynamics. Instead, it always had to be Life or Death in each episode. The Fosters has the same exact problem. You'll be really into some simple conflict that is beautifully truthful and then they'll gild the lily by constantly returning to deeply aggravating storylines (the less said about the incest storyline the better but the writer's room relies on it so much over two seasons now that you'd think they think it's the best thing they've ever come up with when it's actually the worst) or throwing up some ridiculous gotcha! "danger" like shootings or car accidents.
Amy Schumer, Empire, TV, The Americans, The Fosters 