Review: "Atypical" Season 2

by Ben Miller

When Atypical debuted last year, it was not accompanied by widespread critical acclaim or a zeitgeist-catching wave of popularity.  It was seen as more of a niche show with some issues, but with room to grow and a modest budget. Season two didn’t have built-in expectations that a show like Stranger Things or the final season of House of Cards will have. This proves a blessing: with zero expectations, Atypical has now grown into the show we hoped it could be...

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Posterized: Glenn Close

by Nathaniel R

Glenn at the UK premiere of The Wife earlier this monthWith The Wife expanding to 78 movie theaters today, more of you will now have the chance to see the performance that's won Glenn Close so many raves. So let's consider this weekend the kick-off to what we hope will be a competitive but satisfying Best Actress race since Lady Gaga (A Star is Born) and Emma Stone (The Favourite) are in the process of making big splashes at Venice as we type this. To celebrate the Oscar campaign for Glenn Close, let's look back on her filmography, shall we? Balder & Dash beat us to a very fine essay about her whole career and we're glad they did because plans to do a whole Glenn Close Week here failed; weirdly  I discovered that a lot of members of Team Experience are agnostic about her! I have had an up and down relationship with this Connecticut-born Oscar favorite, myself, but I am most definitely not agnostic about her performance in The Wife. I think it's the best she's been in 20 years and I'm thrilled (and surprised) to be quoted on the poster for the movie.

Here is her entire feature film career via movie posters. We've mixed in a few key TV projects so that this will feel more comprehensive, since Close has spent major time there, as well. How many of these 51 Glenn Close performances have you seen?

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Sharp Objects: Episode 8 - Finale "Milk"

by Chris Feil

Sharp Objects has come to its conclusion, bringing with it some scratched heads and hesitant praise wondering when we would be served some real clues on the identity of its killer. Meanwhile it built it’s own slow burn reveals from the inside of Amy Adams’ Camille, leading to a firestorm of consequence and context in its final few episodes that had nothing and everything to do with who killed those girls.

For those of us who had already read Gillian Flynn’s source novel, we also watched the unfamiliar audience as we waited for the rug to pulled out from under them. We knew this was never to be a show built on closing cliffhangers to maximize bingeability and serve standard genre water cooler moments. But its bombshell final moment did just that and cruelly so, giving a conditioned audience the moment it craves the very second it completes; there is nothing more to come, we just have to reconcile its cruel dispatch. In some ways, Sharp Objects has challenged the serialized medium, or at least how we consume and engage with it.

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Showbiz History: Cheers, The Wizard of Oz, Beach Rats

10 random things that happened on this day, August 25th, in showbiz history...

1885 Silent film master G.W. Pabst (Pandora's Box) born in Germany. 

1918 Today is the Centennial of composer Leonard Bernstein. We've been posting a three part West Side Story tribute that I hope you will all read and comment on! Part 3 later today, apologies for the 24 hour delay. (Oh, and check out today's Google Doodle in his honor)

←1939 The Wizard of Oz arrives in movie theaters. Though popular in its initial release, the 9th highest grossing film of its year and a Best Picture nominee, the budget was high enough that MGM recorded a loss of $1 million...

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Blueprints: "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel"

As we approach the Emmys, Jorge is looking at the pilot episodes of Best Series contenders. 

Amy Sherman-Palladino made a name for herself with dialogue. Best known as the creator of Gilmore Girls, but also behind the one-season wonder Bunheads, her newest series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel follows a 1950s housewife who finds refuge in standup comedy after her husband leaves her. The delightfully twee vintage setting and the world of verbose comedy sets and big performer personalities is a perfect fit for her now immediately recognizable patter-chatter, all anchored by a revelatory performance from Rachel Brosnahan. 

Let’s take a look at the climax of the pilot episode: Midge’s drunken, cathartic stand-up set. How she slowly wins the audience. How it escalates on the page. How the endless sentences, tangents, and colorful adjectives create explosive tension...

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