Wednesday, November 26, 2014 at 5:00PM 
...and burn your village to the ground.'
(Great Moments in Screen Bitchery #906: Christina Ricci in Addams Family Values)
Saturday, March 1, 2014 at 1:56PM Hello, lovelies. Beau here, gone for far too long, with something that I've been racking my brain over for the better part of two months.
Much has already been said about American Hustle, on this site and throughout the internet in general, and the film has taken on a kind of love-it-or-hate-it reputation that makes it seem even more controversial than Scorsese's touted lightning rod, The Wolf of Wall Street. Whereas that film is richly deserving of its many dissenting opinions, the criticisms being levied at Hustle tend to direct themselves at its lightness, so to speak. A puff pastry strutting about in sequins. Indeed, the general consensus for a long period of time was that the film was too light to be considered a threat for the Oscar for Best Picture. Its themes of survival are dwarfed by Gravity, a film where said theme is made literal and considerable. Themes of deception are dwarfed by the hedonists of Wolf of Wall Street. Jennifer Lawrence's show-stopping performance in particular has become a source of contention, with mentions of miscasting, ageism, an inconsistent accent all to blame.
And while I have my own reservations about the film, there has been one particular element of the picture that's been thrashing about in my head, one performance that I can't seem to lay my finger on entirely. It evades me, like a crook whose face I know and can identify, but who always seems just out of my grasp. [More...]
Friday, November 29, 2013 at 5:00PM Hello, lovelies. Beau here, finally coming up for air from my last few weeks of undergrad to comment on Alexander Payne's fantastic new feature, Nebraska, and note some uncanny resemblances it has with another particular favorite of mine.
It's not a far stretch to imagine why these two films have been linked to one another so often in various articles and reviews lately. Aside from the obvious aesthetic choices made on the part of the creative team to shoot in black-and-white, the framing of the eerily silent, seemingly deserted locales or the clarity with which both films perceive and study their unique characters, Nebraska and The Last Picture Show both manage to tread a fine line in American cinema of empathizing with their characters without fully submitting to them.
Thursday, September 5, 2013 at 4:00PM It's Back to School Month at TFE
Hello, lovelies. Beau here, fixating on a tiny moment from one of my favorite films.
John Hughes was a Godsend to me growing up. From the ages of 14 through 17, hardly a weekend went by where I wasn't revisiting one of his key entries over the span of a twenty year career. These viewings alternated between Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sixteen Candles, and The Breakfast Club. It's remarkable to me that we've managed to survive over ten years of remakes and rehashes, and no one has dared touch any of his material.
Saturday, July 27, 2013 at 10:20AM 
Move aside, House of Cards. There's a new reigning champ in the Netflix world. Jenji Kohan's follow up to Weeds called Orange is the New Black has earned the designation of being the strongest television debut of the year. The series about an upper class woman Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) whose life is derailed by a prison sentence for a drug mule crime committed in her wilder (lesbian) youth. It features strong, multi-layered female characters, a solid dramatization of the source material and one of the best ensembles from any medium in 2013.
Nathaniel will touch on the series more soon but here are some things I, Beau, enjoyed about it as well as some 'room for improvement' items from its first season. [more...]
