Jurassic World just beat The Avengers box office tally to become the third highest grosser of all time (when you don't adjust for inflation) which has Awards Daily wringing its hands over what the Academy should do to better honor the types of films people pay to see. As you may have guessed The Film Experience has strong feelings about this topic (including suggested new Oscar categories) all of which we will share with you right now...
Benjamin Walker: still waiting for the mainstream breakthroughPajiba If you needed some contrarian Grace & Frankie critique try this. I love Dustin but he actually thinks that Grace & Frankie are the problems with Grace & Frankie. Say what? Is this opposite day? The Dissolve Xavier Dolan's Tom at the Farm getting US distribution two years late. (sigh) So weird that it took so long since it's a) good b) marketable being of the thriller genre and c) only 90 minutes long (that's practically a "short" by the standards of the Dolanverse) People Actress Jennifer Grey (Dirty Dancing) honored her legendary dad Joel Grey (Cabaret) at a recent event Broadway World The awesome but still relatively unknown Benjamin Walker (aka 'Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson' Himself and Former Streep-Son-in-Law) will star in American Psycho: The Musical on Broadway next spring. Towleroad Tony Award predictions Gold Standard predicts Best Drama Series at the Emmys - suggests that Breaking Bad dominance will continue with Better Call Saul. NOOOooooooo
Today's Must See(s)
Color me so impressed that this site did a video entry for "Hit Me With Your Best Shot". Why didn't I think of that? Maybe it'll inspire others to join us! *crossing fingers* Now go read Movie Motorbreath and subscribe totheir YouTube channel (I hope STinG does this every week).
This short video is like Action Filmmaking 101. And obviously a lot of action directors working in Hollywood need to go back to school since John Seale (cinematographer) and George Miller (director) and Margaret Sixel (editor) just reminded everyone how it's done. This video describes one of the main reasons that Mad Mad Fury Road is so incredibly exciting without ever being disorienting. (Hat tip to Polygon for bringing this to our attention.)
Superhero Link Quota Heroic Hollywood looks at Marvel/Netflix's Defenders plans post Daredevil success. The proposed Black Widow series is never happening though, get real. ScarJo is too much of a movie star to settle Comics Alliance Luke Mitchell promoted to series regular for Agents of SHIELD S3. (I liked him a lot but I'm done with that show. It's just far too incoherent and inferior to other Marvel product out there - Agent Carter runs circles around it for one and you can't watch everything.)
Show Tune To Go!
Musical hater Jason would not approve of me commemorating his baby My New Plaid Pants's 10th birthday this week by sharing a showtune but that's why I have to. Otherwise this would be way too sentimental because MNPP is my personal favorite blog (4realz). It's always hilarious and sexy and puts a smile on my face when I'm down and Jason is genius. So go and wish him well. For his tenth anniversary he counts down the ten hot movie stars he's posted about the most over the years. Naturally Jake Gyllenhaal wins but the order is interesting and for the show tune to go I've selected features Bachelor #8 Dominic Cooper's Bathing Suit from Mamma Mia! I can't imagine most TFE readers aren't already aware of Jason's blog (since he posts here regularly, too) but if you aren't, get familiar. There's something for everyone: cinephiles will love "The Moment I Fell For..." and "Five Frames From..." and his succinct reviews; Horny admirers of the male form \will love NSFW stuff like "Gratuitous" and "Anatomy IN a Scene" and "Do, Dump, or Marry"; if you're a horror fan you'll be way more at home over there since he has totally gross but inspired series like "Ways Not To Die," too.
So happy anniversary and keep making the internet a better place with "nonsense incarnate," everyone!
Michael C here to review my most anticipated film of the summer. Isn't it wonderful when anticipation and quality go together?
With each passing Summer the concept of the Event Movie gets a little more cheapened, a little more downgraded. Like eyes adjusting to darkness, we see weightless CG blurs collide with other weightless CG blurs and deem it good enough. That is until a film like George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road comes along to rip the curtains down and the light flood in. No, that image is not strong enough. Fury Road tears through the multiplex like a great cleansing fire, leaving the great herd of lesser, timid blockbusters scattering to escape its path.
It may seem an odd declaration to make about a franchise reboot, itself the third sequel in a series dormant since 1985’s Beyond Thunderdome. But Miller proves that any project can attain greatness with the right spirit of reckless ambition. The prevailing mentality is that an established brand is an excuse to play it safe, to scrub a rehash of the original story down to a neutered PG-13 so as not to risk alienating a single ticket buyer on Earth. George Miller goes full tilt in the opposite direction, embracing the franchise’ twisted id...
Someone needs to do a supercut of all the things Tom Cruise has hung from in his career like a daredevil, an action martyr or a human sacrifice: there've been helicopters, cliffs, glass skyscrapers, Scientology campaigns, cables, and now a big jet plane. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation has a lot to live up to now that the series improbably peaked as late as its fourth installment, Ghost Protocol.
Yesterday I answered reader questions about film sets worth living in and all time favorite actors and I hope that conversation keeps going because I haven't heard from too many of you what your choices are. There were so many good question this week let's keep the party going for an extra day. Here's the next six questions featuring Guilty Pleasures, Oscar's Best Animated Feature and Unseen Classics. One question will be answered in a forthcoming theme week that's already been planned and one final question is getting its own post.
You can't say we've been slacking here at TFE.
LADY EDITH: Do you have a favorite Altman?
I do. And it's no contest. I just shout Nashville (1975) as enthusiastically and loudly as I can when asked. Which is not to dismiss the rest of Robert Altman's always at least interesting filmography. My other two favorites are Three Women (1977) for its psychosexual actressing and Gosford Park (2001) for the sheer pleasure of it but I love his movies... well, maybe not Dr T and the Women but I love quite a few of his movies.
JEFF: What's your biggest guilty pleasure movie? Or a movie that most of the readers would be surprised that you happen to love.
After so many years writing online about movies I fear I have no secrets left. I love the usual guilty pleasures and probably talk about them too much (Xanadu and Showgirls chief among them). I suppose in terms of things I rarely write about the #1 guilty pleasure would be that I do kind of have a (small) thing for B grade action movies and affection for the sometimes limited actors that star in them like Jean Claude Van Damme, Jason Statham, and Schwarzenegger of course. This is not a blanket genre appreciation; I never was interested if the movie starred Steven Seagal or Sylvester Stallone. I've seen Highlander (1986) with Christopher Lambert several times because my brother and his friends loved it. I loved Universal Soldier (1992) for some reason. One truly terrible movie that I used to enjoy with an old friend was Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991) starring Dolph Lundgren and Brandon Lee. This actually happens in it...
Monday, July 27, 2015 at 6:00PM 
