Big Little Lies MVPs: Episode 1 "Somebody's Dead"

by Nathaniel R

She's delicious!

Why yes she is, Alexander, she is. So's the show.

Sometimes, on particularly dark-mood days, as your editor sits in the Film Experience HQ, a lonely room high atop a tower, he worries that he'll spot a mob of angry actressexuals with torches gathering on the road below. They scream "Why haven't you written about _________???"

Such has been the feeling each Sunday night when Big Little Lies has aired on HBO, resplendent with actressing and yet, crickets. So before the mob gathers, we'll try to catch up really quick so we're on the weekly schedule...

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Links: Atomic Blonde, Underwater Armageddon, La La Lynch,

Pajiba at what point exactly did Dev Patel get hot?
Variety Billy Brown, who previously sexed up Viola on How to Get Away with Murder, will costar with Taraji P Henson in the new thriller Proud Mary which has nothing to do with Tina Turner 
/Film Van Helsing reboot gets a new writer 
Coming Soon Charlize Theron's Coldest City gets a title change. It's now Atomic Blonde
NYT Whoa. I thought that little kid (Shailene Woodley's boy) on Big Little Lies looked familiar. Turns out he's that child theater critic who does all the popular Broadway Youtube reviews

 

Boy Culture interviews old Hollywood actor Carleton Carpenter who talks Debbie Reynolds, Cary Grant and being bisexual in Hollywood in a new memoir called "The Absolute Joy of Work"
The Playlist has ranked every best picture nominee of the 21st century. Weirdly they made a huge accounting error that kept Moulin Rouge! out of the #1 spot by a truly embarrassing margin
MNPP the King Arthur trailer is obsessed with crotches
Interview Evanna Lynch, Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter, is interviewed about her post Potter career by another Potter alum 
The New Yorker looks at Harry Belafonte's 1956 mega hit "Day-O" and the social power of song 
i09 a new movie is begin described as "Underwater Armageddon."  Kristen Stewart is in talks to headline
AV Club the law that allowed actors to have their ages hidden from IMDb is probably in danger of being overturned 
Comics Alliance the proposed X-Men TV series has not announced a list of characters yet but Blink will be amoung them. Actress Jamie Chung has been cast in the role 
Screen Crush is stating that Logan has a post-credits scene. If there is one it most definitely did not screen for critics as I waited until the lights came up. (I generally stay for credits... and did so before post-credit scenes were a regular thing)
Film School Rejects the use of primary color in La La Land 

Video To Go
La La Land as directed by David Lynch (file under: the internet is fun) and a iphone rehearsal for La La Land's opening number filmed in a  parking lot

Actressexual Alert: Big Little Lies Trailer Drops

Manuel here starting our Monday with the best of news. "Who knows what lies there beneath the surface?" Reese Witherspoon asks us in the first trailer for her latest collaboration with her Wild director, Jean-Marc Vallée. Yes we finally get our first look at Big Little Lies, the HBO miniseries based on Liane Moriarty's best-selling novel (which I devoured in one day; it is that addictive and appropriately sudsy). 

The project is a smorgasbord for us actressexuals with Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, Zoë Kravitz, and Shailene Woodley joining Reese in this suburban mommy thriller. As the trailer suggests, we'll be introduced to an idyllic seaside suburban enclave where certain revelations (it's best not to spoil, and thankfully the teaser doesn't really) send shockwaves throughout the community, leading to a violent, murderous end. It'll be a fine tonal balancing act but the show, written by David E. Kelley looks like it might just pull it off...

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Meryl Says Yes to TV but Shailene is a Definite No

by Murtada

Meryl Streep is not a TV neophyte. She has appeared in two of what is now called a limited series, the first time at the beginning of her career in Holocaust (1978) and then in Mike Nichols’ adaptation of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (2003), she won an Emmy each time. So it’s no surprise that she’s making another limited series, particularly in this era when they are so in vogue with movie stars. The surprise here is who she’s collaborating with; J J Abrams.

Sadly however it's not Felicity:The Later Years. The project is The Nix, an adaptation of the bestselling first novel by Nathan Hill about a woman who gets national press exposure for throwing rocks at a conservative governor on the presidential campaign trail. Sounds like it would be right in Meryl’s wheelhouse.

Meanwhile that proposed conversion of the last book of the Divergent series from film to TV hit a bump in the road...

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NEWS: Reese, Rocky Horror & The Revenant

Manuel here trying to keep up with exciting news about several TFE faves (and one who hasn’t quite earned that title).

- HBO’s Big Little Lies, which we’ve discussed before since it’s produced and will star the unlikely power duo of Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, has “allegedly” found a director. Jean Marc-Vallée, of Wild and (more recently) Demolition (TIFF review) fame is in talks to direct the first episode of the short television series adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s endlessly readable book about suburban secrets. Confession: I read it in one sitting and can’t wait to see how it turns out. Let’s hope they sign Vallée’s contract soon since he’s wont to keep himself busy (presumably with that long-gestating Janis Joplin pic with Amy Adams).

- Orange is the New Black breakout star Laverne Cox has been tapped to play the role of Dr. Frank N. Furter, made iconic by a fishnet-stocking-ed Tim Curry in the 1975 film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, in FOX’s TV remake which unlike NBC’s attempts at television musical revivals, will not be broadcast live but be filmed in advance. Seeing as Frank N. Furter is a “sweet transvestite” the casting of Cox, an outspoken trans activist, is a fascinating case of stunt casting in it of itself though it’s already earning the “hot take” treatment in some online outlets. Needless to say, I’m curious to see Cox’s take on the role, and eagerly await who director Kenny Ortega casts as Rocky Horror. Any suggestions?

- Oh, and I couldn’t not feature the gorgeous new poster for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant.

The film, if you've followed its pre-release chatter, has already won Oscars for Leo, Chivo and potentially everyone else associated with it. (I kid! Though, not really). We were obviously impressed with the teaser trailer and so this evocative one-sheet is no surprise but by god if it’s not pretty. Perhaps a tad pretentious in that it literally defines the title for you. Though, admit it, “revenant” is not really in the vernacular. That neither Leo or Iñárritu’s name are billed anywhere in the poster is fascinating. Is it humility (“let the film speak for itself”) or hubris (“the film doesn’t need to be sold on people’s names”), or perhaps something else?