In Blog No One Can Hear You Link

MNPP "Do Dump or Marry" with the cast of Neighbors 
Shadowplay "everything that's wrong with Stanley Kramer..." (Judgment at Nuremberg) 
Cooper wishes a happy birthday to silent god Rudolph Valentino with beauteous gifs
Pajiba a righteous rebuttal to Shailene Woodley's ignorant anti-feminist comments
In Contention I should have linked this on my Star Wars day post but Kris did a history of Oscar and George Lucas' galaxy far far away

HuffPo Emma Stone and Gabourey Sidibe on their own body image and ignoring the haters ("too skinny" / "too fat")
Kenneth in the (212) loves Desperately Seeking Susan (as do I). You can visit the locations as they exist now in NYC 

small screen
Variety the rumors were true. Lisa Kudrow's brilliant biting showbiz satire The Comeback is returning to television. Albeit for a tiny six-episode run
Kevin P. O'Keefe terrific retrospective on the brilliant pilot episode of Glee all those long long years ago...

On a whim, I rewatched the pilot episode of Glee – first aired five years ago this month – just to see if it was as good as I remembered it. If anything, it’s better. In fact, it’s great. Yet watching Lea Michele, Cory Monteith and co. fresh-faced, unaffected by the ills that would befall them and the show over the next five years, is strangely heartbreaking. It’s a bit like watching a horror film backward.

I am so confident that show would have a gorgeous place in history if they had only wrapped it up with Season 2. 
AV Club Ancient Egypt is hot right now in Hollywood what with Ridley Scott's Exodus in production and new series from HBO and Fox going there, too. Spike TV joins the parade with a new series Tut. 
Comics Alliance how did I never hear that cheesy Electro Woman and Dyna Girl from Saturday Mornings in the 70s got its own unaired TV pilot in the Aughts? 

Today's Must Read
The Daily Beast looks back at Battlestar Galactica and charts what ineffable fanservice quality it had at the time that helped reshape pop culture. Really good piece which touches on a lot of genre films and tv that pop culture currently or still worships.

must see
I somehow missed this recent BuzzFeed gallery on movie posters improved with animation. Some are annoying with all the choppy looping reset feel that comes with most gifs. I like the subtler ones like the tense Sigweavie breathing of Alien or the elegant rippling Atonement but my favorite is probably this one for Fight Club. Pointedly cinematic... literally.

Moving posters for motion pictures are the future. Learn to love them.

Tues Top Ten: "Friends" Episodes

Jose here. Ten years ago today (May 6th, 2004) television as we knew it passed away as Friends came to its end after ten landmark seasons.

The show redefined what Thursdays on NBC were all about and made huge stars out of Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, Matt Le Blanc and David Schwimmer. It also pretty much set the standard for what would become “the” multicamera sitcom rules.

On a more personal note, I was obsessed with this show as a teenager, having only caught up with it through syndication. I officially joined the “live” watching only during the fifth season and by the time the show ended, I understood what it was like to “lose” something you grew up with. I’m still mourning the loss of Friends and that other show about New Yorkers that ended its run the same year.  I’m sure you all have your favorite episodes, but whenever I think of me as a kid watching episode after episode after school, these are the ten I’d gladly take with me to Central Perk.

TOP TEN "FRIENDS" EPISODES 

10) The One with Phoebe’s Wedding (S10E12)

Why It’s Here: Everything that can go wrong, goes wrong as Phoebe prepares to walk the aisle and marry Mike (Paul Rudd). Her stepdad stabs a man in prison and Joey has to fill his shoes, while Chandler and Ross fight over who gets to replace one of Mike’s best men. Monica gets fired as wedding planner and a blizzard arrives forcing the gang to improvise...all leading to one of the most magical moments in the series.

MVF: Ross and his sidekick Chappy the dog.

Could it Be Any More Quotable?:

Joey: Friends, family, dog, thank you all for being here to witness this blessed event. The cold has now spread to my special place, so I'm gonna do the short version of this.

nine more greats after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Lisa, it's your birthday...

She’s now had 50 years on this Earth, and I think we can safely say that Lisa Kudrow – who’s certainly smarter than any of the characters she’s played – has given a lot of joy to the world in that time. Dave here to pay the Film Experience's respects to this fine actress. To the world at large, Kudrow will always be Phoebe Buffay, but of all the Friends, she’s surely the one with the spiciest CV after the show. It’s only her affinity for hard-edged, pitiful characters that's kept her from continued mainstream success. For the connoisseur, Kudrow remains one of the most adept comic actresses working. We salute you, Lisa, on your special day.

Watch, learn, and don’t eat her cookie.

-x-

Phoebe Buffay, Friends 

If you want to receive e-mails about my upcoming shows, then please, give me money so I can buy a computer.

six more indelible characters after the jump!
which is your favorite?

Click to read more ...

Oscar Flashback: Supporting Actress 1998

Yesterday on twitter I ended up in a fun alternative Oscar argument with Joe, Julien, Will and Jacob and it was amusing because nobody agreed on anything...

Get your hands off ________'s rightful Oscar.

So let's expand that conversation to include TFE readers. If you'll recall had you lived through it or know the year went like so...

Winner: Judi Dench, Shakespeare in Love (also won NSFC & BAFTA)
I'm actually fine with this win (from the nominee pool, I mean) though I'm aware many internet dwellers are very anti-Shakespeare in Love

Nominees:

• Kathy Bates, Primary Colors (Chicago, BFCA & SAG winner)
• Brenda Blethyn, Little Voice
• Rachel Griffiths, Hilary & Jackie
• Lynn Redgrave, Gods and Monsters (Spirit & Globe winner)

So that supporting shortlist was essentially one extended cameo (Judi), three normal size supporting roles (Kathy, Brenda, Lynn) and one co-lead title character (Rachel). My feeling is that it's a dull list even though the performances are relatively good (the only nomination I objected to wholeheartedly was Blethyn's) because it's too closely tied to knee-jerk Bait when there were more inspired more challenging performances available from supporting actresses that year, many of them a bit more off the well trodden period piece prestige path.

But what surprised me more was that nobody agreed on the "wish it'd been...". What a year it was for supporting actresses. Consider these names which came up.

• Patty Clarkson, High Art
• Toni Collette, The Velvet Goldmine
• Imelda Staunton, Shakespeare in Love
• Lisa Kudrow, The Opposite of Sex (NYFCC Winner, Spirit Nominee)
• Kate Beckinsale, The Last Days of Disco
• Julianne Moore, The Big Lebowski
• Joan Allen, Pleasantville (OFCS, Boston, BFCA, LAFCA & Satellite winner)
  
  and still more no one mentioned last night on Twitter...
• Kimberly Elise, Beloved (Satellite winner)
• Thandie Newton, Beloved
• Sharon Stone, The Mighty (Globe nominee) 
• Christina Ricci, Buffalo '66, Opposite of Sex, Pecker (Florida winner)
• Anne Heche, Psycho
• The Lovely Laura Linney, The Truman Show

WHAT WOULD YOUR LIST HAVE LOOKED LIKE?
Mine would've gone like so: Winner - Clarkson; Nominees - Dench, Collette, Kudrow and...???

Linkbringer

GWB finds Raúl Esparza all villainous

big screen
Broadway.com Raul Esparza, one of our favorite song & dance men, channels his inner gangster for the new film GWB
Pajiba the fifth annual "most bangable celebrities" list. Fun writeups on everyone from Tom Hardy to Emma Stone to Fassy, who tops the list.
In Contention fans can finally choose between Magneto & Professor X for the X-Men First Class Blu-Ray. Nice covers but obviously I'd have to go with Michael Fassbender.
Scene Stealers chooses a top ten of movie super soldiers to celebrate Captain America's arrival. Hey, that's probably what I'm watching right as you're reading this. Wheeeee.
Little White Lies interviews director Mike Mills on his personal and beguiling film Beginners. I love this bit on whether he's nostalgic for old time Hollywood...

Well, I’m obsessed with history. We are the latest chapter in a long story and if we want to figure ourselves out of get out lf the prisons that we’re in then you need to figure out the past. So I’m always looking back. And I do love Louise Brooks and I do love old Hollywood through the teens, ’20s and ’30s, because it was being invented then, it was like this whole new entrepreneurial world that was just being discovered. ...I like these cultures that were born from punk, too. I was around and I watched these things make themselves a little bit and I related a lot to that. Actually Louise Brooks was a fucking punk, man. She was a really interesting, subversive person.

That she was.

Have you seen this new poster for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy?

It's nifty, yes?

I like that it feels secret messagey and that it isn't loud. But perhaps mileage will vary. I still don't know what to make of it in the Oscar predictions but it's an interesting wild card sight unseen.

small screen
My New Plaid Pants Black Book's wondrous Carice van Houten will play the sorceress Melisandre in Game of Thrones. I wish I loved Game of Thrones because between them giving Sibel Kekilli a plum role and now this (Melisandre is a totally sick character) it's like they're trying to fill their cast with my foreign film harem. Who's next: Franka and Ludivine?
Vulture Lisa Kudrow talks about Web Therapy which she's bringing to regular TV now. My greatest related dream is that she convinces Meryl Streep to reprise her sex-crazed reparative therapist Camilla Bowner because it's so topical now what with those crazy anti-gay Bachmanns flitting about on the news.
Towleroad Where in the world is Anderson Cooper?