My Favorite Moment in the "Exodus" Teaser

New Policy. Though The Film Experience invariably prefers teasers to full trailers on account of our spoiler aversion our Yes No Maybe So is one of our most popular features. So herewith we shall always do Yes No Maybe Sos on only the teaser for films we very much want to see and don't want spoiled and we'll just skip the trailers altogether (I am so grateful I did with Snowpiercer). Other films, we'll wait on the full trailer to do our full duty... especially those movies that were spoiled centuries ago like Exodus: Gods and Kings. 

 FYI for those of you who haven't read it, the Bible is full of spoilers. It's practically a reality TV show it's so fond of telling you what's coming up next and then what just happened recapping. [More...]

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Thoughts I Had... While Looking at the Foxcatcher Tease Poster

Presented without censorship in the order they came...

Mmm-mmm-mmm. Channning Tatum

Sorry, top billed Steve Carell but you just aren't as bankable. Did you throw a grenade while plunging toward the ocean shouting "something cool" this summer? Nope!

Although maybe there are two more of these posters and they just released this one first?

Thank God this is not the official poster because zzz

Little known fact. That flag is Daniel Day-Lewis's shawl from Gangs of New York. It hasn't been washed since 1862 for authenticity's sake. Except that one time Madonna and Rupert Everett used it whilst cavorting.

Chan can cavort with the best of 'em. He's got all the movies. STEP UP. I just saw Joe Manganiello's La Bare and we need to talk about it soon. One of the dancers calls himself Channing because why wouldn't you?

Before she dies I hope Carol Channing co-stars with Channing Tatum. In a musical. 

Heh. The credits are like a treasure trail, starting with Chan's pecs. Look! 

Foxcatcher is a treasure. Or so we keep hearing.

Wait, did they also put prosthetics on Chan's nose, not just Carell's? Everyone wants the Oscar.

12 Thoughts I Had... While Watching "Pocahontas" Again

In the effort to be more succinct each week in my best shot entry -- it's called 'Best Shot' not "Ginormous Review of Everything I Think About This Movie and My 25 Favorite Images" and I'm so guilty of muddying that water --  I'm going to try and relegate all extraneous feelings into an additional catch-all post. So herewith some more ravings about Pocahontas and its relation to the Disney oeuvre (particularly Frozen). 

They're presented in mostly random chronological order. Thoughts I jotted down while watching or feelings I was feeling. So many felt feelings.

• Confession: I almost never like Disney's Opening Songs. From The Little Mermaid's "Fathoms Below" through Frozen's weird chanting that sounds vaguely African though it's meant to be Norwegian, they're always B side filler, meant only to prep you for all the show tunes headed your way. The lone exception is surely The Lion King's "Circle of Life" which is really an A+ opening scene every way you look at it. 

• Thomas is totally gay (and gay for John Smith). [More...]

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Thoughts I Had... While Watching The "Lucy" Trailer

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Maria Full of Grace if it had been a Luc Besson picture bankrolled by a major studio

That part with the eyeball is cool but I don't understand how increased brain capacity allows you to make your eyes change color and your hair grow super fast and change colors? These are brain functions of which I was not yet aware.

Thoughts I Had... About Our First Look At "Grand Budapest Hotel"

In the interest of speed and efficiency, and before all this good icing melts, my uncensored thoughts as they come to me...

• This poster looks good enough to eat. Literally. All I see is a tiered heavily frosted chocolate cake and I want it in me right now. Put it in me!

• Remember when people made such a big deal of Natalie Portman's nudity in "Hotel Chevalier" even though it was only like side butt? Will their be profile nudity in this hotel? And if so whose? My guess is Léa Seydoux though its unlikely to occur at all.

• The title signage is like delicate decorative pastel frosting (I have not eaten dinner yet, can you tell?)

• So pleased that Ralph Fiennes' career seems to be on an upswing again -- I believe he's the protagonist and butler here -- though I read the weirdest headline the other day (I didn't click on the link) about The Invisible Woman, his second directorial effort, being a misfire of a vanity project. I have seen the movie and I can't for the life of me think why it would be considered a vanity project (though "misfire", maybe) when Fiennes is SO much more handsome in real life than he allows himself to look as Charles Dickens. And Dickens doesn't even come across all that well in terms of character, either. He's no outstanding citizen in the movie. 

• Can Ralph Fiennes please do playful homages to Tim Curry and Forrest Whitaker and other famous butlers when he hits the talk show circuit. Please?

• Did Oscar winner F Murray Abraham get a new agent or something? Totally back! Homeland (sinister!), Inside Llewyn Davis (wonderfully judged cameo), and now this.

• This poster reminds me of the architectural minimalism of Chris Ware or maybe it could have been done by illustrator Max Dalton who did great stuff for Matt Zoller Seitz' new book on Wes Anderson. I want to read that book. Did any of you get it yet? 

Max Dalton print of Wes Anderson characters

• My favorite Wes Anderson movies are The Royal Tenenbaums (#1 by a margin of 375 imaginary city blocks), and Moonrise Kingdom. Hotel Chevalier and Fantastic Mr Fox tie for third. No, really.

• My best friend used to live super close to the exterior of The Royal Tenenbaums on Convent Avenue here in  NYC and I used to stare at that building in melancholic wonder every time it entered my field of view. 

• Wes Anderson is the ideal person to make a movie about a hotel because structures are like actual characters in his movie: the train in Darjeeling Unlimited, the submarine in The Life Aquatic, the tree in Mr Fox, the vertical home in Tenenbaums, and so on...

• When will Oscar voters ever warm to Anderson? Beyond the writers branch who (wisely) gets him.

• I just noticed that Anjelica Huston's name is not on this poster and it suddenly doesn't look as tasty.