May. It's a Wrap

One more month until the "halfway mark" for 2011. Of course the film year is a bit different stretching basically from each March to the following February; the Oscar calendar, don'cha know!

Best of May In Case You Missed It...

• Beauty & The Beast - the magic flower is his heart, you see.
• "Maverick" at 25 -Michael, a Top Gun virgin, checks out the Cruise "classic" on its 25th bday
• Film Bitch Awards - 2010 finally gets all wrapped up. I Am Love, The Social Network and Black Swan led the nominations and medals ceremony
• Waif vs. Waif -Special Guest Ester pitted Mia Wasikowska against Saoirse Ronan. Who won?
• May Flowers: The Hours it's a favorite film for many readers. It's aromatic, too.
• Melancholia Fallout - Lars von Trier's press conference blunder was the story everyone wanted to discuss from Cannes
• Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Matador - Pedro Almodóvar's dark bloody thriller made an excellent choice for the "best shot" series
• Ishtar's Second Wind -Elaine May reminisces about her maligned but funny flop
• Reader Spotlights continued with four movie-loving men: K.M., Sergio, John and Borja
• Cannes Goddesses - Jose and I discussed the best gowns at Cannes

Most Popular Post Game of Thrones
I guess everyone wanted to discuss HBO's new show
Runner Up: Top Ten: Tom Hardy From Behind
Most Discussed Timetables Tween Films
We're so Goldliocks. Which directors are fast, slow and "just right".
Runner Up: Cannes Winners

COMING IN JUNE
Moulin Rouge!, X-Men new and old, Super 8, Green Lantern, The Tree of Life, Midnight in Paris, DVD Reader's Choice, True Blood Season 4, and more to be determined by our whims and your enthusiasms.

Film Bitch Nominees. Final Categories

Whew that took me too long this year? I'm working on a new system for 2011, building templates already so we'll see if it pans out. I can't promise anything but I really want something smooth and daily next December/January with the medals handed out before the Oscars. I can dream. I'll wrap up with gold silver and bronze medals Monday or Tuesday but for now...

Best Sex Scenes, Best Kiss, Openings, Endings, Title Sequences, & Best Scenes...
Featuring achievements from 127 Hours, Black Swan, Somewhere, Mother, The Kids Are All Right, I Am Love and many more... all of which are now available on DVD. If you live in a city that doesn't get the movies on time, are you finally all caught up on your 2010 viewing? Was Blue Valentine your lone holdout?

Enjoy and please comment. But don't fall in love with married lesbians.

April. It's a Wrap.

2011 is speeding by. A third over already? Here are some highlights from the month that was in case you missed anything. My biggest regret is that my contribution to the Beauty & The Beast party didn't pan out as planned. I have a new copy of the DVD sitting here so... soon.  But it was still super exciting to see your turn out for that episode of Hit Me With Your Best Shot. I hope everyone clicked around and read all the Belle magic.

Distant Relatives Robert closed out the first season of his new series with Toy Story and... Ingmar Bergman?
Angelina Jolie's Power Cleanse Kurt on Lara Croft's hair flip & gratuitous goddess power.
Remembering Sidney Lumet 43 Features, 5 Oscar Noms, 1 Fine Career.
Melanie Lynskey Memoir The actress chimed in with her own mini memoir and "best shot" for the great 90s flick Heavenly Creatures.
Overheard: On Marisa Tomei the things people say...

Take Three: Shelley Duvall Craig paid homage to the inimitable star in The Shining, Three Women and Portrait of a Lady.
One Angry Man. Trying to get the Personal Canon going again with the 70s classic Network.
10 Word Reviews I finally realized 7 was not enough. On Potiche, Mildred Pierce and more.
Sally Field as Mary Todd Are we excited for Steven Spielberg's Lincoln?
Nathaniel in Nashville Y'all barely commented but sometimes I blog to entertain myself. With drawrings! ;)

Most Popular: April Fool Oscar Predix. Always Oscar for y'all
Most Commented On: Best Actress & Best Picture. Next chart update coming on May 8th.

Coming in May:
Tony Nomination Discussion, TOP GUN, THOR, Tim Roth, George Clooney, ERASERHEAD (this Wednesday - hit me schedule), Vincent Price Centennial, TARZAN THE APE MAN, Cannes Film Festival Tidbits, More "Reader Spotlights", THE RESCUERS, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, THE TREE OF LIFE, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS and more...

Do any of you have birthdays in May? ;)

March. It's a Wrap

Thank God March is over! It's basically Sad Bridge Month between Oscar Insanity and "okay so what's this year going to be like?" Then our Beloved Dame Elizabeth Taylor died and so the month was a bit of a bummer. But, I must add, for our time spent getting to know you with Reader o' the Day! In case you've been a fair weather reader -- it's a pleasant 78° in here year round. There's no need to migrate -- here's what'cha missed on TFE.

It was unusually animated. Pun intended.

A History of Women in Film -From "American's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford to Best Director winner Kathryn Bigelow.
101 Dalmatians 50½ thoughs on its 50th anniversary. Woof woof.
Salo and Dogtooth Robert bridged the distance between two shock classics.
Hit Me With Your Best Shot We all shouted "STELLLLLAAAA" with Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. (As part of a weeklong Tennessee Williams Retrospective)
Akira Redux On the impending whitewashing of this classic Japanese movie.

Toy Story Nathaniel's fav moments from Pixar's promising debut. They lived up to the promise, huh?
Princess Anne an overheard conversation about Anne Hathaway
Manuel Muñoz an interview with a great new novelist on Hitchcock's Psycho
Crimes of the Heart Kurtis looked at "the other Steel Magnolias"
Aronofsky Breaks Up With Wolverine an exposé of the real reasons he split.

Most Popular: Best Actress Finale, Peter Pan, and When Did Stars Start Posing Like Each Other?
Most Discussed: Best Actress Finale, Cast This: Les Miz and  Cast This: Game Change

Coming in April: We're getting really wet and sudsy for the return of "April Showers" since we kept hearing from readers about it (honestly didn't realize it was that popular). We're going a little mad with Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures (1994). And the guesswork for next year's Oscars begins. Plus we're going to both Nashville (the Film Festival) and the circus -- or to circus movies that is with Water for Elephants on the way.

Film Bitch Awards Continue

Our annual awards jamboree went into an unexpected coma due to Oscar exhaustion but the film bitch awards are back as we try and really not just sorta wrap up the 2010 film year. So here are BEST POSTER, SEXPOT and DIVA OF THE YEAR featuring achievements from Cher, Joan Rivers, I Am Love, Fish Tank, Burlesque, Love and Other Drugs and yes even Alice in Wonderland (among other films).

 

So that's six pages down. One more to go. Woohoooooo almost finis! (Just in time for the NEW Oscar predictions for 2011 which always kick off in some form on April 1st ). We'll fill in the BEST SCENES next (final page) but I'm still debating various efforts, like this number below for Best Musical Number in a Non Musical Film.

Since not many of you saw Hrithik Roshan in Kites here's the film's best scene. Someone told me it was edited out for the US version of the movie (they released three versions I believe) which is in-san-it-y since there's plenty of unnecessary filler elsewhere in the movie (seriously you could lose like 10 minutes simply by shaving of 10 seconds from every scene involving long soulful gazes between Hrithik and Barbara Mori there are so many of them) and this is Hrithik's only musical number. And don't people buy tickets for his movies because of the dance numbers?

I could watch him dance for hours. So it's kind of annoying that the editing is so hyperactive. I mean his body is all the hyperactivity one needs, always locking, shaking, popping, flipping, swaying, slinking, swerving, slurving (I made that last word up) and busting out all over.  Hrithik just missed the sexpot list. The sexiest people are, generally speaking, the ones who just exude carnality (Mila Kunis in Black Swan and Tom Hardy in Inception, hell-O) without every noticeably forcing the point. But since Hrithik is basically a superhero made flesh, one forgives most of the oversized everything so... almost! Here's hoping he gets another chance headlining an international effort like Kites, just a better one next time.

So, what'cha think of them divas? And I'll gladly take recommendations for the final categories: Action Sequence, Musical Moments, Kiss & Sex Scenes, Opening & Closing Scenes, Credits and just Best Moments in general.