A Link Divided

multiplex
Movie|Line suggests that Lindsay Lohan stay in France. International diplomacy is admittedly not their strong suit
The Onion Ridley Scott and Tim Burton switch action figures. 'No tradebacks!' (this article is a couple weeks old but if you haven't read it, experience the hilarity)


The Big Picture questions the hypocrisy of dissing Shia Labeouf for dissing Steven Spielberg. Good piece. There's too many "yes people" in Hollywood and Crystal Skull stank.
The Hot Blog Poland waxes philosophical about revivals of genres, musicals, and cartoons
A Socialite's Life I wouldn't normally link to a Robert Pattison on set! thing (who cares?) but in truth I have read this book they're making into a movie Water For Elephants. The whole time I was reading it -- even though it wasn't great or anything -- I kept thinking 'this should be a movie.'NatashaVC an evocative Harvey Keitel story
I Need My Fix on the Demi Moore ♥ Ashton Kutcher romance. In truth they're one of my fav Hollywood couples, too

arthouse
In Contention Guy Lodge on Cannes winding down
Vulture The Fug Girls uncover and display the 10 loopiest outfits at Cannes. Their quote on Kate Beckinsale who isn't wearing anything crazy in the picture is lol

...tends to prefer either short prom dresses or really long prom dresses; ergo, for her, this is practically Gaga City.

Scanners With Jean Luc Godard's Socialisme premiering, Jim Emerson neatly summarizes the critical conversations about Godard over the past... entire career
David Germain on Sony Pictures Classics at Cannes and with Oscar
YouTube Have you seen this "Chlöe Sevigny" dragster yet? Funny. Love the coyness when dropping Tilda's name

great white way
Just Jared Paul Reubens still in process of bringing Pee Wee Herman back. Yay.

the page
Cooley! "Inappropriate Golden Age Book: Movies R Fun" [via]

the boob tube
Antenna an interesting piece on the Joss Whedon episode of Glee just past, which gives answer to the question i had while watching it: this doesn't feel like recent episodes. Why?

in the life
The Onion "New Social Networking Site Changing The Way Oh, Christ, Forget It Let Someone Else Report On This Bullshit."

The Linker is In

Nathaniel (c'est moi) is back. Thank you to the guest bloggers Robert, JA, Adam, Jose, RC and Kieran for letting me breathe this week. Give them a round of applause.

The past seven or eight days have been alternately stressful, joyous, upsetting, relaxing and extremely busy (offweb stuff mostly: friends getting married, work deadlines...) but all the while I didn't have that sick omgihavetopostsomething*now* feeling that I don't think is conducive to good blogging or creativity. That feeling was beginning to sully The Film Experience a bit for me and it's something I'll have to watch out for and shoo away in the future. There's hundreds of corporate movie blogs out there that provide that 12-25 daily news-posts fix. I'll just try to craft good little nuggets as I can. I cherish this little home I've made on the web and the many people (you) who walk into it every day to join in the conversation. Please remember that even if you can't donate (times are tough) there are other ways you can encourage the Film Experience to keep on keeping on: commenting, recommending articles you like for IMDb's hit list, sharing the best pieces on social networking sites, etcetera.

LiNKS!
SLatIFR Dennis Cozzalio's in-depth interview with Stephanie Zacharek (Salon) gave me much to ponder and smile about
Guardian movie jargon we love to hate
Urlesque "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" as someone who taught himself to type this delighted me so

---> No, Penélope & Pedro do not appear in these links. I just like seeing them pictured together. That said, I quite miss Victoria Abril. Can't Pedro bring her back for one picture... just one. Por favor?

Shiantology I'm not religious but I have been known to worship movie stars... I'd better stay away from this
Daily Mail Lindsay sparkling (sort of). So much older than her years...
Monkey See Laughing at the Man: HBO's Hung. Haveg. Have any of you seen the new series?

Finally... since none of my guest bloggers shared it, better late than never: The Coen Bros A Serious Man trailer. I'm not sure what to make of it. It could be an Intolerable Cruelty, which is undervalued but still mostly disposable or a Raising Arizona. We won't know till we see it. I did however get a big kick out of the sound effects as percussive musical accompaniment.



I'm not sure who the sound mixers and sound editors on the Coen Bros pictures are or if they vary from film to film but they tend to be top notch aural magicians.

May Flowers, Mitzi

May Flowers, occasional weeknights @ 11:00

One never thinks of flowers as being heavy. But imagine how much Hugo Weaving's "Mitzi" head dresses weighed in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.


Lipsynching is hard enough to do well and that's before adding several pounds of distraction atop your noggin. Ouch.

What happened to Hugo Weaving anyway? Is he hiding in Australia?

For a good long while between the sober elven council he kept and his multiplying Matrix villainry his face was hard to avoid at the franchise-happy multiplex. Now, Hollywood lets him talk (V in V For Vendetta, Megatron in Transformers) but his face is suddenly off limits.

Speaking of Megatron...

Last week at Star Trek they showed the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen trailer and my friend screamed with laughter when Shia LaBeouf recited with all seriousness...

Megatron wants what's in my mind!

I know movie stars get paid more money for short contract work than most of us can ever earn in our lifetime but sometimes I think they deserve it. Imagine having to shout such utter nonsense while leaping around in front of blank green screens for days on end. Imagine doing that and delivering it with any degree of disbelief suspended authenticity? It might be a fun job but I'm guessing it's not easy.
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Eagle Eye

Judging by the box office I'm assuming some of you saw it over the weekend. Do share. And have they improved the special effects since the days of Ladyhawke and Manimal?
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Hump Day Hottie, Shia LaBeouf

Help! The blog has moved into popcorn season. Mmmm, popcorn.

It's that time of year I guess ... desperate for the warmth, sun, and waves of summer. Must be strong. Still another week or two until I hit Florida.

<-------- Shia LaBeouf, friend to big robots,

imaginary boyfriend to millions of young moviegoers

A few weeks back as I was perusing the internets I found this hilarious but pretty well done fake of Shia all LaBuffed... along with a raging debate about whether or not the photo was a fake. It is. Even if the rising star has been ingesting plenty of spinach and now all muscully for Indiana Jones and the Noun of the Adjective Noun --you know you want to play MadLibs with Indiana titles -- he probably wouldn't be taking pictures of himself that included barely concealed erections, you know? Only drunk starlets flash their privates with too-famous / too-fast abandon. Not that Shia isn't reckless. Behold: his mug shot from last year.

I hate that even whilst being arrested he looks lit by a celebrity photographer. Isn't that a whole light box reflecting in his eyes. I also hate that you always see pictures of him eating. But he stays totally thin.


I'm telling you. I eat one thing and.... ugh, I hate him. But I love him too. I think he's a talented actor --he almost made me care about big robots-- and talent is always hot. As for Shia's own taste level...

Funny, I always figured him for an Obama man myself. Or maybe this handwritten scrawl is in support of Swank's double Oscars in which case: BOOOOOO Shia. Please don't join the Academy!

If you still need more Shia, there's always the new GQ interview and spread. And yes, I meant to post all this last Wednesday. Sue me. Anyway, Indiana Jones and the ___noun___ of the __adjective__-- ___noun___ opens in just few hours.

Select your MadLibs in the comments. Or just drool on Shia. Your choice.

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Top Ten: Better Than The Movies They're In

Let's sing the praises of some actors that warranted better material or at least better decision making to frame their game performances...

10 Performances From 2007 That Deserved Better Films

(I figure the title is self explanatory)

10 Thomas Haden Church as "Sandman" in Spider-Man 3
First things first: He looked perfect in the part. Second and even better: that hangdog expression he was wearing like an anvil combined with Sam Raimi's careful tragic attention to his origin augured another super sequel. Sadly, the film lost its focus. They shoulda stuck to sticking with this Sandman. [my original reaction]

09 Lindsay Lohan & Jane Fonda as Rachel and Georgia in Georgia Rule
I know what you're thinking. What!? Yes, yes, the movie is a mess. But know this: it'd be unwatchable without LiLo's wildchild magnetism and Fonda's effortless force of presence. Ditch the poorly conceived and terribly executed middle generation character/performance/actress (sorry Felicity, I don't mean to bag on you constantly) and give these two stars a non repetitive throwdown of a movie. My guess is that that imaginary movie would've had a fighting chance.

08 Marion Cotillard as "Edith Piaf" in La Vie En Rose
Surprised? If you've read my review you know I'm no fan of the movie. But there were individual moments when I thought I might buy into the Cotillard hype, only to be dragged away with another off chronology tangent --seriously filmmakers, this gimmick is stale. And there's only a couple people who can do it well to begin with. Is her performance as great as the fans claim? I doubt it but I'd have to see her scenes with some logical throughline to know. As it is it feels like Saturday Night Live sketchwork (without the humor): a different wig here, a different body posture there; unrecognizable from one scene to the next. That's no way to sell a character's evolution.

07 Zöe Bell as herself in Death Proof
Like some swashbuckling Princess Charming, she rescued me! I was sleepily trapped in talky tedium and her fresh physical presence and confidence woke me up. I'm so glad this stuntwoman is getting more acting work.

06 Ben Foster as "The Stranger" in 30 Days of Night
His detractors will tell you that he's a total ham, shamelessly begging for "one to watch" media attention. I'm not here to argue with that assessment. So far I agree with it. I haven't yet seen his other 2007 entries (3:10 to Yuma and Alpha Dog) But if you're making a movie about vampires in an Alaskan town, try to entertain me. I'm begging you. He's the single element of the film that works beyond the concept stage. His performance is just weird enough... just self-consciously creepy enough to sell me on the proceedings and the characters own truth. Josh Hartnett and Melissa George aren't spinning their blandness into any interesting places as the lead marrieds. Danny Huston is terrible as the head vampire (how is it that he's cast in everything?). Only Ben Foster seems to know that there's an audience and that you have to really work for their thrills and chills.

05 Shia LaBeouf as "Sam Witwicky" in Transformers
Anybody who can make me deaf to terrible dialogue in --something nobody in those Star Wars prequels could do --earns respect. You don't win Oscars for this type of accomplishment but you do earn bank if you can make action films better for your mere presence. He's a star. (my review)

04 Nicole Kidman as Margot at the Wedding
More on this star turn in previous posts

03 Sigourney Weaver as "Lenny" in The TV Set
It won't come as a surprise that Ms Weaver can do corporate soulessness with style and aplomb. She was Oscar nominated for the same 19 years back in Working Girl. She's working just as hard for this new film. Unfortunately this mild satire doesn't quite know how to capitalize on her wicked wit.

02 Michelle Pfeiffer as "Lamia" in Stardust
This fantasy adventure was thisclose to being a good movie despite its many annoying and easily remedied flaws (how did no one on this production realize the overkill happening in so many places: editing, CGI, Danes twitching, DeNiro mugging?). That it manages to almost be good is a tribute to this goddesses way with a foregrounded cartoon villainess. Practice makes perfect I guess, though I hope my personal goddess steps away from the evil bitches for her next couple of roles. Keep us guessing, Michelle. [my review]

01 Tabu as "Ashima Ganguli" in The Namesake
A text book case of a film adaptation trying too hard to be the novel. It's a different medium, Mira, let the book go! Two hours cannot contain three hundred and four pages. That said, the movie worked well whenever Tabu's lovely evocative face was onscreen as the mother... this movie was begging for trimming and focus so focus on what works. These parents (Irfan Khan, even better in A Mighty Heart was the dad) were always more interesting than the son.
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While You Were Digesting

Even though Thanksgiving is over, I love the holiday banner so much that I'm leaving it up until Monday. It wasn't easy to find pictures of classy movie stars eating --pictures of useless celebrities (i.e. famous because they're famous. zzz) were plentiful. After the fact I spotted this Shia LaBeouf photo which made me laugh. Bananas are a comedy staple for a reason, y'all. Shia would've ruined the all fab actress lineup anyhow.

Meanwhile Pt. 1
I have never come up with a good reason to post this off the cuff Ledger & Bale lunch (?) shot either --no food enters their mouths so Thanksgiving banner participation was out-- I assume it's from the set of The Dark Knight (or thereabouts) so while I'm purging, here it is:


Meanwhile Pt 2
I spent way too much time this week watching and rewatching the first two episodes of Project Runway (season 4). Such is the danger of DVRs and everybody you know on their own TV watching timetables. Guests kept arriving who hadn't yet watched it and wanted to. ModFab snarkily and insightfully dubbed the record breaking debut episode "now with 750% more gay" And that was even before the second episode when Sarah Jessica Parker showed up and wreaked absolute homo havoc on the contestants: They gasped. Their eyes went buggy. They shreaked. They couldn't form sentences. They cried (no really). I feel butch when I watch that show... which is saying a lot.

LINKS
Anne Thompson reminds that you have to ignore favorites when making Oscar predictions --is No Country leaving Oscar voters cold? Speaking of...
Rob's Dad reacts to No Country for Old Men. Hmmm
My New Plaid Pants 5 thoughts on Hairspray (and a eery/accurate twin for John Travolta's Edna)
NoFo discovers Crawford treasure trove "Christina, bring me the internets"
Film Squish If you're like me, you're finding it impossible to keep up with all the blog-a-thons. Now in a quiet week, it might be the time to read this recent Akira Kurosawa love-in
Deadline Hollywood Six episodes of Speechess so far (starring Holly Hunter, Sean Penn, the cast of Ugly Betty and more)... in support of the writers strike.

And speaking of strikes: If you're in NYC any time soon looking for a show, please note that Xanadu is not affected by the current Broadway stagehands strike and who knows when that's ending. The adaptation of the notorious turkey is worth seeing even if it weren't one of the only shows playing. It's quite funny and the ELO/Olivia music is still excellent 27 years later. Because one can never get enough Cheyenne Jackson (the show's male lead) and because I can't get enough Xanadu here's an interview captured by Two Gay Guys over at After Elton


Online Videos by Veoh.com

mmmm Cheyenne
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Trans"morph"ers

You guys. I had the hardest time writing about Transformers for Zoom In. (An assignment) Damn... it defeated me. I didn't even take one note. I tried to put myself in what I assume to be the right frame of mind --nostalgia about the autobots. But even that I could only half muster. The names Optimus Prime (the hero) and Megatron (the villain) were familiar but their numerous sidekicks were not. I was a teenager when the Transformers craze hit in the 80s so I'm a smidgeon too old for it. Still I tried: Before attending the movie I even played with a toy I was given many years ago by a friend.


I realize that it's not strictly speaking a Transformer toy but it's inspired by. Three yellow letters ...once you start fiddling with them, their parts fold open, pop out, and spin in surprise ways until they’re suddenly robots. I always loved them (they've been on my desk forever)

Even though I never got into The Transformers I did understand the joy of seeing a familiar object such as a truck morph into a fantasy object such as an alien robot. It's like magic only not since it's real. You can actually see the parts shifting until they form something else. An ingenious bit of construction that. But I couldn't get into the movie. The movie doesn't even capitalize on that simple thrill from its source material. You can't really see the transformations happening, other than in the standard CGI morphing sense. The robots might as well have been made of liquid medal like the T-1000 in Terminator 2 for all the speedy closeup shapeshifting.

A 'hell yeah!' from the audience I saw it with I freely admit. A 'hmmm, meh' from me. C / C+
(leaning towards a plus on account of Shia the Boy Wonder, arguably not since a certain ship sank has an actor so charismatically avoided being humiliated by horrific dialogue)

Tuesday Top Ten: Box Office Bizarre

for the list lover in you and the list maker in me

Since Spider-Man 3 ushered in summer movie season let's talk money (I'm too tired to swim against the current). Here are two lists of box office results. The first is real. And really depressing. The second is imaginary. I've tried to imagine the results in both cases.

10 Biggest Box Office Hits (so far) in 2007
dollar figures indicate millions of course

10 Disturbia $60
More Hitchcock ripoffs on their way. (same as it ever was). More Shia LaBeouf too, it's not all bad news.
09 Stomp the Yard $61
(I actually didn't realize this did so well)
08 Bridge to Terabithia $81
More fantasy adaptations are on the way (we knew this already)
07 Meet the Robinsons $91
More frantic CG animated comedies are on their way (same as it ever was). On a separate note: Did someone pass a law requiring all families to attend every CG Animated Comedy because doesn't it seem (no offense to the Robinsons) that it doesn't even matter what the film is?
06 Norbit $95
More fat suits are on their way. That joke just never gets old [/sarcasm]
05 Blades of Glory $111
Jon Heder is never going away, is he?
04 Ghost Rider $115
Nic Cage is never going away, is he? More C-List comic book characters are on their way. I personally can't wait for Ant Man, She Hulk and Moon Knight movies.
03 Spider-Man 3 $151
Bloated superhero movies are still hot (same as it ever was). Eventually this genre dies out. Most genres have some sort of sell by date for dominance. But when? The lazy entries don't seem to be weakening it much.


02 Wild Hogs $160
More ... no, I just can't talk about it.
01 300 $207
Possible negative side effects: More boneheaded racist and homophobic action films. Possible positive side effects: More action films striving for visual flair. More dudeity.

10 Biggest Bizarro World Box Office Hits of 2007
A "What If?" Proposal to Terrify Studio Executives
(with projected albeit exaggerated results)

What if audiences began acting like unpredictable challenge-seeking individuals for just one year. Imagine the creative chaos that would ensue. Imagine what the movies would be like in 2009.

10 Tears of the Black Tiger $61
All buzzy Asian titles that have been mistreated for years or left to languish in the vaults find their way to theaters or DVD. The Weinstein brothers are jailed for having horded so many without hope of release. Cinephiles rejoice.
09 Hot Fuzz $67
Clever spoofs greenlit. Brain dead spoofs like Date Movie sent to development hell.
08 INLAND EMPIRE $70
I have no idea what the world would be like with more David Lynch and less, say, Mark Steven Johnson... but let's find out.
07 Black Snake Moan $71
Christina Ricci gets a stack of interesting offers. Distinctive auteurs with one well received film find financing for their second an easy road.
06 The Lives of Others $89
American media starts following the foreign film Oscar race and I become a famous well paid expert having done so for several years already. Submitted films find instant suitors for international distribution.
05 Year of the Dog $94
Idiosyncratic films encouraged. Screenwriting workshops throw out formulas in favor of personal expression. (possible drawback: individual mopeyness becomes as trendy as mosaic miserabilism)
04 Grindhouse $146
Studios begin developing several new explorations of forgotten genres as audiences thank Hollywood for offering two crazy retro films for the price of one. All is not rosy however. Hollywood's new cash cow is chopped up anyway. More coin for Hollywood's hungry bank. Unfortunate side effect: Tarantino films become even longer and he loves himself even more.

03 Spider-Man 3 $151
The webslinger's success = impossible to unimagine.
02 Zodiac $155
All future Fincher projects fast-tracked. Jake Gyllenhaal proclaimed box office gold.
01 The Perverts Guide to the Cinema $243
(Hey, it was sold out when I tried to see it) Critical genius and madman philosopher Slavoj Zizek becomes a superstar. The talk show circuit beckons. Numbers crunching Hollywood executives quit en masse in total despair.

Will auteurs finally reign o'er Hollywood?

In Praise of Shia

Disturbia was released on Friday, and despite the fact that it looks like a low-tier Rear Window knockoff (can't you kids get your own movies?), there's one thing that's going to get me to see it: it stars Shia LeBeouf.

I'm one of those Disney buffs who keep abreast of whatever the company ends up putting out, so I know Shia LeBeouf from his role as Louis Stevens on the Disney Channel series Even Stevens. He was hilarious, really comic gold; whatever was going on, just the simplest look on his face could be hysterical. I knew the kid was funny; what really surprised me is that he could actually act.

After a few dramatic turns in movies like The Battle of Shaker Heights, and some breezy roles in blockbusters of varying quality (Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, I Robot, Constantine), he really got a chance to really act in 2005's The Greatest Game Ever Played. It's a Disney movie, yes, but one that's quite underrated. Perhaps if it hadn't been a Disney movie, it might have gotten some more attention; a lot of people dismiss Disney's live action movies, although, admittedly, Disney makes it easy to. But trust me, the movie's directed by Bill Paxton (also the director of the underrated Frailty), and it's a nice little gem. It convinced me that Shia LeBeouf is destined, one day, to be a real actor.

Now that he's been cast in Indiana Jones and the Completely Unnecessary Fourth Adventure (and also has Transformers and the animated Surf's Up coming out this year), I've been wondering if Shia's rare leap from Disney stardom to action movies isn't a reflection of another Disney kid who made it away from the Disney kid stigma: Kurt Russell. Russell started out as a child actor, but from the early sixties to 1980 was mainly known for being in Disney movies like The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, The Barefoot Executive, and The Strongest Man in the World. Despite serious turns in movies like The Deadly Tower, his only real options in adulthood became bad TV movies (The Christmas Coal Mine Miracle), voices in Disney's animated features (The Fox and the Hound), and low-tier comedies (Used Cars). It wasn't until John Carpenter took a chance on Russell with Escape from New York--ignoring the objections of the studio, who thought Russell was just a Disney kid and wanted Tommy Lee Jones--and their follow-up The Thing that Russell was finally into adult stardom. And despite ups and downs, he's stayed there ever since. And he still does the occasional Disney movie, too.

Will Disturbia be Shia LeBeouf's Escape from New York? Will there even be one? I kind of hope so; the kid's got talent. And in another 30 years, who knows where that could lead?