In January we did a countdown of 2014 movies we were most looking forward to. With the distribution news that The Last of Robin Hood, an Errol Flynn bio of sorts with Kevin Kline will be released I feel the need to give it a shout out.

Errol Flynn keeps entering my consciousness when I least expect him lately. I was talking to Diana (currently in LA with Anne Marie to report on the TCM Film Festival for y'all right her) the other day over dinner and she brought him up. She loves the swashbuckling movie star and enjoyed the film at TIFF. I was also at a very chic event celebrating the photography of George Hurrell and there was a huge absolutely stunning portrait of Errol Flynn mixed with several perfect Joan Crawfords.

So when I read the news today, I became properly stoked at last. I love the poster's clever arrowhead riff (pictured left top) on that most boring of poster tropes, one visual stripe per star. I was once friendly with the film's directors (though we've lost touch). And, out of curiousity, I looked up a picture of Errol with his inappropriately young girlfriend at the end of his life and my jaw dropped...

Kevin Kline and Dakota Fanning couldn't be better casting, could they? 

The Complete List of "We Can't Wait" Titles in case you missed them.
We'll be following all these titles closely this year! 
01 Carol (TBA)
02 The Grand Budapest Hotel (March)
03 Foxcatcher (TBA)
04 Under the Skin (April)
05 Inherent Vice (TBA)
06 Into the Woods (Christmas)
07 Snowpiercer (TBA)
08 Nymphomaniac (March)
09 Boyhood (July)
10 Big Eyes  (TBA)
11 The Last 5 Years (TBA)
12 Gone Girl (Oct)
13 Begin Again (TBA)
14 Veronica Mars (March)

Runner Up Films

Tim here, to celebrate, and by “celebrate”, I mean “lament” the ten-year anniversary this month of the film that more or less killed traditional animation at Disney. Back in April, 2004, all that anybody could talk about was anything else imaginable other than Home on the Range, a Western comedy feature the voices of Roseanne, Judi Dench, and Jennifer Tilly that during its opening weekend only managed to scrape itself up to the #4 spot at the box office. This was to be expected. Disney had already announced prior to the release of Brother Bear the previous fall that once they cleared out the pipeline, they’d be abandoning 2D animation forever, and given the quality of most of their work in the 2000s, nobody could really be terribly offended by that decision for any strong reason other than nostalgia. Let me put it this way: I, in 2004, was easily the biggest Disney lover I knew. And even I didn’t bother watching it until a good year and a half later.

I would love nothing more than to say, at this point, “this was a terrible injustice done to a great movie, because…” and that’s really not accurate. Still, Home on the Range is certainly better than its still-unchanged reputation would have it; the fact that Disney’s very next film was the outright toxic Chicken Little certainly helps to make it look that much better, as does the 2009 release of The Princess and the Frog, which took away the pressure for the earlier film to be The Very Last Traditional Disney Film.

waterworks each night at 11. Here's Andrew on Carey Mulligan's breakthrough

Carey Mulligan will be back headlining a new version of Far From the Madding Crowd later this year and it's now been five years since she won the world's attention. 2009 was the year Carey grew up from youngest Bennett sister to an actress worth following. She'd previously had slight but efficient turns in Brothers and Public Enemies, and a lovely performance opposite Susan Sarandon in the unremembered The Greatest but it was with Jenny Mellor in An Education that she made us fall in love. 

The film has only recently begun and Oxford hopeful, Jenny Mellor, is making her way home from band practice. A thunderclap in the preceding scene signals bad weather ahead and we cut to:

In Contention the Stephen Hawking biopic Theory of Everything starring Eddie Redmayne is getting an Oscar prime November release. Best Actor is going to be tight this year, people
Telegraph interviewed Winona Ryder last month. Not sure how I missed this one but it's a good interview with smart comments on her career and age.
Shadowplay "things I read off the screen in In The Heat of the Night" interesting piece on 1967's Best Picture

Playbill has a history of Cabaret's journey from the pages of "Goodbye to Berlin" to the stage and screen
Cinema Blend I hadn't heard about this but there's a Twilight related lawsuit going on about profit sharing. Apparently Robert Pattinson made $25 million from Breaking Dawn. Wow.
Pajiba on Rob Lowe's "awesome" Reddit AMA
The Playlist Denis Villeneuve's career is heating up post Prisoners/Enemy and he's prepping a sci-fi thriller called The Story of Your Life which might star Amy Adams. It sounds vaguely Contact-esque to me.
Towleroad X-Men Hugh Jackman, Michael Fassbender, and James McAvoy do great impressions of Sir Ian McKellen and more. Adorable.
AV Club on "the return of the consumptive heroine" via The Wind Rises and Winter's Tale 

Today's Watch
It's a new Batman short in the style of his animated adventures in the 90s to celebrate his 75th anniversary (which is actually in but people are excited so they're starting early)

Creative Tributes
Cinema Blend Jackie Chan, who turned 60 this year, has been immortalized with a portrait in chopsticks
i09 2001: A Space Odyssey gets an homage via fruits and vegetables in this commercial 
Chaz Ebert her late husband Roger Ebert is getting a statue during EbertFest 

An Actor's Director
Guardian Sean Penn is returning to the director's chair for a South African romantic drama starring his new squeeze Charlize Theron (originally from South Africa so that's kind of cool) and Javier Bardem. My main concern with Penn as a director is that he's just so heavy/grim. I hope he finds a way for a range of tones here. This will also be Adele Exarchopoulos follow up to Blue is the Warmest Colour as she's playing a journalist

And finally...

AV Club let's us now the remake of Time Cop (1994) is back on. I don't care about this but I will take any excuse to post Jean Claude Van Damme's infamous kitchen counter split. It's one of my most vivid memories of 1990s moviegoing. What?

The Film Experience does not endorse tattoos. That shit is crazy permanent and who wants to wear the same thing every day of one's life? But tattoos can sometimes look good in a photo shoot, with the right body, or work well in dramatic or comic context. Two current magazine covers remind us of the ink fad which shows no signs of abating. (When I was a wee bairn the only tattoos I ever saw were on bikers and Popeye the Sailor Man. Now every third person on the street is sporting them.)

Ass dimples forever!

You guys. I got the best swag in the mail yesterday. A copy of Veep Season 2 along with Vice President Selena Meyer's book "Some New Beginnings - Our Next American Journey" which I hope is a plot point on Season 3. The jacket is very funny, with choice pull quotes, and a lot of vague meaningless inspirational double speak.

Here is just one excerpt...

In "Some New Beginnings - Our Next American Journey", Selina Meyer sets out her vision for a journey that could start now, or in the not-too-distant future, with a single step, taken by us all, together. America, she says, is "both a nation of journeys and a journey in itself."

This is an invitation to be a part of that journey. A journey from an old New World to a new New World. A journey from USA to "USA Plus." "

The book, like the content of Meyer's brain, is blank inside. 

Those are some ugly tats but "ugly" is not a good word to use in a sentence with Tom Hardy. So glad he's slimmed down. I'm glad Esquire saw fit to add the question mark after "The Greatest Actor of His Generation" because, really, as much as I love him and he's impressed on a few occasions. He hasn't yet come close to proving that. He even has tough competition within his birth year alone which also brought us Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Édgar Ramirez, and Matthias Schoenaerts. 1977 was an extraordinary vintage.

JA has a comment about an interesting quote from Hardy in the cover story. Hardy is currently headlining the solo act film Locke and soon we'll see two gritty crime dramas The Drop and Child 44. In 2015: the long delayed if not necessarily long awaited Mad Max reboot, Mad Max: Fury Road. And then a possible Oscar grab in 2015 or 2016 as Elton John in the biopic Rocket Man.

“So it’s a film festival, but for old films? Why?”

When I told folks how excited I was to finally go to the 5th annual TCM Film Festival this year in Hollywood, I got this question a few times. This isn’t just about the old adage “see a film on the big screen, like it was meant to be seen.” This is about celebrating the old and new: old films for new audiences, new restorations for old classics, old audiences sharing the new experience, and at the center of it all, Turner Classic Movies, which turns 20 this year, thereby becoming something of an old classic itself.

Last night, TCM rolled out the red carpet and opened TCMFF with a brand new restoration of OKLAHOMA!(1955) starring Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae. Diana and I were able to nab (literally) front row seats to the screening at the TCL Chinese Theater, and this may count as the first I’ve been glad to sit front and center. The reason for the hooplah surrounding OKLAHOMA! has to do with its history: When Twentieth Century Fox brought the Rogers & Hammerstein musical to the screen in 1955, they shot it twice: once in Todd AO 65mm widescreen, and once in a lesser 35mm widescreen. This is a fact that has mostly been relegated to behind-the-scenes trivia, and the difference between the two versions has been negligible in home theater viewings. I’ve seen one or the other a few times on TV (including TCM) over the years, so I thought I knew what to expect. And then the film started, the camera pushed through the corn as high as an elephant’s eye, and I realized how very important it is that we save moments like this.

Photo Credit: Mark Hill

Twentieth Century Fox provided a beautiful 4K restoration of the 65mm version, complete with a restored 6 track stereo score, to play on the Chinese Theater’s huge IMAX screen.  Speaking as someone who usually isn’t usually an OKLAHOMA!-lover, I fell in love. When Shirley Jones said Gordon MacRae was her favorite singer, surely she didn't imagine him on such a grand scale. The sheer power of it won me over. Personally, I'm usually a South Pacific kind of gal, but I've been whistling since I left the theater and I would feel like a bad cliche if not for the fact that my fellow Metro passengers nearly broke out into "Oh What A Beautiful Mornin" with me. If you can get cranky Angelenos on a rundown train to sing at 1AM, then you've clearly made an impression.

Film restoration is a tricky balance between preserving the original filmgoing experience while also using to best advantage modern digital tools. Turner Classic Movies has arguably been one of the most important commercial advocates for restoration, providing studios with large audiences via the small screen for 20 years. How grateful we can be to TCM that for a weekend in Hollywood they’re bringing back the oldschool via new methods.

Anne Marie is our resident classic movie freak. Follow her on Twitter and read her weekly series "A Year With Kate"

Counter-programming in the summer. Love it! Decoding Annie Parker, a movie about early strides in Breast Cancer Research arrives on May 2nd. Samantha Morton plays the title character, a young mother who is diagnosed with breast cancer. She seeks answers as her husband (Aaron Paul, who sure is working a lot) struggles to understand/deal. A pioneering doctor (Helen Hunt) is also on the case in this true story.

We'll break down the trailer after the jump.

The King speaks. Often in motion pictures, in point of fact. Colin Firth has been a mainstay in British and Hollywood cinema since his terrific debut opposite Rupert Everett in the boy's school classic Another Country (1984). But it's not all stiff homoerotic upper-class Brit movies (though there's a fair share of that). He seems to have no ego whatsoever working in large ensembles, occasionally headlining, and (we assume) gets along with everyone given how often he returns to the same co-stars and directors (multiple films with Kidman and Everett and Egoyan and more). This year US audiences are getting not one not two but SIX Colin Firth films: Gambit (released a couple of years ago in the UK), Atom Egoyan's Devils Knot, Woody Allen's Magic in the Moonlight, and three (!!!) with Nicole Kidman: Paddington (he's the voice of the bear), the thriller Before I Sleep and the post-war drama The Railway Man which is in theaters now after a quiet festival bow last year.

 In the new film he plays a troubled WWII vet suffering from PTSD before there was a name for it. Jeremy Irvine plays Firth as a young man in his POW days and Nicole Kidman provides tough-love wifely support. Still, this is Firth's show through and through. He's quite good in it though I'll admit that the movie was a little tentative and basic for my tastes.

A temporary projection glitch in the screening at TIFF I attended (strangely the only film I didn't write about that I saw there) stopped the image just as Nicole Kidman entered in one of her only forceful scenes. A flock of gentlemen turned around to look at her and were then paralyzed for several minutes gawking at her. Which is exactly what happens to me whenever Nicole Kidman enters a movie. I haven't seen it acted out so literally since Ewan MacGregor and the patrons of the Moulin Rouge went slack-jawed in unison when she descended from the ceiling singing "Diamonds". 

But I digress.

We're here to talk Colin Firth. So anticlimactic now, right? Apologies to Mr Firth! How many of his movies have you seen? (Please tell me you've seen Another Country)

The perma-tanned actor, playboy and unreal beauty back in the day turns 75 this summer. More photos and a few notes after the jump...

Andrew here to celebrate an anniversary. Fifty years ago tomorrow, Tony Richardson’s Tom Jones won the 1963 Best Picture Oscar at the 36th Academy Awards. Up until a few weeks ago it was one of my most glaring cinematic blindspots from that era.

A cursory glance over the Best Picture winners of the 60s (ha, who am I kidding? I know the list by heart) reveals that by my faulty empirical research Tom Jones is easily the least discussed Picture winner from that decade today. Even Oliver, arguably the decade's least respected winner, seems more oft considered and it’s a curious thing because even ignoring the actual quality of Tom Jones it’s not business as usual as far as Oscar winners go. And, usually, we like to talk about when AMPAS throws us a curveball with its winners, for better or for worse.

Certainly, from an outsider's perspective it doesn't seem to be much of a curveball. What's the fuss about another period-piece turned Oscar winner? Although period films are lucky with awards they don't tend to be well remembered, or loved, on the internet. I could imagine what Tom Jones seems to represent to someone on the outisde looking in, another stuffy British drama Oscar bait film. (Something's that plagued Merchant Ivory films two decades after their heyday, but that's another story.) But, Tom Jones in all its unusualness has much to savour and enjoy, fifty years after its release.  

Here are ten reasons to give it another or your first look...

Diana reporting from TCM Film Festival's Opening Night Red Carpet. The classic stars came out and Anne Marie and I talked to them.

Oscar winner Shirley Jones with her husband and the Oklahoma! premiere. [Photo: David Buchan/Getty Images]

4 P.M. Hollywood Blvd.
The red carpet is rolled out in front of Grauman’s, but crewmembers are still finagling with the Oklahoma! stop-and-turns as the press begins to descend on the barricades. Within a few moments, we chosen not-so-few (journalists, cameramen, bloggers) swarm to our allocated spaces along the carpet, with The Film Experience smack dab in front of the Grauman’s entrance. Tip sheet in hand and audio recorder on standby, we stand and wait.

5 P.M. The Red Carpet Opens
We are told that Shirley Jones has arrived. In the distance and with some squinting, you can see the Oklahoma! songbird looking bubbly yet elegant in a dark pantsuit with Marty Ingels, her husband of 37 years (a fact highlighted by him carrying a placard reading “37 YEARS”), by her side. As Jones makes her way down the press line, we press are prepping and mentally repeating our opening lines (mine involved her splendid performance in the 2005 revival of 42nd Street and her recent one-woman show at a Maryland Boscov’s), but alas she is called to take photos with Robert Osborne and then bypasses our section.

Leonard Maltin stops by. Being a fledgling critic myself, I jump to ask his advice to young critics and film journalists. Maltin says simply, almost pointedly, that aspiring critics just need to write, and read, but mainly write. He elaborated that he began writing criticism as a by-product of his passion for film history and that if he could have, he would have stayed solely a film historian. In regards to the festival itself, Maltin is there in an official capacity, moderating multiple talks (including Friday’s Club TCM talk with Quincy Jones) and hosting the Hubley Animation tribute, but is also looking forward to seeing as many of the screenings as he can, including Zulu.

Hitchcock ladies Kim Novak (Vertigo) and Diane Baker (Marnie) hit the opening night

Tiffany Vasquez, the TCM Ultimate Fan winner, is brimming with excitement at not only being on the red carpet but being there as a guest programmer, she will be introducing the 1948 noir The Naked City. Like most TCM fans would be, she was very nervous and intimidated by working with Robert Osborne in her onscreen introduction, but Osborne was so welcoming and gracious that he immediately eased her nerves [insert warm, fuzzy feelings]. Funnily enough, the New York City native originally wanted to submit Sunset Boulevard as her TCM Ultimate Fan entry, but decided to utilize her location, with The Naked City springing to mind, and shot the whole thing on the border of Queens and Brooklyn.

6 P.M. The Clock is Ticking
With only a half hour until the show begins, two Hitchcock blondes whizz by with protective publicists/companions in tow -- Kim Novak and Tippi Hedren (both breathtaking and in pantsuits, the former’s dark and the latter’s light blue-and-green floral).

"Meet Me In St Louis"'s Margaret O'Brien who won the Juvenile Oscar of 1944 at the after party [Photo by Stefanie Keenan/WireImage]

Margaret O’Brien, in a stunning royal blue full-length gown and with tinted blue hair to match, says hello. As tiny and peppy as Tootie, even 70 years later, she said that Meet Me in St. Louis was her favorite filming experience, her most challenging performance was in Little Women but because she adored the role of Beth so much from the book and wanted to do it justice more than anything else. Lining up nicely with the festival theme of “Family: The Ties That Bind,” she also credited her mother as her biggest support throughout her career.

Trying to lob at least one question at the legendary and still fiery Maureen O’Hara, I asked how her evening was going (sometimes small talk can work wonders in easing to a star’s red carpet schedule). “I won’t know until the evening’s over,” the quick wit threw back.

Alec Baldwin with the legendary Maureen O'Hara who turns 94 this summer

6:30 PM Closing Time
Everyone is getting settled in for Oklahoma! and here’s Anne Marie’s write-up on the screening itself. More on the festival to come!

Multi-tasking this evening with a bifurcated trip back to Heathers. As previously noted, the film just celebrated its 25th anniversary and hasn't lost its bark (so quotable, so confident) or bite (so daring, so dark). A musical adaptation of the high school classic is also playing Off Broadway at the moment but we'll get to that in a minute. Let's start with the waterworks...

[Major 25 year old spoilers are ahead]

Something is wrong with me. I miss the Oscars already even though I've just barely recovered from the March 2nd related exhaustion. (Nathaniel the Masochist) So the other day I got a little Oscar happy and was looking back at various years, so let's talk the 36th Academy Awards briefly. You in?

They were held exactly 50 years ago today. Tom Jones, just discussed by Andrew, won 1963's Best Picture and three other trophies but the evening is best remembered today for Sidney Poitier's historic win for Lilies of the Field.

Sidney was the first black actor to win in either leading category but it was 38 years before it happened again (with Halle & Denzel on the same night). Now of course it's a fairly regular occurrence in both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress... the other two categories not so much. 

Lots more photos and trivia after the jump...

For those who don't check in enough, don't miss these highlights from the week. It was a slow week, I know, but next week will be madness: the Podcast returns, the Smackdown (finally), The Letter (1940) for "Best Shot" (join us!), a cool behind the scenes interview and more for Easter Week including the beginning of the Tribeca Film Festival.

• "Poor Ivy" Andrew on August: Osage County's MVP
• April Showers wanna shower with young Josh Brolin? Patricia Arquette does
• Home on the Range Tim on the death of traditional animation
• Decoding Annie Parker Samantha Morton is back
• Colin Firth has six movies out this year. 40+ before that; How many have you seen?
• 1963 Oscar Flashbacks to Tom Jones and Oscar night glamour
• TCM Festival Anne Marie & Diana hit the opening night premiere

...and the previous week's highlights

Film restorationists don’t feel like rockstars. But with this crowd…”

the TCM Festival is happening at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood

Mike Pogorzelski, director of the Academy Film Archive, chuckles as another round of cheers breaks out from the audience. Pogorzelski is introducing a 35mm print of The Lion in Winter that he restored from camera negative, and so far the audience has cheered for the words “35mm,” “restoration,” “Academy,” and “Peter O’Toole.” Typically, only one of those gets applause, but then TCM Film Festival isn’t your typical Hollywood film festival.

Every single film that plays at the TCM Film Festival is old. The newest film is Mr Holland's Opus, which celebrates is nineteen years old. This means that every single film, from the 35mm print of Stagecoach to the world premiere DCP of OKLAHOMA! (previously discussed), has arrived through the efforts of archivists and restorationists who preserve and revive these classics. Film restoration is usually an unsung part of the film industry, but the TCM Film Festival, with its concentration on celebrating old classics and announcing new restorations, might be the best publicity film restoration gets.

Saturday, a world premiere digital restoration of A Hard Day’s Night screened at the TCL Chinese Theater. Richard Lester’s 1964 classic was originally shot in 35mm with a mono soundtrack, which isn’t well suited to a gigantic IMAX theater like the Chinese. However, the film has been remastered to crystal-clear 4K definition and--important for a rock n’ roll film--upmixed to 5.1 surround sound, bringing the Beatles 50 years through history. Those purists who would balk at the idea of changing a classic need not fear though, this digital restoration is (great) publicity for the Criterion’s Blu-Ray release of the film later this year, which will also have the original mono option available. A Hard Day's Night isn't the only world premiere with an accompanying DVD release: Blazing Saddles, OKLAHOMA!, and others will also soon be available. In fact, with so many DVD release advertisements being made at the festival, it can feel like the commercials TCM doesn't play on its station are happening here instead.

DVD release announcements are not the only purpose of the TCM Film Festival, however. Thelma Schoonmaker was there to discuss not only her multi-Oscar-winning career, but also the career of her late husband, Michael Powell at a screening of his Technicolor masterpiece A Matter Of Life And Death. I got the brief opportunity to meet her, and I promise to write about it as soon as I stop shaking.

In addition, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rolled out some of the hidden gems in its archive. One of its many growing collections is Hollywood Home Movies. Randy Haverkamp (Academy Programming Director) & Lynne Kirste (Special Collections Curator at the Academy Film Archive) talked a rapt audience through several scenes, including backstage footage from OKLAHOMA! and Gone With the Wind, and some scenes of Alfred Hitchcock goofing off with his daughter in 16mm. These are the glamorous home movies, but Haverkamp and Kirste were quick to encourage any possible collectors in the audience to see the value of even the bits of 16mm and 8mm that don’t have famous directors in them.Their presentation underlined the unspoken theme of the festival: film is our visual and cultural history, and before it disappears we need to save and spread as much as possible, or risk forgetting ourselves. Thanks to the TCM Film Festival for making that job seem a little more glamorous.

As you may or may not have heard Baz Luhrmann has been in the news again this week. 2013 was another big year for him with The Great Gatsby exceeding expectations (financially). The buzz on Baz hasn't quieted in this new year. On March 2nd, his wife Catherine Martin won another pair of Oscars to match her Moulin Rouge! statues and new collaborations for the Bazmark spouses are on the way.

First up is the stage musical adaptation of his breakthrough debut hit Strictly Ballroom (1992). The Guardian featured him a few days ago -- the video is more of a commercial for the show really than a true interview but there are clips from the show and Baz statements worth parsing.

I was 29 for the film. In the back of my mind I always thought 'it's got to be a musical'. I thought 'God, I hope I don't end up 40 and I'm doing Strictly Ballroom musical.' And I'm 52. So I think it will always be in my life. I think a bit like a band that had their first hit song. If you aren't playing that hig song at concerts until you have a foot in the grave then probably you're doing something wrong for the audience and probably you're doing something wrong for yourself. So I've just accepted that it's actually a fundamental part of our life and our journey"

The show, which obviously intends a Broadway run given how frequently Baz drops the word "Broadway" while talking about it is playing in Sydney Australia and the reviews for the show have just arrived which are generally positive though it's amusing that the Telegraph and Guardian critics say almost exactly opposite things about how it stacks up to the beloved film version. 

Baz's next film project-- if he actually goes through with it -- is a real surprise. The rumor is he'll direct the big screen version of the ol' TV series Kung Fu. I can't imagine what would attract Luhrmann to this property which is such an about face, even if he does love to genre-hop. But I pray to God, they dump the whole non-Asian conceit that the TV show went with. David Carradine was such a white dude, you know, and nobody needs 21st century narratives about ethnic anything that pretend audiences can only bear to look at white faces. Even if he does decide to do it, we won't see it for years; his films often appear to be on speed but the auteur isn't speedy. What's more he's supposedly also doing a Napoleon miniseries for TV and a TV series about the early days of hip-hop. How many of those do you think will actually come to be? It takes him five or so years to make everything, after all.  

People will surely make jokes about him adding musical numbers to Kung Fu though it's tough to graft those on to memories of that sedate and dusty TV show. But maybe it's not as impossible as it sounds. Every single one of Baz's films yearns to be a musical even though only one of them truly is.  Given that pervasive feeling, it's just bizarre that he hasn't made one since Moulin Rouge! but maybe he knows it's untoppable? Singular sensations are called that for a reason. They're rare and glorious freaks. 

Nathaniel stepping in for Amir this week to look at What People Are Seeing. If you've already seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier (and you should) there wasn't much to get excited about at the mainstream box office this weekend with films like Oculus, Rio 2, and Draft Day not looking much like inspiring new entries in their shopworn genres. So let's shift our focus to the platform films out there. Frankly, I consider it a huge failing of the planet in general that an art film about Scarlett Johansson as an alien trolling for manflesh in Scotland isn't opening wide and selling out at 3,000+ theaters. Where are the world's movie consumption priorities? You disappoint me, Earthlings. 

Scarlett Johansson tops both the mainstream box office and the platform box office

PLATFORM BOX OFFICE
01 (54 theaters) UNDER THE SKIN $.3 (cum. $.5)  Posters
02 (37 theaters) ISLAND OF LEMURS $.1 (cum. $.4) 
03 (20 theaters) FINDING VIVIAN MAIER $.1 (cum. $.3) Amir liked it
04 (48 theaters) JOE $.1 *new* 
05 (04 theaters) ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE $.09 *new*  Michael's Review
06 (42 theaters) DOM HEMINGWAY $.07 (cum. $.1)  Jude's New Face 
07 (80 theaters) THE UNKNOWN KNOWN $.06 (cum. $.1) Glenn's Review
08 (04 theaters) THE RAILWAY MAN $.06 *new* Brief Thoughts
09 (79 theaters) CUBAN FURY $.05 *new*
10 (23 theaters) PARTICLE FEVER $.04 (cum. $.6) 

Of the newbies only Only Lovers Left Alive and The Railway Man had strong per screen averages (which is usually what you need to expand). I loved Under the Skin but am still collecting my thoughts about it so I'm not ready to write about it yet. I urge you to see it quickly since it benefits from your own interpretation and it's difficult to write about without spoilers. We'll discuss it on next Sunday's podcast.

Otherwise this weekend I goofed off in that I watched things I had no intention of writing about which is, for me, like playing hookie or calling out sick. I mainlined more Archer (which I basically worship) and watched four episodes of "The Fosters". Regarding the latter: I blame Emily Nussbaum's influence over The Boyfriend. He will watch anything she recommends . I  also goofed off by watching Lilies of the Field (1963) when I was supposed to be watching a Bette Davis double feature for articles that are due here in a hot minute.  I was all caught up in that 1963 flashback so I was helpless before it "♪ AaaAaaAaaymen. AaAYaymen. Aaamen. Aaamen Amen ♫." I actually think it's underrated today because it's so square but it "plays" as they say.

What did you watch this weekend? And was it out of obligation, habit, or pleasure?

The Guardian asks a really good question. Had James Dean lived would he have been a Newman or a Brando?
Nerd Approved swapping the genders on Disney characters
Comics Alliance one minute of the opening battle from X-Men Days of Future Past. Looks exciting
The Guardian an interview with the disfigured actor from Under the Skin
Vox 21 Times Stephen Colbert has dropped his satiric character and been himself 
Telegraph an unusually candid confession: Pierce Brosnan doesn't think he was good enough as James Bond
Empire Harrison Ford talks Bladerunner sequel 

MTV Movie Awards
I "forgot" to watch. But the internet provides the highlights anyway. Like Zac Efron getting his shirt ripped off. The masses have now seen his chest approximately in everything but it still excites them (More is more?)

Comics Alliance one minute of the opening battle from X-Men Days of Future Past. Looks exciting
Towleroad Jared Leto's AIDS focused speech. Yes he won another award for Rayon "Best Transformation"
YouTube they aired a commercia lfor A Million Ways to Die in the West. Charlize Theron's look is very Sharon Stone in The Quick and the Dead, right? Only with humor.
In Contention has a best and worst list from the night
Variety has the complete winners list which were awful... Mila Kunis terrible terrible villain in Oz: The Great and Powerful won (there were such better options like my Best Villain Nominees). Yikes. For what it's worth Hunger Games: Catching Fire won Best Movie and both lead actor prizes. Yes, Josh Hutcherson too! Since this is, you know, MTV and Twilight no longer exists.

This Weekend's Miracle
Michelle Pfeiffer left the house!

click to embiggen

We always have to report on it since it's so rare. She was at Coachella in California this weekend with an undetermined friend.

Today's Watch
Awesomely talented Laura Benanti explains the current Broadway season. (I don't understand why a great TV series doesn't snap her up. She was so good on the short-lived Playboy Club and in The Sound of Music: Live and surely she deserves better than a Law & Order franchise. Especially since the bitch can sang.)

As Mad Men at the Movies returns for its final bifurcated season so do we for Mad Men @ the Movies. 

Mad Men seasons never begin with a bang. They take time to gather momentum for their emotional, psychological, and thematic impact. The seventh season opener "Time Zones" proved no exception. Though we aren't clued in to a specific date I believe we're at the end of January 1969 given references to events of the previous season being "a couple of months" back and the weather which is pleasant in Los Angeles and frigid in New York. One smart out of time detail: Peggy, who lives alone much to her agony but spends all her time at work, still has a Christmas tree up in her apartment well past the holiday.

At the close of last season the newly merged ad firm was going bicoastal. We begin checking in with the New York characters before we return to our anti-hero lead, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) who is tellingly tied to neither coast and thus in limbo. 

I've been anxiously awaiting this trailer so let's hitch our Yes No Maybe So wagon to Hilary Swank's as she transports three crazies across the country to Iowa in the western The Homesman. We knew from interviews and a cursory knowledge of the novelist Glendon Swarthout only a handful of things before seeing this trailer.

Oh nos. Nathaniel is talking about me again.

1. Six of Swarthout's other books have been adapted for the screen, most famously the ür spring break girls-gone-wild movie Where the Boys Are (1960) and The Shootist (1976) starring John Wayne
2. "The Homesman" refers to the job title that Swank's farmer character Mary Bee Cuddy signs on to perform, carting insane women across the country 
3. Meryl Streep's role is small and she has no scenes with Swank (according to Swank herself) but her character has some part in collecting the three women in the wagon
4. It's directed by Tommy Lee Jones and shot by Brokeback Mountain's cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto
5. It takes place in the 1850s. 

The trailer and the breakdown after the jump...