Thought “The Artist” was just a fluke, didn’t ya? Word on the street says that Robert Redford’s performance in the silent film “All is Lost” is superb. Technically the movie is in a different category than most silents, which supplement dialog with title cards. This one follows a lone man through a solitary struggle to survive, and thus simply just has no dialogue. That means if you answer your phone during the movie, you’ll literally be the only one talking.

Once upon a time in the Eighties, washed-up cinema heavyweight Orson Welles had a series of meetings with HBO about a proposed miniseries that was never meant to be. The bizarre minutiae of these meetings has been captured in a book coming out this summer, and Harper’s has offered us a preview – which must be seen to be believed. I like that it’s presented in a style similar to court evidence, which I suppose it could have eventually become, eventually, but for the grace of God.

I was charmed by these 1920s-style portrayals of Disney villains, until I got to poor Ursula. Why oh why have people been so hellbent on making her skinny lately? Just the other day I noted the same thing in that new collector’s edition of dolls that Disney’s hawking (they also slimmed down the Queen of Hearts). I can’t even begin to unpack a bizarre and unfortunate choice like this in such a limited space; the sea witch must be spinning in her watery grave.

People who bought tickets to see Alan Cumming’s Macbeth this past weekend were greeted with a surprise at the box office: the star himself working the window! Some seem oblivious, others are so starstruck they can hardly function. If more actors did this, I might scuttle out to the theater more often! Plus in some cases it’s probably a better wage than they make in the footlights. See below.

If comedy equals tragedy plus time, porn addiction has now officially come of age, culturally speaking. It has emerged from awkward and cinematic adolescence, full of sad and scary self-loathing benders (“Shame”), and suddenly become fodder for Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s blackly comedic directorial debut, “Don Jon.” Some may argue that it’s too soon to laugh at an affliction that poses a dire threat to the emotional and physical well being of future generations. In fact, compulsive porn watching has become so widespread, recent psychological research studies have been hamstrung by a lack of college age men who don’t indulge in the pornographic arts, it impossible to find anyone eligible for a control group with which to compare the those with a daily viewing habit.

Judging by the deadpan hilarity of the trailer featured below (as well as the film’s rave reviews at Sundance and SXSW), we’ve now crossed a threshold where porn has become accepted as a sine qua non of modern manly men, alongside a hot ride, a hot babe, and a hard body. But this footage rises above the usual studio comedies about dimwits we come to care about despite their bad habits (i.e. anything starring Vince Vaughn or Adam Sandler). Gordon-Levitt frames his character as a simple man whose taste for simple pleasures is complicated by the complexity of emotional attachment to a live non-nude girl (Scarlett Johansson).

Hollywood has developed a porn fixation of its own lately.  Last year saw the release of the aforementioned “Shame,” Steve McQueen’s bleak portrait of a high-flying ad man bottoming out in a cesspool of illicit raunch. The upcoming “Thanks for Sharing,” raises the levity ever so slightly by focusing on the struggles and mini-triumphs of a group of sex-addicted twelve steppers. And a couple months back, Danny Boyle announced his plans to adapt Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting sequel, Porno, which catches up with the cabal of Scottish junkies as they concoct a scheme to become adult entertainment moguls.

While the effects of porn addiction may be no laughing matter. Filmmakers are giving the disease the, um, exposure it deserves by mining it for its provocative comic potential.

Kickstarter, an online funding platform founded in 2009, has recently caught Hollywood’s gaze, thanks to a girl named Veronica Mars.

Fans of the beloved cult series have been wishing and hoping and thinking and praying for the return of Veronica Mars, ever since the series was abruptly taken off the air after its third season in 2007. Series creator Rob Thomas and star Kristen Bell took to Kickstarter to raise $2 million for a “Veronica Mars” movie. Within twelve hours, the project surpassed its initial goal, garnering $5,702,153. Breaking Kickstarter records for not only having the most backers on a single project (91,585), the campaign is also the highest-funded movie project, as well as the fastest growing.

With that kind of success, fans turned their attention toward other, often prematurely, canceled shows that could get another breath of life. Bryan Fuller, the mind behind quirky comedic gems like “Dead Like Me,” “Wonderfalls,” and “Pushing Daisies,” was a name that quickly popped up. In an interview with Film School Rejects, Fuller spoke to what could potentially be another Kickstarter success story. “To do a movie [of "Pushing Daisies"], I believe we would need between $10-15 million to do it, and that’s harder to ask for than what Veronica Mars is asking for.” The pilot alone was made for $6 million. While the budget would ultimately be higher than the “Veronica Mars” movie, the series fanbase may be big enough to make this project happen, should it ever see the light of day.

Of course, with excitement and intrigue, comes cynicism. Actor-director Zach Braff recently made a Kickstarter proposal to fund his latest film, “Wish I Was Here.” His $2 million proposal — which was met and supplemented by stable financial backing from production company Worldview Entertainment — cued exaggerated eye rolls. Braff is well worth the $2 million it would take to back his film, so why not fund it himself?

Bret Easton Ellis also hopped on the Kickstarter bandwagon for the stage adaptation of his novel American Psycho, with a goal to raise $150,000 by Friday. The upcoming dark, soapy thriller “The Canyons,” for which he wrote the original screenplay, also received a majority of its budget through Kickstarter. Should the American Psycho musical meet its goal, the play would initially run at London’s Almeida Theatre, a non-profit institution with an educational outreach to some 10,000 kids a year, according to Esquire.

Following the gumption of Braff, actress Melissa Joan Hart received some bad news this week when her Kickstarter production for a would-be romantic comedy called “Darci’s Walk of Shame” failed to make it’s $2 million goal. Hart, who’s been acting since she was an infant and already has three moderately successful sitcoms under her belt (two of which she also produced with her family’s production company, Hartbreak Films), only made $51,605 for the film before it was shut down by the site.

With the recent string of Kickstarter projects from stars both big and small, the debate of whether or not they could just fund it themselves is the ultimate question. Seeing as we can’t see into the bank accounts of Braff, Ellis, or Hart, it’s not up for us to decide. Kickstarter’s modus operandi is clear: Do audiences want to see these projects made, and if so, would you like to help? Braff asks, “If you liked what I did with ‘Garden State’, would you want to see what else I could do?” The answer is, of course, yes. Ellis asks, “Would audiences like to see anti-hero Patrick Bateman in a song-and-dance number while hacking up his fellow Wall Street partners?” Who wouldn’t?! But when Hart asks,“Do you want to see me in a romantic comedy where I make out with some hot guys?” The answer is a very awkward, but respectful, no.

E.L. James may not have invented anything new with her Fifty Shades books, but the renewed popular interest in kinky sex has emboldened our already bold academics to dig deeper into the subject. Here’s an article commenting on the newest wave of study, which comes with some pointed criticisms about how for all their pontificating, a lot of these educated types aren’t breaking any terribly new ground either — playing it rather safe, in fact. I guess revolutionizing the sexual revolution isn’t as easy as people might think. Even so, I’ve continued to hear good things about “Kink,” the James Franco-produced documentary that debuted at Sundance.

While I’m on the subject of sexual discovery, here’s a thorough list of movies that curious gay kids probably watched in the ’90s. Some of these were more entertaining than informational (and a few are neither), but in the days before high-speed internet, movies were one of the only ways for young ‘uns to find out what else was out there.

A new volume of letters by Italo Calvino is coming out soon, and The New Yorker has been kind enough to hand out some free samples. The excerpts and commentary shimmer with possibilities, but even so it excites me to see that he signed one of his notes “Byee” as if he was simply closing an instant messenger window for the night.

These stories never cease to thrill me: A Minnesota man bought a “Lady and the Tramp” poster at Goodwill for $4.99, only to find out that it was an original worth up to fifty thousand. I’ll be clinging to my thrift store VHS collection all the more tightly now, hopefully one day this tattered copy of “Ice Castles” will prove to be worth something to someone!

Let’s imagine for a moment that life has become a Quentin Tarantino movie, where pop culture knowledge is a matter of life and death. If, in this poetically violent and profane alternate reality, one were to be forced at gunpoint to name the medium that feels most natural to “Arrested Development” mastermind, Mitch Hurwitz, while he’s writing the beloved show about an entire family on the verge of a nervous breakdown, we’d probably suspect (rightly) that it was a trick question. So we’d toss out our best guess — the novel — and survive to eat another Royale with cheese.

But we’d be blown to smithereens the moment we were hit with the second question in this high stakes trivia quiz: Name a novel that influenced Hurwitz’s decision to revive the series on Netflix, due to debut on Sunday, May 26? The obvious choice might be Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom or anything by Thomas Pynchon, John Irving, or Philip Roth. Hurwitz has always been anything but obvious, a fact that became even more apparent a recent Rolling Stone piece in which he revealed that Stephen King’s The Dark Tower planted the seed that ultimately grew into the idea for a series reboot and follow-up movie. Now there’s a creative genealogy we never could have predicted.

The drumbeat leading up to Sunday’s premiere of the “Arrested Development” revival on Netflix has reached fever pitch, sending reverberations powerful enough to knock Lucille Bluth’s crystal goblets off their shelves. The show’s slavishly devoted following has spent the past year and a half chomping down on each meager casting tidbit — from Ben Stiller to John Krasinski —  like a pod of hungry seals.

But now it’s finally mealtime, as major magazines like EW and Rolling Stone roll out substantial features offering the lowdown on the show’s development and production and its mad genius creator. While it’s not particularly surprising to learn that Hurwitz’ creative process is one of controlled chaos, making life on set not unlike the Bluth household — a place where the unexpected flourishes and absurdity abounds. Plot-wise, this season will take a less panoramic view of the eccentric Bluth clan’s attempts to cope with its withering wealth pulling the focus in on each of the family’s wacko head-cases and world-weary fixers.

But, from Hurwitz’ perspective, the most dramatic creative leap was the initial decision to revisit the series at all. He had big ambitions for the narrative that he knew wouldn’t adhere to the tyranny of the setup-punch-line-cue-laugh-track formulas dominating television comedy. But he changed his mind after a few conversations with series producer Ron Howard, who was then working on a sprawling adaptation of Stephen King’s magnum opus, The Dark Tower. Though the project has since been put on hold, at the time Howard had devised an audacious multi-medium, multi-phase plan to translate King’s epic into trilogy of films linked together by a complementary television series.

Once Hurwitz realized he didn’t need to compromise his breadth of vision for the Bluth family, he decided to take the plunge back into the series that caused him and its cult of fans so much pain when it was forsaken by the vengeful gods of television ratings. Hurwitz would now have the freedom to let loose with his most weird, expansive, and esoteric material.

Apparently inspiration strikes both when and where one might least expect to find it. We’d love to see one of those iconoclasts conversations between King and Hurwitz about the creative process. Perhaps there are other areas where they unexpectedly overlap.

What are some of the most surprising influences you’ve discovered about your favorite shows, films, or books?

Władziu Valentino Liberace — known to the world by just his last name — became the highest paid musician in the world from the 1950s to 1970s. From his affinity for sequin suits to his flamboyant stage persona and trademark candelabra placed atop whatever piano he played, you can understand why he was nicknamed “Mr. Showmanship.” Liberace’s death in 1987 due to complications from AIDS confirmed for many what was considered to be one of the most well-known secrets in entertainment: Liberace was gay. A year after his death, Scott Thorson, Liberace’s former lover /live-in companion / driver (who was only eighteen when he met the then fifty-seven-year-old performer) published a book, Behind the Candelabra: My Life With Liberace, detailing their five year relationship, which ended on bad terms and resulted in Thorson filing a palimony lawsuit against his former partner. On May 26th, HBO will debut Steven Soderbergh’s movie adaptation of the infamous tell-all memoir, which stars Matt Damon as Thorson and Michael Douglas as Liberace.

Word & Film recently had a chance to talk with Richard LaGravenese, the screenwriter of “Behind the Candelabra,” about what drew him to the project, Liberace’s legacy, and why audiences in Europe are seeing the film in theaters while Americans can only watch it on HBO.

Word & Film: How did you become involved in the project?

Richard LaGravenese: Well, I’ve known Steven [Soderbergh] as a friend since “Out of Sight” and we worked together on “Erin Brockovich.” And in 2008, he sent me an email saying, “I’ve got this Liberace biography. Would you be interested? I’m not kidding.” It was just like those three lines, which is usual for Steven’s emails. And I laughed and said, “Sure, let me read it.” I read it in about a day and I said, “I’m dying to do this!” Number one to work with Steven, two because I loved the world, the characters, and the story.

W&F: Were you a fan of Liberace? Is that what drew you to the project?

RL: No. I mean, I grew up seeing him all the time on the variety shows and guest appearances on, you know, “The Dean Martin Show” and “Ed Sullivan” and his specials. Things like that. He was one of the entertainers I grew up with, as a child, seeing all the time. It wasn’t that [that made the project appealing], as much as the story and the world. I know that world, the late ’70s to mid-80s very well and I understood it. And between those two things, I thought it was a very unusual love story that hadn’t been told before.

W&F: So you wrote the screenplay with the intention of focusing on the relationship?

RL: What’s very important about this story and what I … made sure was the core of it is that I believe [Liberace] loved Scott and Scott loved him … that this wasn’t just another lover he had in a string of lovers. This was, for him, a very important, very real relationship. At its center, there was real love there. Otherwise the story would just be parody and camp and you’d feel no emotional investment in the characters.

W&F: But when you look at the broad strokes, a richer, older man and much younger male from a humble background that he hires / takes in / lavishes with gifts so shortly after meeting, it seems more like two people using each other than a relationship.

RL: Well, in the beginning it was. I believe in the beginning, of course. To be honest, just like in the book … [Scott] wasn’t attracted to [Liberace]. He was a middle-aged man. He wasn’t sexually attracted to him. Scott was a young handsome guy and on [Liberace]’s part, [Scott] was a young stud he was attracted to. So in the beginning, they both had their agendas. But I do believe as time went on, they became intimate and it became real.

W&F: It’s kind of interesting that Liberace worked so hard to keep his homosexuality a secret, yet now he’s a kind of a gay icon.

RL: The interesting thing about him to me is that here was a man who was so closeted and so hidden, yet on stage … he was completely out of the closet. You see his acts and there’s no doubt that the man is flagrantly gay, and yet, it’s amazing to me, the audience only saw what they wanted to see. They loved him for who he was on stage, which was very openly gay, in a way.

W&F: It seems most people of a certain age know nothing of Liberace’s musical legacy. Do you have any hope that the film might get them looking him up on Wikipedia and searching out videos of his act on YouTube?

RL: It would be nice if they did … I mean he influenced Cher, he influenced Elvis, right up to Lady Gaga. His showmanship really set the ground for people that came after and he was really supportive of young talent. And the thing with Liberace, as opposed to this generation, is he didn’t do his own songs. He was an entertainer. He was a showman. And he was an extraordinary pianist. But he had this concert pianist ability along with this salon piano player showmanship. He really loved people and he loved entertaining people, so he would mix those two things together. And then he would add all these sequins.

W&F: There’d been talk about this movie for years. Why did it take so long to get made?

RL: I wrote this in June / July of 2008 and Matt [Damon] and Michael [Douglas] were committed for four years, through thick and thin. They were public about it, even when the money wasn’t there. Just “We’re going to do this. We’re going to do this.” They never wavered, which was … amazing. And then, thank God for HBO, because I swear if it wasn’t for them …this would never get American domestic distribution … Every studio turned it down. All financiers turned it down. And that’s just another sign of where the movie business /culture is at right now. That it’s being released as a film in Europe, but in America it’s on HBO.

W&F: One of the things that’s striking about the film is that there is this sort of current events aspect in regards to gay marriage. Do you think audiences will pick up on that?

RL: It’s important to put things in historical perspective and where we are now with gay marriage, it’s important to see how just a short period ago, just thirty odd years ago, this wasn’t even a conceivable notion and here was a couple that for all intents and purposes were married and look what happened. Scott had no rights. He was just sort of kicked out of the house with his belonging in a garbage bag because of the world we lived in at that time. To me, it’s a timely story to show where we’ve come as things are progressing.

In 2006, marketing hacks released trailers to try and spin “Bug” — a psychological thriller about loneliness and delusional parasitosis by playwright Tracy Letts — into a drive-in creature feature, alienating its intended audience and disappointing the teenagers who showed up expecting a horror movie.

Based on the star-studded trailer for “August: Osage County” (scroll down to watch), lessons have not been learned. Sure, the grim family drama for which earned Letts the Pulitzer Prize briefly warms your heart, but only as a prelude to ripping it out. This trailer seems like it belongs to a folksy comedic romp that dares to ask tough questions like: “Families can be really messed up, am I right guys?” Chalking it up to a marketing miscalculation is actually quite charitable — if the actual movie turns out to be this defanged and declawed, then we might have a bona fide tragedy on our hands.

On the bright side, it looks like we won’t have to stare down Shia LaBeouf’s actual genitalia during Lars Von Trier’s already-notorious “Nymphomaniac.” Despite the actor’s recent eagerness to bare all, the filmmakers have clarified that the movie’s explicit onscreen sex will be performed by body doubles (the same as in Von Trier’s earlier film “Antichrist”), not the big-name talent. Which is either excellent news or a real bummer, depending for your feelings toward Uma Thurman or, say, Udo Kier.

I spent a lot of time poking fun at the show “Elementary” when it first debuted (a modern Sherlock Holmes adaptation starring Lucy Liu as Watson? What could go wrong?), but the show has continued to gain fans and break ground since then, so maybe it’s time to admit that I was wrong. I09‘s Genevieve Valentine has written a great (spoiler-laced) article suggesting that this is the right way to update a classic hero. She also salutes the show’s deliberate decision to cast a woman of color in a central role as something other than a romantic interest, because let’s be real, when does that happen.

The new Daft Punk album “Random Access Memories” hasn’t been out a week yet and already someone has created a David Lynch music video version of “Get Lucky.” Also notable: the album boasts a track featuring Paul Williams, memorable as the evil record producer in the cult 1974 film “The Phantom of the Paradise.” Here’s a glimpse of Williams’ work in the film.

Diddy’s gone Downton. The Simpsons have too. And with recent casting news that Lily James, who played wild child flapper Lady Rose MacClare in the last season of the BBC import “Downton Abbey,” will star as Cinderella in a live-action version of the Disney classic, we too have the Crawley clan on the brain.

While James’ Prince Charming will come from one of our other favorite small-screen dynasties, the news has us dreaming about how we’d cast the rest of the Downtononians in live-action Disney remakes. With castle-like manors and princessy heiresses, there’s a natural Downton-Disney affinity. So, here’s what we’re thinking. (Warning: with Season Three spoilers aplenty.)

Earl of Grantham as Maurice
The role we’d really love to see Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) play is that other bewildered father of three rebellious daughters, Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof.” But in the world of Disney animation, we’d cast him as Maurice, Belle’s father in “Beauty and the Beast,” who, like Robert Crawley, is well-meaning but bumbling and who ultimately requires a little rescuing from his daughter and from the help to make it out of the woods.

Countess of Grantham as Sarabi
Disney movies aren’t kind to mothers, so we’re reaching a little here. But it’s not too hard to imagine the fiercely devoted Countess Cora Crawley (Elizabeth McGovern) as Sarabi, the fiercely devoted mother of Simba in “The Lion King.” Queen of the pride, she’s willing to fight off the most nefarious forces to keep her line going and to protect her young.

The Dowager Countess as Cruella de Vil
No disrespect to Glenn Close, who brought a little of her over-the-top “Sunset Boulevard” camp to her performance as Cruella de Vil in the 1996 live-action “101 Dalmatians,” but how much fun would it be to watch Dame Maggie Smith, clad in crazy furs, zinging her way through Cruella’s wicked one-liners?

Lady Sybil as Pocahontas
Boasting the bravery, diplomacy, and good old-fashioned stubbornness necessary to convince her tradition-bound family to embrace her chauffeur paramour as one of their own, Jessica Brown Findlay, as the late Lady Sybil, definitely demonstrated the gumption required to rescue John Smith and negotiate a truce between the Powhatans and the British. She may be gone, but Lady Sybil’s spirit hangs over Downton. It’s there in the colors of the wind.

Lady Edith as Mulan
A couple of seasons ago, we’d have cast unctuous, manipulative Edith (Laura Carmichael) as one of the diabolical, slinky Siamese cats in “Lady and the Tramp.” (And let’s be honest, we’d still love to see her do CGI double-duty as both — it makes us shiver just thinking about it.) But this season, in the wake of her public jilting at the alter, Edith has come into her own, a First Wave Feminist, ready to fight her way into a man’s world and totally fierce enough to go full on Mulan warrior-style to take on the Hun invasion.

Lady Mary as…
Oh Mary, you could go in so many different directions. With your raven hair and alabaster skin, on the surface, you scream Snow White. But at the start of last season we’d have cast you (or Michelle Dockery, the actress who plays you) as a live-action Lady from “Lady in the Tramp” — the upper crust princess who steps off her pedestal into the arms (er paws) of the rakish mutt she loves. Now though, we’re not so sure. With the death of your tramp Matthew will you revert to type, letting the bitterness of a dream betrayed transform you into the Wicked Queen of Downton? We’re itching to find out.

Matthew Crawley as Aladdin
Middle-class Matthew (played by Dan Stevens) didn’t ask to be thrust into the upper-crust world of Downton, but like Aladdin, he certainly comes to embrace his whole new world and similarly falls hard for the tempting, mercurial beauty at the center of his new sumptuous surroundings.

Isobel Crawley as Aunt Sarah
The opinionated busybody cousin to the Crawley clan (Penelope Wilton) would be perfect as the well-meaning but meddling Aunt Sarah in “Lady and the Tramp.” And with her recent seeming lack of interest in romance, Cousin Isobel displayed some definite cat lady tendencies.

Mr. Carson as Rafiki
Wise but a little wizened. Dignified but with an adorably silly streak. Carson, the butler, is the heart of Downton, that consistent voice of conscience and tradition that keeps the place going year after year. So it’s not hard to imagine him as “The Lion King”-whisperer Rafiki, who’s a similar mix of goofy and courtly, and who, like Carson, has dedicated himself to preserving the legacy of the family to which he’s devoted his life. And you know that when Mary had her son, Carson had to fight the urge to hoist him over his head and rejoice in the circle of life.

Thomas Barrow or Miss O’Brien as Eeyore
Dark and conniving, both Thomas, the under-butler (Rob James-Collier), and Sarah O’Brien, the lady’s maid (Siobhan Finneran), could play almost any villain in the Disney canon — he’d be pretty perfect as “Beauty and the Beast’s” preening Gaston, and we can see her as the jealous Maleficent in “Sleeping Beauty.” But there’s such intense sadness to each of these characters — a deep longing to be loved and understood that gives them both the desperate dolefulness necessary for Winnie the Pooh’s depressive buddy.

Mrs. Patmore as Mrs. Potts
Sure, sometimes her temper boils over (especially with poor, put-upon Daisy), but last season the cook Mrs. Patmore (played by Lesley Nichol) was as soothing as a nice, warm cuppa while she helped Mrs. Hughes through her cancer scare. And with her warbling Cockney soprano and ginger locks, there’s something very Angela Lansbury about Nichols, who also happens to have cut her teeth in a few musicals. Can’t you just imagine her singing “Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme … ” about Mary and Matthew?

Agree with our casting choices? How would you Disney-fy the rest of the upstairs and downstairs Downton clan?

“The Crash,” the latest aptly titled episode of “Mad Men,” is a runaway toboggan ride through the emotional wasteland of Don Draper’s psyche that’s been analyzed and dissected as much as the Zapruder film at this point. Love it or hate it, “Mad Men” has now entered the realm of myth with Don Draper doubling as an Orpheus-like tormented soul who has descended into the underworld under the illusion that he can reclaim his idealized woman (the mother he never had) only to discover he’s powerless over his desire for instant gratification, ultimately dooming himself to a life of misery. If Freud were on the case, he would have diagnosed Don with textbook repetition compulsion, a self-destructive pattern of behavior, described in Remembering, Repeating and Working Through, as repeating the circumstances of a traumatic event over and over again.

We’ll leave any further deconstruction of Don’s psyche to the professionals — the legions of bloggers who parse the show’s subtext in weekly recap posts that read more like the abstracts for a PhD dissertation on the moral degradation of American ideals in the late 1960s. But the proliferation of  literary references (both implicit and explicit) peppered throughout this season, particularly in episode 8, bears further scrutiny. And because everything in “Mad Men,” from Roger Sterling’s streamline moderne office furniture down to the pile of cigarette butts at Don’s feet, is freighted with meaning, there must be something to be gleaned from reading into the featured books and myriad author quotes embedded throughout Matthew Weiner’s multilayered dialogue.

Literary Cameo: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri
This season opened with Don splayed out on a Hawaii beach reading Dante’s Inferno, with a voiceover narration of the famous passage that remains the best and most succinct description of a midlife crisis ever written: “Midway through our journey I went away from the straight road and found myself in a dark wood.” There’s clearly more at play here than the garden variety midlife mortality panic behind Don’s descent into a state of sin-soaked anomie. Don is a man who manufactures his own despair, trapping himself on a treadmill of torment, even while vacationing in paradise with his smart, beautiful wife.

Takeaway: Don is damned to a hell of his own making but it’s not inconceivable that he’ll find some sort of redemption since he’s still hovering in outer circles, between lust and gluttony.

Literary Cameo: Ralph Waldo  Emerson
In the episode entitled “Man with a Plan,” Peggy Olsen concocts a fantasy in which her menschy boss is reading Emerson, the godfather of transcendentalism and great proponent of individuality and man’s inherent power to prevail over society’s corrupt  influences.

Takeaway: Emerson was an optimist and an ethicist. In other words, he was the anti-Don, which is precisely what Peggy was looking for when she fled her deteriorating mentor for her new boss’ high-minded ideals.

Literary Cameo: Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Crash” quickly spiraled into a drug-fueled stream-of-consciousness trip into the messy creative process involved in straddling the line between art and commerce. During one of the copy team’s many incoherent brainstorming sessions, Stan, the show’s skirt-chasing art director, quotes Poe’s last published poem, Annabel Lee, about a man fixated on a beautiful woman he can never possess.

Takeaway: This poem clearly has resonances for both Stan and Don and the rest of the dirty dogs working at SCDP. Romanticizing lost loves is an affliction we all suffer from in one way or another. But in the most recent episode, this compulsion to relive (and rewrite) the past has debilitated Don and endangered his family and professional life. It’s no accident Poe’s work continues to strike terror in the hearts of readers.

Literary Cameo: My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth
In episode 8, the creative team continues to try to crack the code to the Chevy campaign with a half-baked idea about the nostalgia associated with a father giving his son his first car. Peggy then chimes in with an offhanded aside adding that “the child is the father of the son.” This line was cribbed from the above Wordsworth poem, about how our memories of childhood fill the well we tap throughout our lives to be reminded of who we should aim to be.

Takeaway: In an episode overstocked with flashbacks  to Don’s abusive childhood, this poem offers a kind of solace in its message that there are gifts to be found in an unhappy childhood if we submit to heeding the lessons embedded in our own pain.

Literary Cameo: Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
Levin’s terrifying novel about a pregnant woman who is convinced the satanic cabal living in her building has targeted her baby is ominously introduced in a scene in which Sally Draper has been left alone to tend to her younger brothers. Placing this literary creep-fest in the hands of a child home alone signals that some of our fears actually turn out to be worse than we’d imagined.

Takeaway: Both Don and Sally are more vulnerable than either acknowledges. And it also points to the fact that Don may feel like he’s become the grown-up version of satan’s spawn.

The great (and recently departed) Roger Ebert once compiled a glossary of terms he’d coined to highlight the most prevalent clichés that exist in movies and films. It included such gems as “Backseat Inviso-Syndrome” (defined as when “film characters are invariably unable to see a person crouched in the backseat of a car”) and the “Turtle Effect” (which dictates that “once a character is knocked down, they just lie there as if unable to get up”), but a favorite of most movie lovers is Ebert’s skewering definition of the classic trope involving movie duos — “the Odd Couple Formula,” which is defined as “seemingly incompatible characters are linked to each other in a plot that depends on their differences for its comic and dramatic interest.”

The solution to such a tired and overused cinema principle? Add another character and make it a trio. Maybe it’s something to do with group dynamic; maybe it’s because the increase in interaction allows for characters to showcase more depth; or maybe it has something to do with the fact that seeing the same back and forth between the same two people for ninety minutes can get boring. Whatever the specific reason, it’s pretty obvious that focusing on three characters works great when telling a story on screen. And this weekend, one of the most recent (and famous) film trios, the wolf pack from “The Hangover” and “The Hangover Part II,” will join once more for comedy hijinks in “The Hangover Part III.”

In honor of the occasion, we’re taking a look at the best trios to have graced the silver screen. Here are the ten best we came up.

Brody, Hooper, and Quint from “Jaws” (1975)
“Jaws” can be used in pretty much any film theory argument. The movie’s symbolism packs nearly every scene and gives cinephiles mountains of instances to cite. And while many remember the thriller, based on the bestselling novel of the same name, that made audiences afraid of the ocean for its ominous music and imagery of a distressed swimmer slipping beneath the water, the heart of the movie, as well as nearly half the story, focuses on three guys on a boat. As Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss hunt a great white shark, their character clashes of old working-class sailor, young tech-savvy ocean scientist, and dedicated lawman with no experience on the water is enthralling as it leads to the climactic showdown. It also fuels the most copied scene of scar comparing in movie history.

Harry, Hermione, and Ron from the “Harry Potter” series (2001-2011)
Let’s all just step back and take in the achievement of the “Harry Potter” movies. For a decade (A DECADE!), we watched a cast of child actors grow up and mature along with their roles in eight (EIGHT!) films. Sure, it was a large and varied group of actors playing everything from major side characters (Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy), to minor/almost background actors (Devon Michael Murray as Seamus Finnigan), but the core of the films, as in the books, rested on the relationship between three best friends played by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint. Throughout the overarching story, as in each film’s own episodic tale, the three demonstrate the epitome of friendship and overcoming unimaginable adversity (it is film series about wizards and witches), while leading audiences on a cinematic journey unlike any other … watching them grow up.

Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie from “The Witches of Eastwick” (1987)
Our only all-female trio on the list and it’s a classic. Okay, maybe we’re using that word a little too loosely, but the witches, comprised of Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer, are pretty awesome. Based on the John Updike novel of the same name, the threesome of modern put-upon women learn of their inherent magical abilities after they realize they’d inadvertently formed a coven and summoned the Devil (Jack Nicholson). The ensuing polyamorous relationship and falling out/conflict results in all three discovering their inner strength. Unfortunately, the film never received the same status as feminist satire like the book (probably the result of a weak third act and film-stealing Nicholson), but it did result in the deadliest cherry eating/spell casting scene every filmed.

Henry, Jimmy, and Tommy from “Goodfellas” (1990)
Gangsters make great film subjects. Don’t believe us? Watch the first two “Godfather” movies or 3/8 of Martin Scorsese’s filmography. The most celebrated/infamous is of course, “Goodfellas.” Based on the true-crime book Wiseguy, the film depicts actual events witnessed by mafia informant Henry Hill throughout the sixties and seventies in Brooklyn. Practically from the movie’s opening scene of three Mafiosos driving late at night with a (almost) dead body in the trunk, viewers understand the workings of the group — Joe Pesci’s psychotic killer Tommy, Robert De Niro’s courteous (yet dangerous) thief Jimmy, and Ray Liotta as the (somewhat) passive Henry witnessing it all.

Dr. Grant, Lex, and Tim from “Jurassic Park” (1993)
Have you ever noticed Steven Spielberg’s thing about fathers in his movies? The missing dad in “E.T.”, the grieving father storyline in “Minority Report,” the schism between Indiana Jones and his father in “Last Crusade,” and so much more. A great example of this is the subplot of paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and his aversion toward kids. If you were only a kid yourself the last time you saw the film, then you probably didn’t notice because of the dinosaurs. Basically, Grant hates children and it’s implied that he’s reluctant to settle down and become a father with his partner, Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern). Fortunately for him, the disaster of cloned dinosaurs breaking loose strands Grant with brother and sister Lex and Tim Murphy (Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello) in the dangerous, yet awe-inspiring, theme park though which he must guide them to safety — thus changing his opinion of children and convincing him to be a dad. The journey, which takes up only a fraction of the novel by Michael Crichton, is a good chunk of the movie’s plot and adds some depth to what would probably have been written off as a prehistoric disaster flick.

Moe, Larry, and Curly ”The Three Stooges” (1934-1947)
Come one?! You didn’t see this one coming as soon you read that we were looking at on-screen trios? The Stooges are a given! But which “Three Stooges” are we talking about? What started as a vaudeville act went through many many incarnations (if you ever want to lose an hour of your life, ask a hard-core Stooge fan about “the return of Shemp”). The ultimate “Three Stooges” manifestation (and the one most people think of when they hear “Three Stooges”) consists of Moe, Larry, and Curly, which began when the group first broke out on their own at Columbia Picture in 1934 and lasted until Jerry “Curly” Howard suffered a career-ending stroke in 1947. Throughout that time the trio made 190 short films (the group’s ideal medium) and five feature films, all of which are considered the seminal “three stooges” catalogue. The group went through an assortment of rosters and variations, but Moe, Larry, Curly will always be “The Three Stooges.”

Don, Kathy, and Cosmo from “Singing in the Rain” (1952)
Considered the quintessential Hollywood musical, “Singin’ in the Rain” remains a classic to this day. The film came about when MGM went looking to use a catalogue of outdated songs they still owned, and the filmmakers (led by director and star Gene Kelly) hit upon the genius idea of setting the film almost thirty years in the past during an important period of Hollywood history, when movies went from silent films to sound. The plot of famed silent film star Don Lockwood (Kelly), humbled by the addition of sound, finding romance and inspiration in chorus girl Kathy (Debbie Reynolds) seems like a given, but it’s the addition of best friend and sidekick Cosmo (Donald O’Connor) that completes the movie.

The Dude, Walter, and Donny from “The Big Lebowski” (1998)
Without a doubt, the one cinematic bowling team that everyone would want to roll with includes the bowlers of Jeff Bridges’ laid back Dude, John Goodman’s excitably irritable Walter Sobchak, and Steve Buscemi’s timid Donny Kerabatsos. The team doesn’t get much time knocking down pins on screen, at least not without some gunplay, but the three managed to experience a lot together outside of the bowling alley in this odd, dark, and hilarious take on Raymond Chandler mysteries by the Coen brothers.

Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa from “The Lion King” (1994)
Everyone needs best friends. They accept you for who you are and don’t judge you for your social status or family history (true best friends, at least). And more importantly, they help you when you need it, even if it means breaking their easygoing philosophy. Case in point: the two best buddies of Simba (first voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas then later Mathew Broderick), meerkat Timon (Nathan Lane) and warthog Pumbaa (Ernie Sabella). The two animated animal versions of minor Shakespeare characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern discover the young lion prince near death in the desert after escaping his uncle’s coup d’état of the pride. They take him in and teach him their happy-go-lucky philosophy of “hakuna matata,” which the three follow for years. Then, when Simba realizes he must rejoin his pride and save his kingdom from his usurper uncle, Timon and Pumbaa come along to help, proving that friendship is more important than carefree living.

Blondie, Angel Eyes, and Tuco from “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” (1966)
It can be a little confusing when trying to figure where Director Sergio Leone’s classic spaghetti western “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” fits in Leone’s celebrated “Dollars Trilogy.” The fact that many film buffs believe the movie (which is the last in the trilogy) is actually a prequel and thus takes places first in the trilogy’s chronology doesn’t help (not to mention that Lee Van Cleef, who played good guy Colonel Douglas Mortimer in the trilogy’s second film, “For Few Dollars More,” is now cast as villain Angel Eyes). The film plot is pretty straightforward: three gunfighters, one good (Clint Eastwood’s Blondie/Man with no name), one bad (the already mentioned Angel Eyes), and one ugly (Eli Wallach’s Tuco), race against each other to find a hidden fortune of Confederate gold during the waning days of the Civil War. The climatic Mexican standoff between all three is a clever twist on the western genre cliché of a showdown at high noon and a cinematic classic.

What say you, readers? Did we overlook or miss any of your favorite cinematic threesomes?  Let us know in the comments.