The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
David here on the return of one of the UK's most memorable heroines...
Bridget Jones's Baby is, as things stand, the highest-grossing film released in the UK this year. Quite the result for the long-delayed comeback of a female romcom heroine whose target audience isn’t typically recognised by the movie industry as big ticket buyers. Sure, Bridget’s return wasn’t as heralded at the US box office, earning a paltry $20 million. But Bridget’s peers amongst the UK public are more loyal creatures, and the film’s easy rewatchability is apparent in the abundant returns. (Perhaps as a result of the film’s longer theatrical lifespan in the UK, the home entertainment release on UK shores isn’t until the end of January.)
Playlist on the complicated issues of "separate the art from the artist" in today's social media court of public opinion and 24/7 news cycles and Birth of a Nation's release Gold Derby titles their article "OFFICIAL" and then claims to have inside intel on "hints" that Silence is actually opening this year despite no poster, trailer, release date, etcetera. This is not what the word "official" means. It will only be official when Paramount makes a statement. I'm hopeful, as the film has been in post forever, but it's definitely not official yet. MNPP Jason offers to teach a course on "The Nudity of Jake Gyllenhaal 101" and we would like to audit the course -- Jake is always having nude breakdowns in showers.
The New Yorker has an interesting take on Bridget Jones's Baby's refusal to engage with some of the elements of the genre it helped define Variety Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal will co-star in a movie called Wildlife based on the novel by Richard Ford about a boy witnessing his parent's marriage falling apart. The fun (?) part is that it's cowritten by real life couple Zoe Kazan and Paul Dano who we hope aren't falling apart. Dano will also direct AMPAS they've uploaded all the speeches from the 2016 Student Academy Awards if you're interested. Perhaps one day some of these men and women will win normal Oscars? Does anyone have any stats on that? E! Online congratulations to Idina Menzel who is engaged to her boyfriend Aaron Lohr (who had a bit part in the movie Rent) Interview talks to Zachary Quinto about Snowden and more I Like Things that Look Like Mistakes Kyle Turner on Sia's new video "The Greatest" The Stake on the many remakes of Seven Samurai with The Magnificent Seven in theaters The New Yorker looks back at the obsessive photographer behind iconic 50s magazine Physique Pictorial - was he the early Robert Mapplethorpe or the gay Hugh Hefner? Boy Culture Madonna reads ageist commenters to filth on her Instagram account. I have loved this woman so much and for so long that I find a kind of regular joy that she's so endlessly superior to all the litte minds that have been trying to bring her down for the past 32 years. But on the other hand, probably best for celebrities not to acknowledge all the people that hate them. Don't give them that power! MNPP Thursdays Ways Not To Die' memorializes generic Christoph Waltz villain in The Legend of Tarzan
I've been gone for two weeks and festivals are quite a bubble. What did I miss? Besides the impending apocalypse (when I left everyone said Hillary was a done deal and when I returned everyone was acting like Trump has already won).
Everyone’s favorite contemporary British heroine is back: Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) is now successful, at her ideal weight, and alas still single. In Bridget Jones’s Baby, she has two surprising one-night stands with different men: an American dating guru (Patrick Dempsey) and her former flame Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). Then she’s pregnant: who could the father be? Will we see misunderstandings and shenanigans along the lines of a typical Three’s Company episode? Unfortunately, yes…yes, we do.
The original 2001 Bridget Jones’s Diary remains a mini-classic of its kind: one of the most dignified and intelligent of its genre (romantic comedy), yet it also transcends the genre, truly plumbing some depth (as mainstream movies go) about accepting who you really are, and understanding what love actually is. It went beyond your typical “boy and girl like each other because they’re in a movie together as leads” mentality and went to the heart of the characters’ specifics. With sharp, interesting acting from its three leads (Zellweger, Firth, and Hugh Grant), the film had snap and verve; it felt vital.
Diary’s skilled director, Sharon Maguire, didn’t return for the first sequel (Beyond Reason) but is back in the chair for Baby...
Patrick Dempsey is joining Bridget Jones’ Baby, the third movie about the charming British singleton played by Renee Zellweger. Is this the first announcement about his movie? Filming starts pretty soon, October 2nd to be exact. Did we miss something? Is Zellweger returning to major movies and the headlines are about McDreamy? Both Zellweger and Colin Firth are expected back but not Hugh Grant hence Dempsey. Although there are no details yet on who Dempsey is playing, it’s clear from the casting this may be another love triangle.
Zellweger aside, are we ready for for Bridget to come back? It’s been more than a decade since the last movie. Are people really going to see this? From the recent long-after-first-few reboots and sequels people really wanted to see Jurassic World while no one cared for the Terminator reboot. Like the latter the last Bridget was in the mid-aughts. Not a good sign. People who loved it at the time might not feel nostalgic for it yet while younger audiences wouldn’t care.
The first film, Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001), is a romantic comedy gem that came at a time when those were made regularly and some were made well. The book which of course came before the movie was a phenomenon. We loved Bridget’s self deprecating voice and wanted her to have the Elizabeth Bennet fantasy she dreamed of. Zellweger was aces in the part calming down everyone who was mad an American was cast as this quintessentially British woman. The second film, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004) followed shortly. In addition to the preposterous title, it's a trifle. Coming with an unnecessary sojourn into a Bangkok prison (is this a remake of both Bangkok Hilton and Brokedown Palace?) it presented nothing new. Just went on repeating all the best beats of the original including the fun and childish rivalry between Mark Darcy (Firth) and Daniel Cleaver (Grant). Let’s just forget about it and watch that fight scene from Diary again.
Is Dempsey over Grant an upgrade? If we’re being shallow and judging just by how they look today Dempsey wins. However he’s not the caddish charmer that is Grant as Daniel and that's was proven way sexier. Remember his seduction of Bridget and the way he said “absolutely enormous panties”. Can Dempsey match that? Dempsey’s charm is different. Blandly handsome with no gravitas, i.e. the perfect foil for a Disney princess like he was for Amy Adams in Enchanted. He could lay on that wholesome charm but we all know everyone likes the bad boy more.
It’s clear where we stand on the Grant/Dempsey debate but tell us where you are and why.
Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 9:00PM 
