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.)
Chris Hemsworth, good actor and better action hero that he is, has had a helluva time finding material worth his salt outside of Marvel. Directed by first-time feature filmmaker Sam Hargrove and produced by the Russo brothers, it’s a rough-and-tumble action film set mostly in the slums of Bangladesh. His name is Tyler Rake and he’s a mercenary with a troubled past, hired to whisk and wend his way out of dangerous slums with a drug lord’s kidnapped son intact. Where have we seen this before?
Well, never mind the plot, silly and often pedestrian, and focus instead on the action. It's visceral and often well-choreographed...
Jettisoning all subtext of the original and heart of the third and formerly final movie, Men in Black International is definitely a step-down from the highs of this intermittent, long-running franchise. Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson don’t enjoy nearly the same chemistry that sparked in Thor Ragnarok, their personalities clashing in a way that can best be described as awkward, and not the good kind with bumbling and sexual tension in tow. It’s all so rushed and Thompson’s arc leaves something to be desired.
And yet, I couldn’t help smiling through half of it...
• NYT Which Cannes films and performances will factor into the Oscar race. Kyle Buchanan thinks Parasite and Pain & Glory are the biggest foreign threats but Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the big one. • Hugh Jackman singing Happy Birthday to Sir Ian McKellen with a whole staidum backing him. Awesome • Variety Owen Gleiberman surveys his Cannes experience and how well the movies filled the big screen • Variety Chris Hemsworth is the coverboy at the moment so here's the big profile • The Sheila Variations on Joseph Cotten's active listening in Gaslight (1944)
• Variety so far Netflix is the only studio to speak out on Georgia's attack on abortion rights which could threaten the massive amount of filmmaking that goes on in that state. • Out for a blu-ray release of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, John Leguizamo is talking about his character Chi Chi Rodriguez • Town & Country we missed this news during Cannes but congrats to Jennifer Lawrence who is now engaged • IndieWire surveys critics on the best movies that played at Cannes. Parasite comes out on top just as it did with the jury, but Portrait of a Lady on Fire (which only took Screenplay at Cannes) was the runner up. • Variety more Cannes prizes. FIPRESCI chooses The Lighthouse (from the director of The VVitch) • /Film a piece on Quentin Tarantino's female characters in light of a tense moment at Cannes when he was asked about Margot Robbie's lack of dialogue in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Tony Season • NYT fun piece on "mysteries" of this Broadway season including how tall is the tall man in Hadestown, how does Santino Fontana sing like a woman in Tootsie, and how does one do partner dances while in a wheelchair? As for that 'tall man' in Hadestown. We first noticed him in Frozen and we ran into him on the subway over the weekend and he was as sweet and gorgeous as can be while towering over us. • ... Timothy Hughes is his name and you can follow him on Instagram • Stagecraft Rosemary Harris will get a lifetime achievement at this year's Tony Awards. But her previous Tony has a typo on it! • Playbill Wesley Taylor (Smash) who recently won the Chita Rivera Award for Outstanding Male Dancer is engaged to marry Isaac Powell (last seen in Spongebob Squarepants) • Playbill Fresh out of high school, Renée Rapp, who won this year's Jimmy Award (that's the highest honor for High School students in musical theater) is stepping into the role of Regina George in Mean Girls for her Broadway debut this summer.
And look here's a video about Dianne Wiest's latest play Off Broadway. It's a monologue play from Samuel Beckett
Time for another round of our silly Instagram-time-wasting distraction. Would you rather...
...have a double-ginger moment with Isabelle & Juli? ...see Dumbo with Dame Helen? ... share a meal with a Quokka and a Hemsworth? ...cuddle a lamb with Vera Farmiga? ... hike Koko Head with Cynthia Erivo? ... visit Patagonia with La Pfeiffer? ... sing-along with the Bee-Gees and Guillaume Canet?
Few things in the world are as steady as Marvel movies. Once every few months, one comes in and it is an EVENT. Avengers: Endgame is probably the most anticipated film sequel since The Matrix Reloaded in 2003, and though that didn't go well, it's safe to say that legions are excited again. Marvel still being Marvel, they don’t want to give too much away so the trailers have been teaser-like. The new one dropped today, so let’s do our patented Yes, No, Maybe So after the jump...
Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 4:20PM 
by Tony Ruggio
