Christmas Classics: Little Women (1994)

A few members of Team Experience will be sharing posts on their favorite Christmas movies. Here's Lynn Lee 

You can have your Christmas Story or your It’s a Wonderful Life.  For me, my Christmas movie will always be Gillian Armstrong’s Little Women, which took its bow Christmas Day, 1994, and has kept a place in my heart ever since.  Even though it faithfully adapts a literary classic, the movie’s also a perfect encapsulation of the ’90s: besides Winona Ryder, for whom Little Women was something of a pet project, it also featured a very young Kirsten Dunst, fresh off her star-making turn in Interview With a Vampire, and Claire Danes, still in her Angela Chase days, making her big-screen debut, as well as a 20-year-old Christian Bale completing his transition from child to adult actor.

None of that, of course, meant anything to me when I first saw the film...

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R+J at 20

Did you know that Baz Luhrmann has an instagram account? He's currently using it to celebrate Romeo + Juliet's 20th anniversary with behind the scenes photos and anecdotes (Best LOL: he feels the need to explain what a collage and inspiration boards are for young fans -- ah the days before Photoshop and "mashups".)

This has been a Public Service Announcement.

It was Don McAlpine, the brilliant Director of Photography who came up with the extraordinary solution. I wanted the camera to track around the lovers inside of an elevator, as we do this, a half-dozen grips lift each panel as the camera whirs around. It was an extremely complicated logistical job, but indeed we got the shot. #romeoandjuliet #RJat20

A photo posted by Baz Luhrmann (@bazluhrmann) on Oct 31, 2016 at 8:30am PDT

Miscellania: Flatlining at Fury Road Hotel

• Ellen Page to lead the remake of 1990s film Flatliners [/Film]
• Leonardo DiCaprio walks the walk he talks. He joined a coalition of groups with combined holdings of 2.6 trillion dollars to defund climate change. (At this rate he'll win the Jean Hersholt before an actual Oscar) [New Yorker]
• Any mention of Twin Peaks is still making us tear up, given the Log Lady's recent death, but the 3rd season casting is well underway: Amanda Seyfried and Peter Sarsgaard are joining [Empire]
• Do Dump or Marry...American Horror Story: Hotel edition [MNPP]
• Speaking of... Ryan Murphy has already offered Gaga Season 6 as well [Twitter]

• I don't really watch SNL (way too many DOA skits) but loved this bit with Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton opposite Hillary Clinton as bartender "Val". She does a pretty fun Trump impression [YouTube]
• Belgian director Chantal Akerman, whose most famous film was 1975's Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles and whose new film No Home Movie we just covered for NYFF, has passed away suddenly at only 65 years of age [The Guardian]
• You can learn a lot about filmmaking from George Miller's speech on Mad Max Fury Road [Mentorless]
• Claire Danes finally broke her silence on that whole infamous early Aughts scandal when she took up with Billy Crudup. [Pajiba]  
• What are the best performances and films from the past 5 years? Sati goes all in for Mad Max Fury Road from this year but it's fun to be reminded of a few others [Cinematic Corner]
• Will Smith confirms that Jared Leto was The Joker at all times on The Suicide Squad set. [Complex]
• Rooney Mara is still being asked about the whitewashing of Tiger Lily for Pan. Still has nothing useful to say about it beyond feeling "bad". Than why take the role, Rooney? It's not like you're hurting for offers! [People]
• 50 Cent, who is no longer popular as far as I'm aware, blames the slightly declined popularity of Empire (still mega popular) on its gay content. Charming. [Towleroad]
• Marvel is trusting its in-house writer's program. Black Panther, due in theaters in 33 months, hasn't been written yet, but will likely go to Joe Robert Cole, who is part of the program that Nicole Perlman (interviewed here) was in before Guardians of the Galaxy [Variety]  
• Ashley Judd now sharing with press that a studio mogul offered her an Oscar nomination for sexual favors. Gross. ("If only Oscar nominations were that easy to come by" - Everyone who has never received one.) [Variety]
• Channing Tatum stepping behind the camera for the first time as director for teen with gun murder drama Forgive Me Leonard Peacock [/Film]
• Not everyone is happy about Warner Bros choice of writer/director on their feature film version of The Flash the novelist Seth Grahame-Smith (Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter). (Also why do an unrelated film when the TV show is so good?) [CHUD]
• 15 best films from Fantastic Fest? FSR has a genre-loving list that includes festival titles we l-o-v-e like The Witch, the soon to open Crimson Peak, and even an Oscar submission, Belgium's Brand New Testament [Film School Rejects]
• George Miller claims that two more Mad Max sequels are coming. Don't hold your breath. Remember that Fury Road was in pre-production as early as the late 90s!  [Tracking Board] 

Beauty Break: W Magazine October Issue

Behold an Inez & Vinoodh celeb-filled photoshoot they're dubbing "The New Royals" in the latest issue of W. Kicking it off with Scream Queen Jamie Lee Curtis below -- wasn't it great to see her again in Scream Queens? Ryan Murphy has his foibles -- I get that he's always trying to be "outrageous" rather than serious but there is an odd whiff of misogyny strung through everything -- but bless him for giving so many actresses of a certain age big parts.

More photogenic divas including Claire Danes and Academy Award Winner Julianne Moore* after the jump...

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Emmy Watch: Actress in a Drama Series

Andrew here with a final Emmy tribute before the Emmy Awards are announced tonight.

When we tallied our lists of favourite nominees it was Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series which was the most mentioned category and since all Film Experience writers and readers love actresses we devoted a special post to the category. In a few hours the category will see a new winner that will be historic in some way - a win to put Claire Danes among the most feted in this category? A rare win for a sci-fi show? A win for the first Black actress in this category? The first acting win for Mad Men or the first win in a non-guest category for a Netflix show? Although popular vote will eventual coalesce among a single performer, each of these women in their submission reveals something special in their performances worth remembering. And, so, as a tribute to this talented sextet, our writers take a look at each of the nominees.

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