Thankful for... Ben Miller!

This year for our "thankful for" column we're doing things differently. I'm interviewing the team so you can get to know them better. First up, BEN MILLER.

Ben joined Team Experience in the summer of 2017. He lives in Texas with his wife and kids. Like most of us here at TFE he's into Oscars and the related niche trivia fascinations that come with that. In the few years he's been at TFE he's revealed impeccable taste in actresses, caught up with classics he'd missed like Cabaret and reviewed a lot of TV including the final season of Game of Thrones. And though he called his own piece on connecting with his son through WALL•E "corny,"  I personally love his family man perspective. Sometimes sentiment is earned! 

OUR THANKSGIVING QUESTIONNAIRE FOLLOWS...

Okay, Ben, when did you first fall in love with the movies?

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Showbiz History: Julia peaks, Channing rises, and Maddie swings from chandeliers

6 random things that happened on this day, March 17th, in Showbiz History. Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

1941 The National Gallery of Art opened in DC eighty years ago today. 

1991 The 44th annual BAFTA Awards honoring the films of 1990 are held. Italy's Cinema Paradiso (which we were just discussing) is a huge hit winning 5 awards and Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas emerges triumphant with the top prize (Dances with Wolves, which will beat it at the Oscars a week later, isn't up for the BAFTAs until the following year, but it loses then to the homegrown title The Commitments)...

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Showbiz History: Nat, Kurt, "She's the Man" and "Goodfellas"

9 random things that happened on this day in showbiz history should you feel like commemorating any of them in your own way...

1906 Brigitte Helms, immortalized in Metropolis (1927) as "Maria / False Maria" is born. 

1919 Iconic musician Nat 'King' Cole born 100 years ago on this very day in Montgomery, Alabama

1941 The National Gallery of Art opens in DC. This month (right now, 2019) they're showing "films from Poverty Row" a series of low budget B films from Hollywood's glory days but made outside the big studios...

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GoodFellas at 25: why it's cinematic perfection

David here celebrating 25 years of what might be Scorsese's masterpiece...

When I signed up to write about Goodfellas, the main motivation was simply that I hadn't seen it in years - the ideal opportunity to force a rediscovery before an overwhelming onslaught of new movies. When it came to actually writing this article, though, things didn't seem so simple any more. What could I possibly say that hasn't already been said? Pieces about things you 'never knew', about where the cast are now, about the making of the movie are already widespread across the fare internet shores, because the film remains one of the all-time favourites of the straight white male demographic that dominates both film criticism and film fandom. I mean, did you miss this New York Post article a few months back? Everyone else just doesn’t get it.

The fact remains, though, that Goodfellas is a classic, and incontrovertibly so.

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Blogs He Linked

The Dissolve Disney's announces the replacement voice cast of The Good Dinosaur - what is going on with that movie?
Guardian this sounds really cool. Director Gillian Armstrong (Little Women, Mrs Soffel) has made a documentary about the Oscar winning costume designer Orry-Kelly called Women He Undressed. He had a fascinating career and was quite a famous figure in Hollywood's golden age, friends with Bette Davis and more than friends (rumored) with Cary Grant
They Live By Night "This is our Furiousa" a reflection on a rare quiet moment in Mad Max Fury Road
Elle randomness! Talking to the art director of the cover of Madonna's debut album 
NYT talks to the cast of Goodfellas on their 25 year old classic

The Playlist new images from Terrence Malick's Knight of Cups. Isn't it time to release this one? (I'm getting a To the Wonder vibe)
The Guardian looks back at Helen Mirren's breakout part at 22 (!!!) in Age of Consent (1969) 
Shadowplay has a super fun series called "The Sunday Intertitle" and the latest is about Tarzan (1929). I was brainstorming a similar series years ago but never committed so I'm so happy someone else has one! My only complaint is there is no way to link the complete series.
Pajiba wonders why critics and the internet are turning on Game of Thrones for doing the exact same things it's always done (gorey violence, lots of rape, brutal torture, etecetera). I knew to get out after the first season and second book -- definitely way too sadistic/sexist/exploitative for me -- so I've found the recent outrage peculiar since it's describing the show I saw five seasons ago to a T. 
EW Mark Harris on the sudden pop culture fascination with actual transgender celebrities as well as their fictional counterparts, particularly on television

Geeky Fandom
CineMunch continues their amusing favorite actress podcast showdowns. This one's about Pfeiffer, Witherspoon, Binoche, and The Lovely Laura Linney among others
Toybox Penny Dreadful action figures!
New Statesman Excellent piece on the enduring appeal and fan obsessiveness towards Star Wars
HuffPost Disney princes reimagined in queer context
Twitter Mulder & Sculley reunited

Two stories from the real world.
The first is horrific and the second heartwarming. A gay man has been severely tortured and his family's business vandalized in Delta, Utah. I bring this up because I've actually been to this tiny tiny city innumerable times in my life. My mom lives near there in an even tinier city and I've even posted about Delta's one movie theater before. Because that story is just too terrible to contemplate -- it could have been me or any LGBT person or any person thought to be gay whether they were gay or not and will likely be someone else in the future of any stripe (hate & violence being dumb, nonlogical, non discerning and pathological) unless the people are caught. Because that story is too depressing for words, here's a cute story about a NYPD officer who saved a kitten and now the kitten is named after him! Awwww.