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.)
Do you purchase or rent DVDs movies anymore or just wait for streaming -- however long that takes? If you do the following titles have emerged in the past week on Blu-Ray or DVD: The Finest Hours in which Chris Pine gets a man vs. ocean movie cuz Chris Hemsworth got one; Gods of Egyptwhich is terrible but in so-bad-it's-great way; How to Be Single which is better than you'd think but way overstuffed but you should probably see it for another great performance variation on "the boyfriend" by Jake Lacy (he's got that market covered but he's so good at it with no two characters feeling like the same guy); Pride & Prejudice & Zombies which is fun for what it is if nothing more; also new are Race, Risen, Triple 9, and Zoolander 2.
But on to the fun part, New to Streaming. Because, to quote the one and only Carrie Fisher:
Instant gratication takes too long.
Let's do our fun little freeze frame game on new streaming titles. The following films were frozen on one image completely at random to see what showed up. They're all new on either Netflix of Amazon Prime. Ready? Let's play!
J Edgar (2011) on Netflix
Charles Lindbergh. Lindbergh's baby has been kidnapped.
A fun drinking came while streaming J Edgar in five easy steps 1. Take a drink every time you wish Clint Eastwood wasn't terrified of color 2. Take a drink every time you wish Tom Stern would throw a damn light on the set for once 3. Take a drink every time you see bad old age makeup in closeup 4. Take a drink every time you're glad AMPAS dodged a bullet on this one and it's not part of Oscar history 5. Die of alcohol poisoning.
Six Degrees of Separation (1993)
You said when artists dream they dream of money. ...I must be such an artist.
Love this movie. Stockard Channing was just sensational in it. (And what a great Best Actress year 1993 was)
Vulture every lightsaber in the Star Wars franchise ranked. Solid rankings actually and I rarely say that about other people's lists ;) NPR talks to Harvey Keitel about his role in Youth Coming SoonTrainspotting 2 is officially a go. The entire principal cast returns to reprise their roles. Ready for round two of Ewan McGregor as Renton? i09 Ryan Coogler may follow up Creed behind the cameras of Marvel's Black Panther (2018)
LA Times Directors of Room, Love and Mercy, Brooklyn, Sicario and more discuss nailing crucial scenes PeopleSisters "The Farce Awakens". Tina Fey & Amy Poehler are going head to head with Star Wars on December 18th Interview Magazine talks to Jake Lacy (Carol), our favorite "square" boyfriend at the movies In Contention Laverne Cox helps with the Tangerine Oscar campaign Awards Daily the current BFCA scores for several movies. It's always amusing to see how this lines up with their actualy nominations (which arrive on December 14th) BroadwayCon it's pricey but theater fans are getting their own convention this January. A big list of theater favorites (Alice Ripley, Jonathan Groff, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Kerry Butler, etcetera...) already confirmed as guests The Tracking Board has a ton of information and downloadable PDFs of 2015's Hit List, the best as yet unproduced specs
Old Queens We Love Hey we were as surprised as you that they all showed up in the news feed on the same day THR Kathleen Turner speaks about equal pay in Hollywood and reveals new plans -- a King Lear adaptation starring her. I just died reading that. She is so amazing on stage. THR two time Oscar winner Glenda Jackson sticks toe back in the acting waters after years of retirement... from acting at least /Film Barbra Streisand is supposedly going to direct a Catherine the Great movie. I'll believe it when I'm in the theater. She's as bad as Warren Beatty about kicking back at home and occassionally promising to work. It rarely happens! Vulture Sir Ian McKellen improvised a song for Beauty & The Beast but Bill Condon didn't put it in the movie! The Stake discovers how funny Carrie Fisher is with an old bit from SNL. That's a good thing about the Star Wars revival since she's a national treasure. Read her books! Wall Street Journal talks to Carrie Fisher who gives good quote as usual.
Was there ever a point when you thought, ‘I don’t want to do this new movie’?
Never. I’ve been this character for 40 years, why would I not? Because I’m going to be associated with Princess Leia more? There is no “more.” And I’m a female working in show business, where, if you’re famous, you have a career until you’re 45, maybe. Maybe. And that’s about 15 people.
List Mania ! Guardian is doing a top 50 countdown daily... they're almost to the top ten and for US readers they've already covered lots of films you loved from 2014 (Mommy, Birdman, etcetera) some from 2016 (The Lobster) and 2015 goodies like Steve Jobs, Sicario and Tangerine (way way too low at #48) BOFCA released their awards and they yelled "what a day. what a lovely day" giving Mad Max Fury Road five prizes. As we stated last season, we're no longer going to follow / write about all the regional critics awards - just the one's that are long running with history. Why? There are nearly 40 of them now and most debuted in the past 10 years. It's too much and only important in the cumulative. But we'll probably link up like this. Time Magazine recently hired Stephanie Zacharek (good choice, Time) and her top ten list is here: It's topped by Spotlight as so many top ten lists will be and includes both Hollywood triumphs (Creed) and indie sensations (Tangerine). Love what she writes about I'll See You In My Dreams:
How do you know when there are no surprises left in life? The surprise is that…you don’t. In Brett Haley’s gentle but potent comedy, veteran actress Blythe Danner plays a seventy-ish retired schoolteacher, long widowed, whose staid life takes a sharp left when two men appear on the scene almost simultaneously: Pool cleaner Martin Starr is the kind of platonic friend you meet only once in a lifetime; silver fox Sam Elliott is the love interest you never could have planned for.
Must Watch I shudder when I see mashups like this to think of the man hours in making them. Adele's "Hello" cobbled together from a huge variety of movies...
Katey, Joe, Nathaniel and Nick, get stranded on Mars with Astronaut Matt Damon. After rescuing each other they fall for shopgirl Rooney Mara with Cate Blanchett. Yes, we're discussing Ridley Scott's The Martian (now playing at a theater near you) and Todd Haynes's Carol (opening November 20th but surely already playing in your head).
Nathaniel is sick -- apologies for the vocal germs! -- so Katey hosts this one.
43 minutes 00:01-14:30 The Martian. How often must mankind save Matt Damon? 14:31-40:00 The miraculous healing powers of Carol. Struggling with/loving on Rooney's remoteness and Blanchett's range and roll. 40:01-43:00 Oscar fanfare / Sign-offs
You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversation in the comments won't you? Especially those two prompt questions: What did you think of The Martian and when were you most turned on by Cate Blanchett?
Our friend Diana Drumm is in Cannes and will be sending a few reviews our way. First up, Todd Haynes hotly anticipated Carol... (note: this review contains a couple of spoilers for those who haven't read the book)
Within a year of publication, Patricia Highsmith’s first novel “Strangers on a Train” became a seminal Hitchcock thriller. After half a century, her second novel “The Price of Salt” (published under the pseudonym of Claire Morgan) is now a Todd Haynes romantic drama (under the succinct title Carol). Whereas the former concerns two male strangers duplicitous in murder, the latter is about two women finding love in constrictive 1952 New York City. Turning the pulp novel into a palpable parable, Carol is a master stroke in Haynes’s 21st century oeuvre (Far from Heaven, Mildred Pierce, et al.), and harkens back to the pressurized strength of Safe and the sexual fluidity of Velvet Goldmine - both capturing and throwing off the starched restrictiveness of postwar America, and deftly upgrading the melodrama with social relevance.
Inspired by Highsmith’s own stint at Macy’s (and her affair with Philadelphia socialite Virginia Kent Catherwood), 20-something shopgirl Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara) waits on and is struck by elegant “blondish woman in a fur coat” Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett). A friendship builds between the two, to the jealousy of Therese’s huffy square boyfriend (Jake Lacy), who dismisses it as schoolgirl crush, and the consternation of Carol’s matinee-handsome, soon-to-be ex-husband (Kyle Chandler), who uses it as ammunition in their ongoing divorce negotiations. [More]
Thursday, June 2, 2016 at 9:35PM 
Do you purchase or rent DVDs movies anymore or just wait for streaming -- however long that takes? If you do the following titles have emerged in the past week on Blu-Ray or DVD: The Finest Hours in which Chris Pine gets a man vs. ocean movie cuz Chris Hemsworth got one; Gods of Egypt which is terrible but in so-bad-it's-great way; How to Be Single which is better than you'd think but way overstuffed but you should probably see it for another great performance variation on "the boyfriend" by Jake Lacy (he's got that market covered but he's so good at it with no two characters feeling like the same guy); Pride & Prejudice & Zombies which is fun for what it is if nothing more; also new are Race, Risen, Triple 9, and Zoolander 2. 
