Reader Spotlight: Ziyad

In this Reader Appreciation series we're getting to know the Film Experience community, one person at a time ;) Today's interviewee is Ziyad who was born in Barcelona and is currently in Tel Aviv. He's truly international.

So let's jump right in.

Nathaniel: Do you remember your first filmgoing experience?
ZIYAD: Beauty and the Beast, I was 5 years old, the whole family (my parents and 2 brothers) went to a late showing, I fell asleep after 5 minutes and I woke up after in the ending credits, I got so pissed they didn't wake me so I forced my parents to take me again the next day.

Dedication. I love it. When did you start reading?
Around September 2004, I was checking if Javier Bardem had a chance at getting nominated for The Sea Inside, I loved the "actressexuality", bookmarked it instantaneously and since then visited on a daily basis. My favorite part: Film Bitch Awards -- I owe you copyrights for doing my own with your extra categories as well, EVERY YEAR, the difference is that I do it for myself and have no place to share it.

3 favorite actresses. Go.

Julianne Moore, she is my goddess, my face glows by just seeing her, in anything;  Meryl Streep... "She could play Batman and be the right choice"; And a tie between Carmen Maura, Hiam Abbass, Susan Sarandon, Bette Davis, and Kate Winslet. SORRY! Right now Emma Stone is everything to me. Every time I watch Easy A I fall a little bit more in love with her.

Um this is less of a "tie" than an ensemble film!

I'm horrible at following orders.

Take one Oscar away from something and give it to something else.
I'm going to have to do two. I take Angelina Jolie's Oscar for Girl, Interrupted and give it to Julianne Moore for Magnolia (god, it HURTS physically that she wasn't even nominated). I think I could take every Oscar and give it to Julianne Moore.

All the Oscars Belong To Her.

The second one, is actually a movie... I would take A Beautiful Mind's and give it to Amelie. Best Movie Ever.

What's one movie you're super ashamed to say you haven't seen and why is it taking you so long?

The Godfather Trilogy. I'm just lazy.

Previous Reader Spotlights:
Andrew, Yonatan, Keir, Kyle, Jamie, Vinci, Victor, Bill, Hayden, Dominique, Murtada, Cory, Walter, Paolo, Leehee and BBats

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Crazy Stupid Love"

The tradition here at The Film Experience is to break down new movie trailers under Yes, No and Maybe So reactions. It's a way to measure expectations rather than allow good (or bad) marketing to totally control us. But watching the trailer for the new comedy Crazy Stupid Love defeated my critical sensibilities entirely. It left me giddy and "Can I see this today. Please!???"

This single image best sums it up.

It's more for the two thumbs up than for the Tomei, though our thumbs are always up for Marisa, too. But this is one of those rare trailers wherein every new star that appears just ups the pleasure ante.

I guess we should play the game anyway. For consistency's sake.

Click to read more ...

"these strange links happen all the time"

Alt Film Guide reports on a fascinating-sounding Art Direction seminar coming to Hollywood later this month. It's $40 for the whole series / $30 for students. I'd sign up if I were in LA. Several Oscar nominees are speaking.
Towleroad Remember when Julianne Moore was supposed to play Hilary Clinton?
Time is taking your votes for their upcoming Time 100 list. The list is narrowed down to 200 now. Naturally some movie people are on the finalist list including but by no means limited to Lee Unkrich of Pixar fame, Angie & Brad, and to my delight, The Bening.
Gold Derby Speaking of Annette Bening. She's getting another honor this time from Women in Film in June. But weirdness. They've named Katie Holmes "the face of the future" Um... This isn't 1999.

Go Fug Yourself imagines a conversation between Nicole Kidman & Keith Urban. Comes with the requisite poll of course. Do you like this look?
Twitch, noticing all the underage killers in movies, does the only sane thing one can do: LIST.
Stale Popcorn posts his self proclaimed crowning moment: a top ten Renée Zellweger facial expressions in her Case 39 movie. Oh Zeéeeee you expressive loon.
Viktor Hertz Pictogram Movie Posters? Have I ever shared these before? I can't keep track. They're so fun. The best ones are for the horror movies like Psycho and Rosemary's Baby and Magnolia. Well, Magnolia is not technically a horror movie but I like that poster too. Horror of the soul perhaps?

I didn’t love him when we met and I did so many bad things to him that he doesn’t know. Things that I want to confess to him, but now I do. I love him…. This isn’t any fucking medication talking! This isn’t. I don’t know, I don’t know. Can you give me nothing? You have power of attorney! Can you go, can you go in the final fucking moments and change the will? I don’t want any money. I couldn’t live with myself with this thing that I’ve done. I’ve done so many bad things...

When Did Stars Start Posing As Other Stars?

Remember these photos of Julianne Moore as Bette Davis, Ann-Margret and Marlene Dietrich? I can't remember when they were taken exactly. I want to say 1999?

When did all this start? It's a question for the pop culture historians out there. It's been going on for as long as I can remember. And one of the funniest things about is it people get excited each time like it's a new concept. Remember the hoopla over that Vanity Fair Alfred Hitchcock shoot a couple years back when Jodie Foster did The Birds, Javier Bardem and ScarJo did Rear Window and Marion Cotillard did Psycho and so on and so on and so on?

Often this star-on-star mimicry involves Marilyn Monroe. One might have an easier time listing the people who haven't posed as her than listing the people who have. I'm not even talking about the people who have actually played Her (or thinly veiled interpretations of her) in the movies or on television or stage and that list is even longer.

Here's just a small sampling or Marilyn tributes from Madonna, Lindsay Lohan, Angelina Jolie and Scarlett Johansson.

Yes this has a lot to do with iconic imagery and nostalgia but both iconography and nostalgia predate the birth of Marilyn Monroe. Unless the scientists and the zealots are both wrong and the world began on June 1st, 1926. And if it did why the hell was Marilyn Monroe pretending to be Theda Bara?

But anyway... by the time I was born, Marilyn was already well established as Hollywood's most present ghost and she's never stopped haunting popular culture. [Tangent: The first star that I actually remember the death of was Natalie Wood on November 29th, 1981 since West Side Story, which I watched religiously every time I could find it on tv, was my gateway drug into movie freakdom. Rapid onset Oscar mania was just a few years round the corner. Was I trying to fill the hole that Natalie left by discovering Streep, Close, Hurt & Turner, Bridges & Pfeiffer and all the rest?  I was... distraught...  to say the least.]

This subject is on my brain since I unpacked that "Life at the Movies" book and saw this photo of Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood doing a silent film Rudolph Valentino & Vilma Bánky thing.

Isn't that cute? But wait there's more. How about Paul Newman as a swashbuckler a la Fairbanks / Power

Click to read more ...

Cast This! "Game Change" w/ Julianne Moore

The news of Julianne Moore's casting as Sarah Palin in HBO's Game Change, adapted from the best-selling tell-all about the 2008 Presidential Race, is spreading like wildfire. I haven't read a single piece on it yet (other than the opinion-free news bit from The Hollywood Reporter) but one imagines many Tina Fey references will be popping up. How can anyone outdo that particular crucifixion by spiritiually dead-on mimicry? Perhaps Juli has been considering the role for sometime and asked for pointers on the set of 30 Rock?

Here at the Film Experience we try never to think of Sarah Palin, a true blight on American culture (though perhaps the celebrity we most deserve as Americans given our national habit of treasuring stupidity). Given their diametrically opposed politics, we can only imagine Julianne Moore weeping when thinking of the Politertainer in real life. Though Julianne Moore's whole screen persona tilts toward the weepy so...

Speaking of weeping.

Here at The Film Experience we regularly weep knowing that the surest way for the truly great and imaginative screen actors (like Moore herself) to win prizes is to eschew their own imaginative gift for character creation and hone their technical ability to mimic other famous people instead. But since that's the world we live in, perhaps Julianne can finally win some hardware? At least a Globe? Though she's one of modern cinema's most acclaimed performers she's actually unpracticed at the art of acceptance speeches. Though she won an Daytime Emmy before hitting the movies, since she achieved fame she's won virtually nothing apart from untelevised critics prizes or "special" you're awesome type of career honors -- like the recent Hasty Puddings situation. Apart from a rare "Ensemble" or shared prize she has never won: an Oscar, a Golden Globe, Cannes, SAG, BAFTA, or a Primetime Emmy. She hasn't even managed an MTV tub o' popcorn or even a Saturn win! Her biggest "gets" were the Volvi cup in Venice, the Spirit Award and the "Critics Choice" all for  Far From Heaven (2002). And regarding the latter, had the BFCA been the organization in size, shape and tone that they are now back then, she wouldn't have even won that! And I say that as a (frustrated) voting member.

What do you make of this news? Excited to see her try mimicry for a change?

CAST THIS
Since Julianne Moore is the only star announced thus far that leaves four major power couple roles uncast? Who would you have as (clockwise from top left: John & Elizabeth Edwards, Bill & Hilary, John and Cindy McCain, and Michelle and Barack Obama. And oops I forgot Joe Biden in the photo.

Who would YOU place in the other roles?