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.)
Last month we dove into one of the most iconic shower scenes in cinema for April Showers. For May Flowers, Jorge takes a look into one of the most famous thematic uses of a flower in film.
American Beauty was at one point supposed to be titled American Rose. This is neither a coincidence nor an appropriate alternative. The film, a satire about American suburbia and the layers of darkness that society hides underneath their pretty but rotting exteriors, heavily uses the recurring image of rose throughout. Not just in the now iconic nude sequence with Mena Suvari.
Roses appear through the script in many key parts, usually in places where a character is putting up a façade for the world, or when they are completely submitting to their darkest impulses. Or when those two collide. Let’s take a look at where the flowers ominously represent both the attachment and the repulsion against society’s “pretty” standards...
New York Social Diary RIP gossip columnist Liz Smith. I grew up reading her syndicated column *sniffle* This link is a remembrance of her by Denis Ferrara who was a very close friend and collaborator on her column Esquire the ten best comedies of the year including Ingrid Goes West, Thor Ragnarok, Girls Trip, and Lady Bird Independent Firing Kevin Spacey from House of Cards might be more difficult than Netflix thought, legally speaking Awards Daily the case for Michelle Pfeiffer. Give her her damn Oscar already Variety Zendaya is doing a film about the first African-American woman to graduate from Vassar (who passed as white to do so). It's called A White Lie
DeadlineWonder Woman 2 has moved to a November 1st 2019 release and Gal Gadot, contrary to reports over the weekend, is already locked in to star. Patty Jenkins will direct again. We hope there's no sophomore slump because the first one was so damn enjoyable/inspiring Variety keeps us updated with what's going on with Martin Scorsese's The Irishman which Netflix will stream. Variety, perhaps for click-bait purposes, acts like the theatrical release is in doubt but it is surely not; Scorsese would never sign a contract that doesn't give him at least some theatrical distribution so expect the usual limited release that no one goes to in theaters because its' also streaming for free on Netflix situation (upcoming with Mudbound) IndieWire Denis Villeneuve might direct Bond 25 but right now a relaunch of Dune is still his priority YouTube new trailer for The Greatest Showman. It's basically the old trailer with a couple more dialogue clips thrown in and some less tuneful than "This Is Me" song that Jackman is talk/singing. I'm still dying to see it because musicals for life, don'cha know /Film Quentin Tarantino's next movie is about the year of 1969 rather than the Charles Manson murders as previously reported. Let's hope it's better than that 1988 film 1969 which starred Winona Ryder and Robert Downey Jr
Off Screen Damn Joan a Barbie doll funeral Vulture every Taylor Swift song ever, ranked. Fun read even though i think it's silly and click-baity to claim "Look What You Made Me Do" is the worst song she ever wrote Theater Mania 11 Asian-American shows on stages this season across the country Playbill Lin-Manuel Miranda's ongoing effort to help Puerto Rico recover from Hurrican Maria
Exit Videos If only more directors could find a way to harness Kate Beckinsale's natural wit in movies. This video made me LOL so much. Watch every second of it, please. Below that is a Justice League if it were made in the 80s "opening credits" sequence. Cute and weirdly plausible which I'm not sure is a compliment to the movie which is about to open.
a performance that will be erased -- Kevin Spacey in "All the Money in the World"
On Wednesday night, I was talking to my wife about All the Money in the World. The upcoming thriller from director Ridley Scott features the true story of billionaire J. Paul Getty and his involvement with the kidnappers of his grandson. I brought it up because (alleged) serial sexual harasser Kevin Spacey was set to play Getty.
My discussion focused on how unfair it was to Scott, stars Michelle Williams and Mark Wahlberg, and especially young Charlie Plummer, who is poised for a breakout role as the aforementioned kidnapped grandson. Just because Spacey is a terrible human doesn’t mean the people involved in a production should suffer.
The backlash from Spacey’s allegations was swift...
a famously cheeky magazine cover from 1997Sigh. How do you solve a problem like Kevin Spacey? The actor's career started off splendidly but soon after those hugely popular double Oscar wins (The Usual Suspects and American Beauty) in the second half of the 1990s, he became rather insufferable both onscreen and as a celebrity. Acting is a subjective art but I personally can't make it through a single episode of House of Cards (I've tried a few times) with that pitched to the rafters hamminess.
The Netflix star has been resisting public admission of his open-secret homosexuality since he became famous. He's let decades go by without comment, while dozens of braver less famous actors took up the challenge and made the world a better place for future generations by coming out.
Now that he's accused of sexual assault by another man he chooses THIS moment to do it? For shame!
Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" where we are wishing the grand Dame Angela Lansbury a happy 92nd birthday today! It's difficult to believe we still have an entire year before Rob Marshall's Mary Poppins Returns film comes out (Xmas 2018) but we're still hoping, as we did when she was cast, that Landsbury's got something lovely to work with in the film - we don't get to see her on-screen nearly as often as we'd like to.
But she's such a legend... how could I possibly find someone to compete? Well "somebody" already had the gumption to do it herself - in 2004 a working actress by the name of Meryl Streep tackled Lansbury's still delightfully against-type turn in the remake of The Manchurian Candidate. So let's put these two ladies in a room and see which one walks out...
PREVIOUSLY Did everybody watch Mindhunter over the weekend? I did not so don't say anything if you did. But feel free to share your thoughts on last week's decision on David Fincher's original serial-killer vision Se7en, in which y'all chose Brad Pitt over Kevin Spacey 57 to 42%. That needs explaining! Said Huh:
"Spacey gets a lot of hate nowadays but anyone who thinks Brad’s performance here is better and adds more to the film than Spacey’s is nuts."
Thursday, May 17, 2018 at 5:00PM 
