The Linking

GQ an oral history of the great sitcom Cheers
/Film first looks inside Darren Aronofsky's Noah's Ark via the great cinematographer Matthew Libatique. They should've filmed this under the pseudonym Snakes on a Boat and surprised us all with a Noah's Ark movie.
Indie Wire talks to the director of Room 237. Is the documentary, a compilation of theories and obsessions surrounding Stanley Kubrick's The Shining a celebration or a critique of film critics? I'm dying to see this even though I'm no expert on The Shining.

NY Post the Self Styled Siren takes on Brian de Palma's Passion, a remake of the french thriller Love Crimes which starred Ludivine Sagnier (interviewed).
Oklahoma is excited about the stars of August: Osage County in their midst (reminder: filming has begun!) There's a few blurry pics of stars (as well as some clear ones) and one of Meryl Streep doesn't look much like her but I'll take their word for it given the blur. 
Hollywood.com wonders if audiences want to be challenged at the movies. A question posed through the film Compliance (which you'll remember I wasn't crazy about though I do love a good movie challenge.)
Now Toronto Rian Johnson talking about his fine Looper stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis 
The Film Doctor notes on The Master
In Contention wonders if Skyfall could land a best picture nomination 
Hollywood Elsewhere Guillermo Del Toro on Ken Russell's great film The Devils 

Finally...
Do you all follow the Vanity Fair tumblr? It's fun. I love this Bruce Handy quote they recently featured:

“PARKER POSEY IS SCARY AND ANGULAR AND LOOKS LIKE SHE COULD SAY SOMETHING MEAN ABOUT YOU IN BED. SHE’S TWO-THIRDS OF THE WAY TO CATHERINE KEENER. ZOOEY DESCHANEL, ON THE OTHER HAND, IS TWO-THIRDS OF THE WAY TO MY LITTLE PONY.”

and it just begs for a poll...

poll by twiigs.com

A Whiff of TIFF

As you may have heard on Twitter, it looks like I'll be attending the last four days of the Toronto International Film Festival (i.e. the time when most of the journos have gone home) due to a very last minute window of time and my standard impulse control problems ("But... moviessssss! I must ?!!")

I love TIFF and I haven't been in way too long. So I'm winging it which is not the best way to approach one of the biggest and bestest festivals in the world but we do what we can do in the way that we can do it. If you want to help The Film Experience be on sounder financial footing next year, and help Nathaniel maybe get to Cannes or Telluride for the first time  (I can dream!) please consider the subscription donation in the right hand side bar. If everyone who loved this site spent the price of a cup of coffee on the blog every month, the world would open up to us like an oyster. No... not like an oyster... 

Amir, who covered the festival for us last year, will be doing a bit more this year and I'll pick up the baton in a week for the last few days.  (My regular podcast mate Nick Davis (first timer!) is going, too. TFE friend / podcast mate Katey Rich, and yours truly, will arrive next week.) Then, almost as soon as I return to New York, Michael Cusumano (of "Burning Questions" fame) and I will start covering the 50th annual New York Film Festival (NYFF) for you. Sound good?

TIFF's opening day features an all star live reading of the American Beauty screenplay which we really wish we coulda been there for given that Christina Hendricks is doing Annette Bening's part. The opening film is Rian Johnson's time travel head scratcher LOOPER which is already winning positive reviews, omg!you-gotta-see-this type buzz and even some playful tweetdowns like this...

Are you excited that festival season is here? Which films are you most desperate to have in front of your eyeballs right this second?

Linkrise Blogdom

Rex Pickett, the author of Sideways, writes an open letter to Virginia Madsen. As a writer I get why he's pissed but I do think he's undervaluing the depth of her contribution to that movie.
Playbill Peter O'Toole is retiring from acting, on both stage and screen. 
Ginger Haze awesome Spider-Man vs. Lizard cartoon
Variety Chris Cooper has joined the August: Osage County. It's an Adaptation reunion... let's just pray that Mr. Cage doesn't show up. 

Movie|Line Robert Pattinson talks bullshit about playing James Bond. Wouldn't it be so weird if your every wandering train of thought spread all over the internet? 
The Cooler beautiful essay on Wes Anderson's Noah Ark motif in Moonrise Kingdom 
The Film Stage a preview Nathan Johnson's futuristic Looper score.  
Encore Entertainment Clothes Horse. Can you guess where these costumes are from?
Shock Til You Drop displays the Carrie (2013) banner from San Diego's Comic Con. The hashtag the P&A team is pushing is #WhatHappenedToCarrie ... um, well... She got pointlessly dug up from her grave for starters. To be played by the least meek least shy least awkward teenager on the planet.

Oh and yes, I heard about all the Catching Fire casting news and the splitting Mockingjay into two movies and all of that but I do not care.  I was mildly interested in the Hunger Games franchise until today. I mean, I definitely didn't hate it like that other YA franchise. Now I think I'm done. Now it proves, like too many franchises before it, that it has no interest in storytelling, only an interest in feeding Hollywood's gaping maw. I think, no exaggeration, that this split up final books into two movies to make an extra billion even if it means barely anything happens in the movie is the worst thing that's happened to mainstream cinema in the past five years. Even worse than 3D!

Tweet o' the Day: This Games of Thrones funny is from Scott

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Looper"

The subject is time travel. It only seemed thematically appropriate to post this highly anticipated trailer for LOOPER a week before it premiered but pretend we posted it a week late. 

This time travel crap will fry your brain like an egg"

See, the following conversation actually took place in the past with your comments arriving now from god knows when; surprise us by dating your reaction in the comments. For all we know you're writing from Los Angeles the morning after Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Oscar win as Bruce Willis in the stuffy cradle-to-tomb biopic Bruce Dies Hardest (2031). You know AMPAS will still love those Star-As-Star biopics deep into the 21st century. Ohmygod. His inflection on "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker" alone was chilling. He BECAME Bruce Willis.

Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker

When were we? It's time to break down the trailer after the jump with our patented Yes No Maybe So system. It's time to break down the trailer after the jump with our patented Yes No Maybe So system. It's time to break down the trailer after the jump with our patented Yes No Maybe So system. It's time to break down the trailer after the jump with our patented Yes No Maybe So system. It's time to break down the trailer after the jump with our patented Yes No Maybe So system.

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