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.)
film/tv • Towleroad - I am so not an Andy Cohen fan but this game 'uncomfortably close' that gets Andrew Rannells and Matt Bomer nose-to-nose is... well, I'm here for it. It's also nice to learn that they both made excellent choices in their favorite movie ever. • i09 fun illustrated poster of 80s movies. I'd ask you to see how many you recognize but if you know the 80s you'll know them all because the films represented (save arguably one) are fairly pop culture famous • IndieWire -the new super in Incredibles 2 is very Kristen Stewart-esque • AV Club -apparently ABC is really trying to come up with a way to continue Roseanne without Roseanne! • Deadline report on the filming of Avatar 2 and Avatar 3. Zoe Saldana has already wrapped her part and James Cameron brags that Kate Winslet can hold her breath underwater for seven minutes. Hmmm. Is that even possible for humans? Really? • Mirror - very odd report on Catherine Zeta-Jones bragging about her fortune and beauty. File under 'if you got it, flaunt it' I guess?
all Supers all the time • FSR Captain Marvel will use female Turkish composer Pinar Toprak for the score. That's quite a surprise since her filmography to date is quite obscure with mostly low profile documentaries and TV movies but congratulations! I've never seen the series Krypton, her highest profile gig. If you do, how do you like the music?
• Coming Soon - Wonder Woman's sequel is called Wonder Woman 1984 and there are a few new photos. Love the brighter costume. Annoyed that Steve Trevor is back. No one ever stays dead in comic book films! • ComicBook.com - Kevin Smith got Marvel screenwriters to say how they'd fix the DC Extended Universe of movies. Sound simple advice but I can't imagine DC is happy about the conversation. • /Film a bit of info on Patrick Wilson's villain in Aquaman and why he was cast
offscreen • Damian Alexander - insightful cartoon about the way boys are trained to devalue female protagonists. I relate so much because I loved heroines from the start but knew instinctively that that was 'weird'.
We're revisiting the highs and the lows of the Globes. Here's Jorge...
Because next to the winners, random celebrity pairings are the best part of the ceremony, let's rank them.
33. Casey Affleck: I will say it now. I do not support Casey Affleck nor his campaign. His performance is one thing, but he is presenting his (problematic) self at the award circuit. I did not like watching him introduce Manchester by the Sea (let alone winning). Knowing he has had many trips on stage this season, they could have had Michelle or Lucas Hedges go up to make it more interesting.
32. Sofia Vergara: How much longer can the highest paid actress in television keep basing her brand on the notion that she can’t speak English? The joke is getting old and, frankly, denigrating for her.
31. Vince Vaughn: He looked like he did not want to be there, at this moment or any other point during the ceremony...
Last week we swooned over Dane DeHaan’s pitch perfect portrayal of a self-serious gay NYC teen in In Treatmentand this week we’re returning to what continues to be HBO’s most cherished LGBT theme: the AIDS crisis. We’ve talked about it here, there, and here, here, and yep, here again… Much of this project has been about discovery, but The Normal Heart is still relatively recent and so below find some words I’d dispatched when I first saw it close to two years ago.
“And every gay man who refuses to come forward now and fight to save his own life is truly helping to kill the rest of us.” — Ned Weeks
Anger fuels much of The Normal Heart and the play/film’s ability to showcase such raw and seemingly useless feeling is one of the more extraordinary things to come out of Kramer’s life and work. Curmudgeoney as Kramer and Ned Weeks may come off, their anger is not only justified but necessary. It makes for a tacit and probably unintentional meta-nod to have the Hulk himself play him. [More...]
/Film the first footage from Disney's Moana Playbill Rapper Daveed Diggs on getting his shot on Broadway's smash hit Hamilton expanding the world. (I hope to one day see this show. C'mon lottery gods!) Gizmodo an exo suit from Edge of Tomorrow constructed from junk! MNPP pic of the day Matthias Schoenaerts in A Bigger Splash
Comics Alliance apparently director James Gunn says Captain America: Civil War is awesome and this has excited the internet for some reason. Next time someone OUTSIDE of Marvel's employ enthuses about one of their movies early, get back to us? The Envelope thinks that Mad Max Fury Road and Carol will lead Oscar nominations (with 9 each). I dare not hope that this is true because that's just so much fabulousness in one Oscar year. /Film claims that the breakout character of Star Wars is TR-8R -- this shows how well we've been following Star Wars stanning because who knew? Cinema Blend Joss Whedon talks about why he's done with Marvel Reverse Shot a deeply insightful look at Star Wars: The Force Awakens - it's possible that f I've linked to this before but even so, it's a must read. Towleroad Matt Bomer covers Men's Fitness credits Channing Tatum for his current peak physique
Hateful Tangents Interview talks to Demian Bichir about his first gig with Tarantino. Bichir gave the second best performance in it if you ask me because he realized in the absence of being given a real character to play, play a Real Character. Slate the Movie Club is in session and it's hilarious and thoughtful as always. They argue over whether The Hateful Right is "ineffably evil", share the joys of Spy and Carol, and observe tricky critical duties as with Tangerine and The Danish Girl. Bonus points for the "f*** this thing" cat gif. Cinematic Corner on her issues with the heroism of rapists and murderers in The Hateful Eight.
I'm trying to let hate for Hateful Eight go, I really am. But it's like an exorcism. It takes time and I guess I've still got some pea soup to vomit up. I've made no secret that I personally despise this movie -- but I have been reading reviews with kind of a morbid fascination because of how much people try to say it's still somehow a good movie after lining up their lengthy issues with it. I'm not the only one who has noticed this.
It is not a good movie. In fact it's kind of a betrayal of Tarantino by Tarantino because it's him fucking up things he used to do better than anyone. There is zero depth to the characterizations beyond the most simplistic "What a character!" outline, the gore (such as exploding heads) adds nothing other than wank-bank material for sadists, the dialogue is severely lacking in his usual cleverness, and worst of all Tarantino displays none of his usual skill at that constant electric hum of "shit is about to go down!" that powers all of his best films. The only tension in this particular movie is wondering when the shit will finally go down so that it will end. If you think of all of his best films the tension is alive in every scene. The scenes repeatedly feel dangerous as if anything might happen. And something nearly always does. Here we basically have any of those individual scenes only they're now 3 hours long and the tension just goes out of it completely because who cares?
In short, stop justifying this work people; It's okay to think a movie is terrible when it is! Most great auteurs have a dud (or five) somewhere in their filmography. If we try to convince ourselves that every thing a single person makes is masterful, we are denying our own critical faculties and it also makes our love for their true masterpieces highly suspect. For instance here are a five filmmakers I regularly cite when people ask me for "all time favorites": Haynes, Almodovar, Cameron, Minnelli, Hitchcock. All of them have made a film or films that were not that great or that I could not personally connect to. That does not lessen their genius for me. That just means they're human and it helps me to appreciate their masterworks more because I know the love is true and not me trying to argue myself into fandom.
Try this at home. Realize that The Hateful Eight is a shit movie and go back to loving any of his much better films. And cry with me when The Hateful Eight takes Oscar nominations from far more deserving players in ten days time.
She did this in order to kill off a paparazzi's shot at making a ton of money off of creeping on her at the beach. Smart girl. We don't follow celebrity pregnancies so have no idea when she's due but it looks like soon... CONGRATS TO ANNIE & HUSBAND.
List-Mania Top Tens: Variety (Guy Lodge), The Telegraph (Robbie Collins); Slate (Dana Stevens); Pop Culture Crazy (Kacey Bange) Lists Lists Lists: Gothamist (Best Celebrity Subway Sightings); Pajiba (Seriously F*** That Guy - a retrospective of rage); Pajiba (5 Most Intriguing new Netflix Series. They don't mention Daredevil because it's about new series but season 2 kicks off in March, fwiw); Forbes releases their "30 Under 30" List which includes both of The Force Awakens new stars, natch, as well as all three Straight Outta Compton leads.
First Oscar Commercial of the New Year Chris Rock kinda sorta prophesies those annual nasty post-show reviews you read every year.
BFI Check out the Sight & Sound poll for 2015. Not pleased that The Assassin topped the immeasurably finer twofer of Carol & Mad Max Fury Road but it is what it is. Perennial critical darling peculiarities abound like Blackhat placing about Ex Machina. Oh please. I didn't hate the former like some but one must assume that's solely on Michael Mann's reputation, the way some filmmakers get a competition spot at Cannes simply because they directed something. HuffPo Reid Ewing from Modern Family talks about body dysmorphia and getting frequent plastic surgery The Guardian on a Carol gift-wrapping promotion - it breaks my heart that people keep thinking this is a watch it on DVD film. It's SO breathtakingly cinematic. GO TO THE THEATER. /FilmGremlins may take a page from Jurassic World/Creed and continue the story decades later
Coming Soon latest Star Wars The Force Awakens news & rumors if you're into that sort of thing. We made a very conscious choice not to watch anything beyond the teaser or to cover it until ti opens. We want to preserve the mystery and thus the possible joy. Antagony & Ecstasy reviews the original Star Wars trilogy MNPP Matt Bomer may play The Last Tycoon for Amazon Vanity Fair Ryan Gosling may play Neil Armstrong for Damien Chazelle In Contention how the critic awards can boost players in the Oscar race /Film there are competing Evel Knievel movies on the way one from (possibly Martin Scorsese) and one from Channing Tatum. Do kids today know who Knievel is? AV Club Michael B Jordan is up for another Creed movie. The movie is set to make back its budget this Thanksgiving weekend Serving Cinema in defense of Angelina Jolie's By the Sea Lip Sync Battle Anthony Mackie "2 Legit 2 Quit" versus Joseph Gordon-Levitt's "Rhythm Nation" New York Times ABC actually cancelled a show! But this is a rare with TV's new ratings math Towleroad two Brazilian actors share a kiss on live tv to combat homophobia. Our Brazilian readers should tell us if these two are as famous as this article implies. The Hollywood Reporter has an articles about LGBT cinema losing its edge. That's a topic that can be argued about certainly but Carol is an absolutely terrible example since Todd Haynes hasn't lost one iota of his power or daring and the "frostiness" that people complain about with that movie is hardly pandering, you know. Kevin O'Keefe skewers the article with one well placed barb.
"Category Fraud" Has Gone Mainstream I can't remember if I coined the term -- let's just say I did -- but I've been preaching against its evil like an obnoxiously pious mad prophet the entire time I've been Oscar blogging... which is quite a long time now. I've been seeing articles about it everywhere this year including this new one from The Hollywood Reporter. You know how when you love an obscure band and then everyone "discovers" them after the fact and you feel kind of betrayed? That. Don't get me wrong: I'm glad people are paying attention now -- perhaps we reached some sort of peak fraudulence where it became impossible to deny the problem anymore? But I also do not like that articles about this never address the media's own hand in creating this monster. (For this next sentence you'll remember that Nathaniel is playing the role of a mad pious prophet in this story and forgive his superiority complex). Other than The Film Experience practically every awards pundit / site has actively encouraged this 'all fraud all the time / end justifies the means world we're living in by regularly rationalizing leading roles as supporting in articles and actively encouraging studios and publicists to pursue fraudulent campaigns for "better Oscar chances"
Weekend Watch Jake Gyllenhaal discussses his progressive upbringing and Brokeback Mountain. I love this. Yes, we'll be celebrating the movie soon for its 10th anniversary in December.
Sir Ian McKellen talks Dame Maggie Smith and Oscar good luck charms from his stage show in Los Angeles last weekend "Women I've Filmed With"
Saturday, June 16, 2018 at 7:30PM 
film/tv
