What are Kristen Stewart's Five Good Films?

by Cláudio Alves

In the past decade, Kristen Stewart has come a long way. While her career started early and with great promise – while she was still a teenager – the actress' participation in Twilight movies soured the world's perception of her talent. It's unfair but, as of the writing of this piece, it seems to be over. With Pablo Larraín's Spencer, even the biggest Stewart skeptics have quieted, and she's on her way to a likely Oscar nomination if prognosticators are to be believed. All that and she also just got engaged to girlfriend Dylan Meyer, making this a time of great personal fulfillment as well as professional and artistic. Still, when looking back at her own filmography, it seems that the actress herself isn't as enamored with it as some fans might be…

In an interview about Spencer for The Sunday Times, Stewart said:

I've probably made five really good films out of 45 or 50 films. Ones that I go, 'Wow, that person made a top-to-bottom beautiful piece of work!

Reading this, I couldn't help but wonder what cinematic quintet she holds dear to her heart...

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The Furniture: Framing the Unseen in Personal Shopper

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

Personal Shopper is a film about ghosts, and where to find them. Maureen (Kristen Stewart) is a bereaved twin, waiting in Paris for a sign from her recently deceased brother, Lewis. But it doesn’t come easy, not in the least bit due to some unpleasant cross-currents in her professional life. She acquires clothes and accessories for Kyra (Nora von Waldstatten), a celebrity who has an irritating penchant for holding onto things she was meant to return. Maureen jets across the city and rockets under the English Channel on her behalf, toting jewelry boxes and garment bags.

All of which is to say that the material of this film is transient and fleeting, the inevitable intangibility of the personal shopper’s trade. And, of course, it is also about the translucent transience of ghosts, especially ghosts that struggle to make contact. Olivier Assayas has created a layered projection of Maureen’s psychology that refuses her the simple clarity of the mirror. Instead, she seeks her brother and herself in all of the wrong places, only slowly understanding the nature of presence.

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C O N S I D E R - Favorites of 2017, 1st Qtr

It's April already! We're too impatient to wait for the "halfway" mark for year in review listicles. So why not do it each quarter to encourage more moviegoing? Unlike many critics orgs and the Oscars, The Film Experience believes that moviegoing is a 12 month long activity and each month can hold worthy efforts.  Here are 3 (or 4 if we're torn) highlights of what we've seen thus far this year per Oscar category in alpha order. How will they measure up to what's still to come? (We'll hit favorite performances on Sunday or Monday)

Key films I missed in the first quarter that I might try and catch up with later: Cure for Wellness, The Great Wall, Staying Vertical, T2 Trainspotting, United Kingdom, and Wilson

PICTURE / DIRECTOR / SCREENPLAY

FRANTZ (François Ozon, written by Philippe Piazzo & François Ozon)
FUTURE PERFECT (Nele Wohlatz, written by Pío Longo & Nele Wohlatz)
GET OUT (Jordan Peele)
PERSONAL SHOPPER (Olivier Assayas)

The Future Perfect doesn't have distribution yet but you'd be crazy to miss the other three which were the most all-around well realized of 2017's releases thus far, from concept to execution on all levels. MUCH MORE AFTER THE JUMP...

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Linkshift

Leonardo Nam photographed by Ricky Middlesworth for Los Angeles Confidential

Golden Globes interview Westworld's fab Leonardo Nam
MTV Teo Bugbee on the texting in Personal Shopper
Inverse interesting interview with composer Hans Zimmer who is swearing off superhero movies. Sounds like he had a bad time on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Playbill celebrates Sutton Foster with a gallery of all of her stage work
Variety random selection of drunk scenes in honor of your St Patricks Day hangover
/Film Alicia Vikander to headline Ben Wheatley's Freakshift. Is the director about to break out with Free Fire?
The Guardian Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson has 26 (!!!) films in development
People Surprise! Film star Amanda Seyfried and stage and tv screen star Thomas Sadoski eloped! She'll be giving birth any day now, being 8+ months pregnant
Boy Culture Paris Jackson is looking more like Madonna than Michael Jackson 
The Guardian The great Tony Kushner on T****'s proposed cuts to the Arts
This is Not Porn Jim Carrey on the set of The Mask. Just because
MNPP drools on Justin Theroux (it's only right) and shares the season 3 Leftovers trailer 
Tracking Board on how the design aspects of Beauty & the Beast (2017) lack a cohesive vision
Variety Weinstein Co's Oscar prospects this year include the biblical drama Mary Magdalene (Nov 24th) and the historical Thomas Edison drama The Current War (Dec 22) starring Benedict Cumberbatch

Exit Video
In honor of Sutton Foster's birthday, a great moment from Bunheads, a show we greatly miss (but at least we have Younger in its place for Sutton fixes) 

Personal Shopper's Official Poster Has Got Your Number

Fresh off its big win for Best Unreleased Film from the prestigious Team Experience Awards, Olivier Assayas and Kristen Stewart’s Personal Shopper keeps racking gasps this week with the release of its official (mesmerizing! gorgeous! strangely reminiscent of Hou Hsaiao-hsein's The Assassin!) poster below. The Cannes-stamped film will finally hit theaters in March and for fans of Clouds of Sils Maria, the duo's inaugural joint endeavor, spring can't come soon enough. If you stare at the poster and repeat the title five times at the stroke of midnight, rumor has it that Kristen Stewart will climb out of your computer screen in a shimmery metallic frock!