50 Appropriate Ways to Celebrate Nicole Kidman's Birthday

On this very day in Honolulu, Hawaii, 50 years ago, grad student Antony Kidman and his wife Janelle Ann welcomed a baby girl into their lives. Her Hawaiian name was "Hōkūlani" which means "Heavenly Star" and she turned out to be one. Twenty-two years later she was headlining motion pictures. A few years after that she was breaking through and in 2001 she ascended permanently into the canon of great film stars with the one two punch of Moulin Rouge! and The Others. Her name is Nicole Kidman. Perhaps you've heard of her? So happy birthday to the one and only at her half-century mark.

50 Appropriate Ways to Celebrate Nicole Kidman's 50th Birthday
Try them and report back on your success!

01 Have patience with the mere mortals around you who keep expecting you to prove yourself or don't "get" you. Humor them and keep on working because genius comes naturally to you.

02 Vote for Nicole Kidman on your Emmy ballot for her deep dive into Celeste's psyche in Big Little Lies

03 Drift in and out of an Aussie accent all day, mate

04 Kiss someone who can carry a tune or will sing you a country music song...

Click to read more ...

Five (Other) Times Nicole Kidman Should Have Been Oscar Nominated

With Nicole Kidman returning to the Oscars this weekend as a nominee, here's Abstew on a handful of roles for which Oscar did not recognize her...

When I was a child there was an Oscar almanac that I would consult for my Oscar obsession (this was long before the days of the internet). The list of actors with multiple nominations didn't begin unless the actor had 5 nominations or more. Ever since then I've had it in my head that 5 is the magical number when it comes to Oscar; a sign of a better actor, showing that their body of work over the years is worth recognition, rather than the "one and done" that so many actors face. Since Nicole Kidman has always been one of my favorites, I've thought it odd that she's been nominated a relatively low number of times compared to the quality she produces. Certainly she ranks with Kate and Cate, for example, who both have 7 nominations...

Click to read more ...

Stream This: The Others, The Piano, Inside Llewyn Davis

In the effort to stay au courant we'll alternate between Netflix and Amazon Prime for streaming news each week. And we'll freeze frame select titles at random places just for fun and see what image comes up. You know how we do! 

LAST CHANCE AMAZON PRIME

Felton: I look... is distinguished a word?
Lange: It's a word.

In Secret (2014, expires August 18th)
What is this? Oscar Isaac, Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Felton and Jessica Lange? Big name casts for movies that don't seem to actually exist that you suddenly realize do, in fact, exist, are kind of unnerving. Like how do movies that never really get released find financing to get made in the first place? Apparently Oscar Isaac plays an artist in this one (they're looking at a portrait he painted of Felton) so that's kind of smudgy hot regardless. Isaac with paint stains I mean.

Men weren't up to the task!

Robocop (2014, expires august 18th) 
So that errant quote that popped up when I slid the bar to a random point in this useless movie is as good a quote as any to describe the foolhardiness of remaking a Paul Verhoeven picture. The Dutch auteur is many things but "remakeable" is not one of them. You've lost before you've begun essentially. See also the Total Recall remake and whichever one gets remade after that... maybe Basic Instinct?

seven more freeze framed films, some great/some terrible, after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Team Top 10: Horror Films AFTER "The Exorcist"

It's Amir here, bringing you the second episode of this month's Team Top Ten. Last week we looked at the best horror films made before The Exorcist. This week it's time for everything that came after that seminal classic. Moreso than in the previous list, Team Experience members have agreed on canonical titles, barring an exception or two. This isn't to say there weren't any surprises. We decided against compiling a preliminary list of eligible titles before voting - precisely to avoid total agreement on our choices - and lo and behold, differences in opinion over what is considered horror lead to some major eyebrow-raisers; I'm already anticipating your comments about the absence of Jaws. But that's the fun in list-making.

Without further ado join us for the haunted house, serial killers, and terrifying isolation of...

The Top Ten Best
Post-Exorcist Horror Films

Click to read more ...

To Nicole on Her 46th Birthday

Tim here. The career and talents of Nicole Kidman have been well-examined at the Film Experience through the years, but never by me. So I hope you’ll forgive the indulgence if I take advantage of her birthday to launch into a little celebration of my favorite working actress, one of the only people in the world with a legitimate claim to being both movie star and serious artist. For every big bit of Hollywood nonsense she deepens and improves with her steady presence, there’s an adventurous, even dangerous film that she makes with some of the most interesting directors out there, and she’s equally great in both modes, the odd Stepford Wives remake notwithstanding.

To celebrate, I'd like to share my 5 favorite Kidman performances, in chronological order:

Grace Stewart, The Others (2001)
I yield to no one in my love of Moulin Rouge! and Kidman’s performance therein, but this has always been my pick for her best performance of 2001, and not least because Alejandro Amenábar is less interested in ceding huge chunks of the film’s landscape to her than Baz Luhrmann. Providing the human core to an abnormally handsome, ultimately generic haunted house movie couldn’t have been anyone’s idea of a rewarding assignment, but Kidman dives with intelligence and restraint into the role of a stern matriarch, terrified by the empty old house she lives in. She turns out a leading performance that is deeply sensitive and wounding (that meeting with her husband!) while also paying scrupulous attention to the mechanical needs of the horror script. She’s especially good at converting the twist ending from something ludicrous into a genuinely moving moment.

four more after the jump

Click to read more ...