Happy Thanksgiving... and 1985 Randomness

by Nathaniel R

Dear readers, thank you for the private messages and public comments welcoming me back after my long hiatus. I’m thankful for you. And Happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate. I’m still in the warm-up mindset in terms of my ‘comeback’ and I'm never going to be daily multiple articles a day again -- it's not 2014 and the world has changed -- but I do have a couple plans for 2025 brewing which will and won’t be like past Film Experience shenanigans.

Anyway, back on topic. We hope you’ve enjoyed this 80s party. We’re doing it for about one to two more weeks interspersed with current Oscar discussions of course. There’s still a few more years of top tens to share and two seminal 80s features to discuss – one from 1987 that I promised a write up of for a reader a long long time ago (forgive me!) and one from 1989 that I have personally felt a strong urge to reconsider because it's been a million years since I saw it and I wonder how it's aged. But for this Thanksgiving Weekend intermission ~ let’s talk 1985…

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Showbiz History: Japanese hits, Harry Belafonte's birthday, and The Doors

6 random things that happened on this day, March 1st, in showbiz history...

1927 Harold George Bellanfanti Jr born  in Harlem. He later becomes globally famous in the 1950s as Harry Belafonte. Happy 94th (!!!) to the singer, actor, activist, and Honorary Oscar winner. He's one of the oldest living iconic American stars. 

1963 Akira Kurosawa's High and Low premieres in Japan. It snags a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Film but Japan doesn't submit it to the Oscars.

a 1985 movie weekend, Shoplifters, and NSFW Javier Bardem after the jump...

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Performing Spectatorship

by Cláudio Alves

As people who love cinema, I think we can all understand the power art can yield over those who experience it. Whether finding refuge in an escapist dream or seeing an ugly truth reflected at us, the act of being an audience has the potential to startle and surprise, to devastate and entertain. I can often recall those moments when a film overwhelmed me in such ways that I ended up making a spectacle of myself. There were my sobbed laughs at a Whitney Houston karaoke in Toni Erdmann, the breathless shock at Hereditary's peanut panic, the miraculous tears when faced with Parasite's perfect montage and so much more. Those memories are like precious jewels, bright reminders of why I love cinema.

Because of this, I have a special fondness for films that try to capture that inchoate ecstasy that happens when an audience is similarly enraptured…

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Tuesday Top Ten: 1985 Favorites!

Because we'll be seeing what various cinephiles around the web think of Peter Weir's Witness for "Best Shot" tonight here's an entirely rando top ten list of 1985, direct from my brain. Or, rather, from web archives or my brain. Which means it's an unholy amalgam of things I loved when I was young and things I love now after many watches over the years and things I possibly would only love ironically now because I loved them when I was young. 

1985 silliness after the jump...

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Q&A: Artists in Movies and Uninspiring Best Pic Lineups

For this weeks Q&A I asked for an art theme to celebrate the joint birthday of Vincent Van Gogh and Francisco de Goya on this very day! So we'll start with a few art-focused topics before venturing to rando questions.

TOM: Which film about an artist (in any field of the Arts) that you were not particularly knowledgeable about made you want to see/hear the real work by that artist? 

I vastly prefer non-traditional biopics so I'm susceptible to stuff that piques curiosity rather than gives you a greatest hits. So I like bios like Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993). I have some problems with I'm Not There (2007) which is my least favorite Todd Haynes film but I respect the hell out of it conceptually. In terms of movies about painters I definitely became more interested in Francis Bacon after Love is the Devil (1998) and not just because of Daniel Craig in the bathtub! I already cared about Caravaggio before seeing Derek Jarman's Caravaggio but I hope people see that one, too. 

BRIAN: If you had to recommend a budding Cinephile a movie based on an artist, a work of art, or has artistic themes what would it be?

Hmmm. A lot of movies about painting aren't very good (Watching someone paint being only a notch more interesting than watching someone write). So let's do "artistic" theme and the answer there is easily Amadeus (1984). It's such a useful movie to reference in ways both commonplace ("too many notes!") and contemplative (what makes the difference between competent journeyman skill and true genius?). One of my other favorite "art" movies is High Art (1998)...

8 more questions after the jump

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