America's National Parks are Vital Film Treasures

The American motion picture industry owes as much to its National Parks as the government who keeps them awe-inspiring, safe, and pristine; had President Lyndon B. Johnson never designated the Redwoods as federally protected land, who knows if there would even be an Endor for Return of the Jedi’s Ewoks to jam out on “Yub Nub." As our current presidential administration continues to show a combative inclination to incinerate their importance, it’s more important than ever to appreciate these wild lands as not just rugged pockets of natural splendor but a playground of our imaginations captured through film.

After all, a visual medium demands a compelling backdrop and it’s not just our science fiction stories – your E.T.s, your Planet of the Apes adventures – that respectfully depend on our country’s organic back lots. America the Beautiful has historically doubled as a treasured resoure and favorite filming locale for its national (and international) film industries. Thelma & Louise shot its climactic send-off in Canyonlands National Park, countless westerns called the Monument Valley of the Colorado Plateau (which is chocked full of federally reserved land) home, and even comedies like ¡Three Amigos! have used Arizona’s Coronado National Forest as milieu for its many jokes.

I keep returning to Jean-Marc Vallée’s Wild as an exhibition of all that the diverse West Coast wildnerness has to offer along the Pacific Coast Trail. Without the National Parks and Forests there wouldn’t even be an Oregon mountaintop for Reese Witherspoon to thrust her malfunctioning hiking boot off. This is where the stakes get personal when we don’t support our National Parks: less empassioned actressing. 

What are some of your favorite movies - domestic or international - that hike upon America’s purple mountain majesty or weave through its amber waves of grain?

"Paris Is Burning" and "The Breakfast Club" Among National Film Registry's Class of 2016

By Daniel Crooke

Founded in 1988 as a way to protect and preserve the heritage of “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant” American cinema, the Library of Congress has announced their annual list of films to be inducted into their National Film Registry – and it’s packed with inspired choices. While most of the internet is consumed with Top Ten fever as the year winds down, let's detour from the contemporary cinema and take a look at this list of twenty-five classics...

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RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars E4 - Drag Spoof-quels

By Chris Feil

First thing's first: a hearty condragulations to RuPaul on that Outstanding Reality Host Emmy! The win felt richly deserved after nearly ten seasons of giving us the best competition reality show and her long legacy as a television personality. Now if we can only get the show itself recognized, as well.

After the immediate fallout of Alyssa sending Ginger home last week, the heat was on Miss Edwards for flipping the script on sending the queen with the harshest critiques home. Her defense on keeping Katya on the basis of consistency (being top 2 the previous week, whereas Ginger never registered) fell on deaf ears. Here's the thing: even if they're basing it off judges critique, it's still open to interpretation by the deciding competitor. These girls are acting like their given hard data on who to send home and ignoring how the narrowed field may require them to rethink that strategy.

This week's challenge paired the girls off for drag movie sequels to some of our favorites here at The Film Experience...

... except don't expect anything too familiar to the originals. Licensing sure is expensive!

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Thelma & Louise Pt. 5: Crossing Over

25th Anniversary Five-Part Mini Series Event 

Pt 1 (Anne Marie & Margaret) 
Pt 2 (Nick Davis) 
Pt 3 (Daniel Crooke)
Pt 4 (Nathaniel R) 

Pt 5 (Finale) by Laurence Barber

It feels awfully daunting to write about the ending of this film, and not just because, as Nathaniel pointed out, ditching the cop who pulled them over isn’t Thelma or Louise’s finest hour. As an Australian who has experienced outback heat, that scene always makes me feel a bit nauseous even if the way their doing away with this discipline daddy is pretty amusing. More logically, they could have made use of his handcuffs to disable him instead, but you have to appreciate that Callie Khouri hasn’t constructed these crimes around what feels like pattern behaviour. Aside from Thelma’s charm assault/armed robbery, their transgressions feel genuinely like two women thinking on their feet.

Also, you catch a glimpse of a shotgun behind him as he trades shades with Louise so I’ve always believed he figured his way out somewhere down the line (shoot the lock, dummy!).

Thelma: Officer, I’m real sorry ‘bout this.”

Louise: I apologise also.”

1:40:00 This aspect of the scene has always spackled over my misgivings about it too. Much has been said and written in recent years about the way women over-apologise, exercising a kind of ingrained cultural deference to male authority. In this scene, however, their apologies become a subversion; the way Sarandon half-heartedly apologises tells us that she’s given up caring about the needs of men in any meaningful way.

Replete with her new Aviators – a hot new look Scott drinks in with a zoom that feels as awed by Sarandon as we do by this point – Louise and Thelma jump back in the Thunderbird and put rubber to the road, the final stage of their road trip stretching out before them. In a brief cut back to the police part of the plot, Harvey Keitel gravely intones, “Dreams will only get you so far, and luck always runs out.” Lighten up, toots...

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Thelma & Louise Pt 4: The Call of the Wild

25th Anniversary Five-Part Mini Series Event 

Pt 1 (Anne Marie & Margaret) 
Pt 2 (Nick Davis) 
Pt 3 (Daniel Crooke)

Pt 4 by Nathaniel R

When Daniel wrapped up part three, he astutely described the roomful of men watching Thelma's armed robbery on TV as "blockheaded." As loathe as I am to admit it, the other adjective he used, "slack-jawed," is the one that would also apply to me in that scene. It's when I most fully relate to the men in the movie. How can you watch what these women (and actresses) are doing and not be a little dumbstruck?! Although in my case, it's more awestruck than horrifed trepidation about what they're capable of.

1:15:00 In one of the funniest exchanges in the movie, Thelma worries about how fast Louise is driving, their unruly mops whipping around in the wind, both of them reenergized by Thelma's sudden resourcefulness...

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