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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Last few days to stream these titles!

by Nathaniel R

Crazy Rich Asians is about to leave HBO

We've decided to do our streaming roulette feature a bit differently (and weekly) since streaming movies come and go so quickly. It's too overwelming to list everything and who's checking three weeks later anyway? We'll start on March 1st but since there's only four days left in February, here are some titles that you might want to watch now because they're leaving the services this weekend! As we do we've blind-frozen them at totally random places (no cheating) just to see what image/line comes up and sharing it with you...

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Posterized: Harrison Ford

by Nathaniel R

Harrison Ford has been a major star for our whole lives but Call of the Wild (2019), opening today nationwide, is actually the first time in many years that studios have trusted his name alone to sell a picture. Well, that and a CGI dog, but the solo name (no pun intended) above the title is still worth noting. 

Ford, who is now 77, has been a regular on movie screens for over 50 years and his films have amassed over $9 billion dollars globally. But he wasn't always a superstar. In the 1970s he wasn't just acting for filmmakers but also doing carpentry jobs to support his then wife and sons (Francis Ford Coppola famously hired him as a carpenter before casting him in The Conversation and Apocalypse Now). The rest, of course, is showbiz history.

How many of his 49 pictures (excluding uncredited appearances and voice only roles) have you seen? All 49 posters are after the jump as well as a breakdown of his career in chapters...

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Podcast: The Handmaiden and Other Heavenly Creatures

We're back to weekly podcasts! This week Nick and Nathaniel revisit a summer favorite that's now on DVD and have divergent feelings about The Handmaiden despite their mutual Park Chan-wook history.

Index (41 minutes)
00:01 A Heavenly Creatures revisit
05:10 The Handmaiden and that time Nathaniel and Nick watched a Park Chan-wook together
25:00 Almodóvar's Julieta and Farhadi's The Salesman
34:00 Doctor Strangé & Captain Fantastic briefly to wrap-up

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you?  

Referenced in this conversation:
Nick's Isabelle Huppert e-mail hack | Nathaniel's photo op with Viggo Mortensen | A recent rewatch of Witness | Alama Drafthouse Night Out | 1994 Oscar Races 

The Handmaiden Fantastic

Visual Index: Best Shots from "Witness"

Hit Me With Your Best Shot revisited Witness (1985) this week to celebrate the continuing excellence of the Australian cinematographer John Seale. It was such an unexpected treat to see him doing ambitious ravishing and inspired work as a septugenarian (Mad Max Fury Road) that rivals anything he did in his 30s (Careful He Might Hear You), 40s (Rain Man) or 50s (The English Patient, The Talented Mr Ripley) and though he didn't win a second Oscar he did win our renewed ecstatic fandom. Seale's earliest Oscar nomination came for his work lensing the gorgeous moving cop drama Witness (1985).  Here are the results of our "Best Shot" challenge from the participants. The more eyeballs the merrier so join us one of these weeks alright?

WITNESS (1985)
Directed by Peter Weir. Shot by John Seale
Click on any of the 12 images to be directed to the corresponding articles
(Nominated for 8 Academy Awards including Best Cinematography) 

 I really liked how well rounded all the Amish characters are...
-Rachel's Reviews 

How does violence affect a child?
-Film Mix Tape

Christian Bonamusa

He apparently took plenty of inspiration from Flemish and Dutch painters of the 17th century (art history student alert!)
-Magnificent Obsession 

The cinematography in this whole sequence is breathtaking...
-Cinema Cities 

It *is* a crime thriller, but it's more heartfelt and intimate and could very well be categorized as a love story... 
-Sorta That Guy 

The movie isn’t what I expected, but in ways that were very pleasant. 
-Wick's Picks 

In its best moments, Witness is some straight-up Terence Malick magic hour Days of Heaven shit...
-Dancing Dan 

That atypical reserve gives the cop drama a unique contemplative charge within its genre. 
- The Film Experience

I went for a shot that embraces the silence...
-Scopophiliac at the Cinema 

a romantic drama that forgets its supposed to be a thriller until the last 20 minutes
-Drink Your Juice, Shelby 

Perhaps the most impressive moment of Ford's career 
-Cinematic Corner

What is your favorite shot from Witness? When was the last time you'd seen it?

Next week on "Best Shot": Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page in THE BEGUILED (1971) to be remade by Sofia Coppola (!)