Best Actress '74 @50: The Greatest of All Time

by Cláudio Alves

Last weekend, on Mother's Day of all days, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore celebrated its 50th anniversary. The occasion calls for some acknowledgment here at The Film Experience, where actressexual Oscar obsessives abound. After all, Ellen Burstyn won the Best Actress race at the 47th Academy Awards, triumphing over what could be described as the greatest lineup in the category's history. Along with the eventual victor, AMPAS nominated Diahann Carroll in Claudine, Faye Dunaway in Chinatown, Valerie Perrine in Lenny, and Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence. They might have also nominated Liv Ullmann in Scenes from a Marriage had she been eligible, but we'll get there in time. 

As Faye Dunaway presents a new doc at Cannes, the stars have aligned to relitigate the 1974 Best Actress race. Are you ready? Let's go…

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Review: 'The Exorcist: Believer'

By Glenn Charlie Dunks

The legacy of William Friedkin’s screen adaptation of The Exorcist is a complicated one. Like any long-running horror franchise, the history of its lore is long and maybe a bit confusing. 50 years after the original, we have a sixth film entry (although two of those are duelling prequels built from production turmoil) from director David Gordon Green who works once again on the screenplay with his Halloween reboot buddy Danny McBride (alongside Scott Teems and Peter Sattler). It unfortunately adds little to the myth...

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Best Shot Index: The act of looking in 'The Last Picture Show'

by Nathaniel R

Bronze Medal choice for Best Shot

The power of Peter Bogdanovich's unassuming breakout feature, The Last Picture Show (1971) sneaks up on you. It's often called a coming-of-age film which is not inaccurate but... coming to what? and of which age? It's mosaic of characters ranges in age from teenagers to senior citizens and at times it feels like they're not so much coming into something as never leaving it; They're lost souls in a ghost town. If you've never seen the film you might assume that a movie theater is a main character but not really. The theater is just one of the haunts that the central trio of high school seniors (Jeff Bridgess, Cybill Shepherd, and Timothy Bottoms) kill time at. They're less interested in the movie than in making out in the back row, anyway...

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Cláudio's Best Shot Pick: The Last Picture Show (1971)

The next episode of our series, 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot,' arrives tonight. It's focused on Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show. You still have time to participate! Here's Cláudio's entry.

Bogdanovich drops the audience inside a cold domestic scene early in The Last Picture Show. In the Farrow household, resentments and disappointments permeate the air, each individual stuck in their little bubble of dissatisfied placidity. Together yet alone, the Farrows' silence is a nervous thing, like a fly's wilting buzz as it suffocates in insecticide. Perchance to disrupt the muted disquiet, the matriarch enters her daughter's room and sparks a conversation. She tries to advise the younger woman, so she doesn't make the same mistakes her mother did. Mistakes like staying in their small Texan town, dying from boredom like the fly dies from bug spray.

"Everything's flat and empty here. There's nothing to do." – says Ellen Burstyn's Lois, her words reverberating through the film's most potent images…

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Showbiz History: Ellen Burstyn's big month and Corey Stoll appreciation

8 random things that happened on this day, March 14th, in history...

1885 The Mikado, Gilbert & Sullivan's beloved comic opera, premieres in London. The Oscar winning film Topsy Turvy (1999) depicts its production in exquisite detail. Topsy-Turvy was a very late entry in the 1999 Oscar race and threw a lot of categories out of whack -- proving a formidable competitor to design heavy films like The Talented Mr Ripley and Sleepy Hollow. In the end it won Costume Design and Makeup and received nominations for Screenplay and Production Design. 1999 was a damn good film year, even if the actual Best Picture list was a sorry sorry slate... 

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