Chris Gives Thanks !

Greetings from Chris, lovely readers! This Thanksgiving, I'm grateful for our faithful readers, our feisty team, and our relentlessly kind and passionate leader Nathaniel. In my estimation, this has been a great enough year to just be thankful for such a bevy of riches - but here's a few of the things earning my gratitude:

... the many unsung ensembles hosting their own feasts but especially Don't Think Twice, Little Men, and Love and Friendship.

... André Holland smoking in Moonlight. It's the hottest sex scene of the year and it's between camera and actor. May we all find someone that looks at us the way that the camera looks at Holland...

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Silence Poster Reveal... and Oscar Chart Updates

Every time we received news of Martin Scorsese's Silence it's like a splash of cold water or a pinch. In other words a jarring 'oh yes, that movie' or a  'wow, we weren't dreaming it. It does exist!' thing.

Today the poster has been released and you can see a detail to your left of Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver trudging on to the shores of Japan at 17th century missionaries in search of their mentor Liam Neeson, he of frequent mentor-playing in the movies.

The Full Poster and some Best Picture thoughts follow after the jump...

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"Black Panther" Rescues Angela Bassett From "AHS"

Chris here. Fellow bemoaners of how Angela Bassett is being wasted on the likes of American Horror Story bemoan no more. The actress has joined the cast of Marvel's Black Panther as Ramonda, the mother of Black Panther himself. It's fitting that our queen will finally play a queen again.

It may not be the kind of heavy lifting we'd really love to see Bassett working with (though she was part of the brilliant Chi-Raq ensemble), AHS has proven that the actress can still have a good time. And with an already exciting cast, it'll be a thrill to see her alongside the likes of Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong'o, and her Waiting to Exhale director Forest Whitaker. Fingers crossed her superpowers will include setting cars and our hearts on fire just like Exhale's Bernadine.

Can you believe Angela Bassett only has one Oscar nomination to her name?? It's been over 20 years since channeling Tina Turner for What's Love Got to Do With It? and she hasn't returned to the awards fray. It's about time someone gives her another brilliant role and an "overdue" narrative to go with it.

Win a Signed "Elle" Poster!

The Film Experience has two posters to give away for Elle, signed by both provocateurs responsible: the Dutch auteur Paul Verhoeven & French icon Isabelle Huppert. Information on how to enter is after the jump...

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Stage Door: "Dead Poet's Society"

Andy Warhol's prescient statement 'in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes' has been requoted to death. If he had been even more specific in his prophesies he could have added '...and every movie made in the 80s and 90s movie will become a stage play.' The latest film to make the jump is Peter Weir's boy's school drama Dead Poet's Society which was a big hit with the public and Oscar in 1989. For those who've never seen it (I'm sure you're out there somewhere) Robin Williams plays an unconventional teacher who convinces high school boys to "carpe diem / seize the day!" but this inspirational message has unintended tragic consequences when one boy's dream (Robert Sean Leonard) clashes with his reality in the form of a disapproving father. In the new play film actors Jason Sudeikis and Thomas Mann (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, The Stanford Prison Experiment) get those two marquee roles...

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