The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
Team Experience is citing favorite love scenes. Here's Chris...
Richard Linklater's Before... trilogy is the perfect love story for the hopeless-romantic-turned-cynic in all of us. The romance between Jesse and Celine (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy giving their flawless best) is the kind of pure human connection that we hope for in adulthood, and only the tiniest bit of the fairy tale we're promised in youth. Each of the series' three chapters were released nine years after its predecessor, with the years in between a surprise for the audience. [more...]
It's a common beliefe that there’s a ceiling to how poignant and brutally honest network television can be. The often accurate stereotype is that the hour-long dramas that inspire debate and passion are found on pay or premium cable; network TV is for rote procedurals and other series unwilling or unable to truly push the envelope.
Yet In the month since it has premiered, the second season of Academy-Award winning writer John Ridley’s (12 Years a Slave) “American Crime” has been flying in the face of pre-conceived notions about the limitations of network television. [More...]
RANDOMNESS • Pajiba Meryl Streep getting herself into trouble with an African comment when asked about diversity • LongReads Pregnancy in movies with Mad Max Fury Road as starting point • Inverse The Rock gleefully warning fans he'll get naked on HBO's Ballers • Funny or Die! Johnny Depp as Donald Trump. Didn't know they did 50 minute skits! • Cinematic Corner we need to talk about Harrison Ford in Witness • Library of America Carrie Rickey on The Age of Innocence • Unseen Films would like you to consider Toni Collette in Glassland • Coming Soon Gal Gadot's career before Wonder Woman • Regal Cinemas cute teaser poster for Finding Dory
CASTING & PRODUCTION • Variety Amy Schumer trying her hand at drama. She's joined the cast of the PTSD movie Thank You For Your Service which stars Miles Teller • THR Chris Weitz will write the screenplay adaptation of upcoming nonfiction book 21 Years to Midnight which centers on Obergefell v. Hodges, which eventually led to the legalization of same-sex marriage • AV ClubThe Bachelors will star JK Simmons as a widower. He and his son (uncast) meet two extraordinary women and their lives are transformed. Julie Delpy will play one of the women. We just hope this isn't yet another movie where women only exist to help the man through their character arc. • Tracking Board Goldie Hawn might finally act again... in a new Amy Schumer comedy • The Film Stage has a lot of info on Claire Denis new project High Life so it's spoilery but the film will star Robert Pattison, Patricia Arquette, and Mia Goth from Nymphomaniac
AWARDAGE • VarietyMustang tops the Lumiere Awards in France (precursor to the Césars) • THR I apologize that TFE forgot to cover the Goya awards. So much happens every week with awardage this time of year. The big winner was Truman starring Ricardo Darin (Secret in Their Eyes) and Javier Camera (Talk to Her). Best Actress had some international superstar nominees in Penelope Cruz and Juliette Binoche but they lost to Natalia de Molina (Techo y Comida) • AARP "Movies for Grown-Ups Awards" red carpet. Spotlight took Best Picture. Ridley Scott best director. Acting winners: Lily Tomlin (Grandma), Bryan Cranston (Trumbo), Diane Ladd (Joy) and Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies). And you should know that Diane took the opportunity to speak out against Category Fraud. God bless her! And FYI, Ladd is NOT the Academy member actress I spoke to earlier this year who was angry and vowed to not for anyone pitched in the category. So people are finally if slowly starting to see this for what it is. Now, if only critics and journalists, who have such opinion-making power would stop promoting it in their own awards and write-ups!
Here is Queen Ladd on the topic.
I've already seen snippy things on line about "she wouldn't have been nominated regardless," but, FACT: We do not know this. Listen up: if we didn't have Category Fraudsters each year people would be discussing the options among real supporting actresses (because people always discuss possibilities when it comes to the Oscars) and who knows who might have gained traction without Vikander and Mara sucking up all the conversation?
BRIE LARSON WORLD • In Contention Brie and Saoirse Ronan honored in Santa Barbara • Elle Magazine more Brie. Lots more. • Pajiba ...Elle Magazine has gone a little crazy with the photoshop, though.
THEATER & TV • Playbill Aaron Sorkin writing a new adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird for Broadway • Gothamist Sikh actor Waris Ahluwalia, from Wes Anderson's movies, was banned from a flight since he wouldn't remove his turban! • MNPP Great news for Bryan Fuller fans. The Hannibal and Pushing Daisies man will be running the new Star Trek series premiering a year from now. • Slate reviews Samantha Bees political comedy show Full Frontal. (I was really hoping she's get Jon Stewart's seat when he left The Daily Show.) • Playbill YES! Sutton Foster will be part of the Gilmore Girls reunion. Can they just have her play her character from Bunheads since they take place in the same Sherman-Palladino world? • Theater Mania Stephen King's 5 reasons you should see Misery on stage.
As you may have heard Frozen will be coming to Broadway in the Spring of 2018. The original composers will write additional new songs which is smart since the second half of Frozen the movie is weirdly not a musical at all. The songs abruptly end after "Let It Go"
It will be curious to have two versions of Wicked on stage simultaneously, though.
Shade. (I couldn't resist.)
No matter how much one loves Frozen, it's hard to deny that it shamelessly rips off of Wicked. When Wicked's producers rather dimly dragged their feet on a film version of their 3 billion dollar smash (they should have started immediately since it takes years to get a picture made properly and now a picture will feel "old" when it arrives) Disney swooped in with their own version of Wicked called Frozen -- even using the same leading lady with the huge pipes (Idina Menzel) and had their own billion-dollar smash (with endless revenue yet to come in merchandising).
Consider:
Sisters / Besties. One is good and likeable. The other is secretive and perceived as "Wicked"
The "Wicked" girl is strong with magic and this scares people and she hides herself away from the fearful citizens of Arendel/Oz
During her escape/rise into her power she sings an athem of self-actualization "Let It Go"/"Defying Gravity"
And then the villagers come after her and the good girl has to intervene. (From their the stories diverge... as they do with the supporting cast, too)
Wicked will obviously still be selling out in 2018 when Frozen arrives. 12 years and a few months into its run it's still always near the top of the box office charts. It will be so strange to see them side by side. Do you have a preference?
For a man who's won two consecutive Oscars and could well make history with a third in as many years, Emmanuel Lubezki is a surprisingly humble fellow. The Mexican cinematographer, better known these days as "Chivo" since everyone is familiar with extraordinary gift and using his nickname now, shakes off my initial gushing as we meet. He is quick to cite assistants and crew members and focus pullers for the magic. But I press on. I really want to know hear how it feels for him to be a legend in his field, a two time Oscar winner and someone who's name is spoken with a certain reverence. He shakes this off, too, adamantly but graciously "I don't know what you're talking about! I don't feel that at all. But thank you!"
Some of his innocence about the kind of reviews he regularly receives could be chalked up to how completely immersed he gets in each picture. His work isn't over when a film wraps since post production can also be lengthy with different prints for IMAX and such. He's been inside The Revenant for a year.
I'm just coming out of the cave where I've been, I'm just starting to come back to life.
Friday, February 12, 2016 at 8:00AM 
