This year for our "thankful for" column we've been mixing it up by interviewing various team members (the ones that volunteered -- we love the other ones, too!). If you're just taking a break from family this holiday to peak around the web, please give it up for LYNN LEE.
We were first introduced to Lynn by her friend Nick Davis (of Nicks Flick Picks fame). It was yet another example of Nick's impeccable taste, not just in movies but in people. Lynn began as a contributor back in 2015 (with a Mad Men @ the Movies featuring Joan Crawford as Mildred Pierce) and given the long hours that come with the lawyer life we don't see her enough but when she's here we love it. Some posts to check out include takes on both 1994's and 2019's Little Women remakes and a personal piece on Minari's grandma.
Other pieces she's written are linked from our mini interview that follows...
When did you first fall in love with the movies?
For me it wasn't so much "fall" in love as "grow" in love, as I grew up watching what my parents (who are also movie buffs) were watching. Movie musicals were a big part of my childhood – The Sound of Music was the first movie I remember being obsessed with, along with Mary Poppins and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and, of course, West Side Story. But it was a pretty eclectic mix of other films on continuous replay at our house, from the original Star Wars trilogy to Fanny and Alexander to A Room With a View, some of which I may have started off not fully comprehending, but all of which became my favorites, too. It wasn't until I got to college, though, that I really fell in love with seeing movies in theaters. I remember being blown away by The English Patient on a big screen, and even more blown away by a screening of Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm, which made me realize "*This* is how movies were meant to be seen."
Which current star do you feel truly grateful for?
Oscar Isaac because he's constantly giving me non-shallow reasons to stare closely at his face.
Tis this season to be thankful. What wouldn't you have wanted to live without this past year?
1. The multiple musical orgasms of Summer of Soul.
2. Every single "family" scene and every one of Florence Pugh's ironic inflections in Black Widow
3. Getting completely wrecked by Emilia Jones' Ruby singing for her dad (Troy Kotsur) in CODA
4. Jean Smart's comic magnificence in HBO's "Hacks"
5. The mesmerizing world-building of Dune
6. That single tear trailing down Tessa Thompson's cheek in Passing
7. The epic diner scene in tick, tick... BOOM! (I didn't really think of myself as a Broadway nerd until I found myself excitedly name-checking everyone I recognized and my husband asking me in genuine bewilderment how I knew who any of them were.)
8. The pleasure of seeing my long-term screen boyfriends Oscar Isaac, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Andrew Garfield do what may be the best work of their careers.
Pick your favourites, Lynn!
If you were to magically win an Oscar, who would you thank in your acceptance speech?
Goes without saying – you, Nathaniel! Along with the writers and readers of the Film Experience, and my parents for kick-starting and my husband & friends for supporting my obsession with movies.
You're throwing a Thanksgiving dinner feast. You can invite 5 movie characters. Go!
Roebuck Wright from The French Dispatch- as long as my husband is cooking and not I.
Any Awkwafina character from any movie, but if I had to choose, Peik Lin from Crazy Rich Asians.
Radha from The Forty-Year-Old Version.
Jack Hock from Can You Ever Forgive Me (but I'd lock up the liquor first).
And of course Margo Channing from All About Eve, because what dinner party is complete without Margo Channing?
Lynn Lee doesn't do social media but she has a personal blog and you can read her right here.