Streaming Roulette, September ...now with Criterion Channel!

As is our practice we've selected a handful plus of new-to-streaming titles and frozen them at utterly random moments without cheating (whatever comes up comes up!). After those selections we've listed all the movies from each of the streaming channels. What should you queue up for SEPTEMBER 2019 ?(★ means we definitely recommend catching them.)

OH and also we're very excited to announce that we have added THE CRITERION CHANNEL to this monthly roundup because good god but it's worth the money. Ready? Here we go...

Boy. Boy. Will you come with me?

Jungle Book (1942) on Criterion Channel
True embarrassing story: I've never seen this Korda brothers film which was the first complete movie adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's book (though there were earlier films using portions of it) and it's got to be better than the subsequent versions, nearly all of which I have seen of this oft-regurgitated story. It was nominated for four Oscars: Cinematography (losing to Black Swan though this image above makes me want to restart our Hit Me With Your Best Shot series), Art Direction (losing to My Gal Sal), Special Effects, and Score

Anyway, this is the finish. Me and showbiz. 

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Valerie Harper (1939-2019)

by Nathaniel R

Emmy & Golden Globe winner Valerie Harper, who rose to considerable fame as Rhoda on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off Rhoda, passed away yesterday after a long battle with brain cancer which doctors thought would end her life years ago. And it wasn't her first such battle either. She'd survived lung cancer in 2009, returning triumphantly to showbiz with a smashing performance as Tallulah Bankhead in the play "Looped" in 2010. Though The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda were before our time as showbiz conoisseurs we did catch her in Looped on Broadway and were thrilled to see her justly Tony-nominated for what was surely a taxing but also a bewitching performance...

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Best Costume Design. What we've seen and what's to come.

Please welcome new contributor Cláudio Alves...

Multiple Oscar winner Colleen Atwood on the set of "Dumbo"

As we head into the heart of festival season, the Oscar race is about to take shape. Many of the buzzier titles are finally being seen and, some will emerge as major contenders while others will fall by the wayside. That is true for most categories, but not always true for Best Costume Design. That wonderful craft award, oft celebrated here at The Film Experience, is less dependent on Best Picture buzz as other craft prizes. Let’s not forget the sole nomination likes of The Tempest, W.E. and The Invisible Woman.

It’s quite likely we’ve already seen at least one of the eventual nominees. Let's take a more thorough look at the contenders for this award...

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Over & Overs: Moonstruck (1987)

In our new Team series, members of The Film Experience wax rhapsodic on movies they can't help watching frequently and can't turn away from if they stumble upon them. Here's Deborah Lipp...

 

I ain't no freaking monument to justice!

As with many of my favorite movies, I find Moonstruck endlessly quotable. I open with a quote in the hopes I can restrain myself from doing nothing but quoting in the course of this write-up.

We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die!

Oops.

Moonstruck is infinitely watchable because it works on so many levels... 

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Yes No Maybe So: Joaquin Phoenix is "Joker

by Tony Ruggio

The internet’s been aflush with grousing over Todd Phillips’ upcoming Joker, a boiling pot of loyal DC fanboys and girls versus cinephile crusaders. Stir the pot with critics and pundits who have read an early draft of the script (why do that?) and the discourse, pre-discourse, and twee little jokes about discourse have been headache-inducing. I don’t care so much for pearl-clutching over what the film’s worldview might be... judging films on such things, particularly before anyone has seen one minute of finished film, is unfair to art and the place it occupies in pop culture. It’s not a filmmaker’s responsibility to coddle a country or avoid uncomfortable points of view.

That being said, there are pre-existing mixed feelings, and the final trailer only exacerbates them…

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