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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Merrily We Roll... and Roll... and Roll... Along

by Nathaniel R

Real life theater friends Ben & Beanie, doing a musical theater movie adaptation together. But they won't be done with it for another 20 years

While The Film Experience was in the pro-Boyhood camp in 2014 we were never among its biggest fans. It was hard to be in that club given the massive stanning for a movie that was winning Best Picture prizes left and right in its year. But today we love it more than we ever have now that it's given the king of longform cinema, Richard Linklater, the funding and confidence to attempt the coolest or most foolish movie musical ever. As you may have heard he's now embarking on an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's most beloved flop Merrily We Roll Along to be filmed over the next 20 (gulp!) years...

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August. It's (Nearly) a Wrap

That went quick! We're about to leaving the summer behind so herewith 15 highlights from August...

• 200 Oldest Living Screen Stars since we've updated the list
• Doc Corner: One Child Nation Glenn thinks it might be the Oscar frontrunner
• Underrated Ed Norton Performances beyond that Oscar nomination triple
• We Met Marsha Mason she's still working but mostly on stage
• Tarantino & Oscar They do have some blindspots
• Sigourney Weaver in Copycat Jason's new series on Horror Actressing
• Moulin Rouge! on Broadway reviewed
• Over & Over: Julie & Julia Ginny kicks off our new series on movies we each watch a lot
• Hobbs & Shaw get Sean all hot & bothered in his seat
• AGLIFF Nathaniel's trip to Austin for a very fun festival
• Dino De Laurentiis the team had a lot of fun doing this retrospective of the prolific producer's various eras from Bitter Rice through The Bible and on to King Kong and Dune

Most Discussed
• Yes No Maybe So: Bombshell  What an actressexual tease!
• Where'd You Go Bernadette you love talking Cate Blanchett
• Favourite Hitchcocks He has so many great ones, it's hard to narrow it down
• Yes No Maybe So: Little Women Greta Gerwig offers up a very now cast for the perennial classic

COMING IN SEPTEMBER
Nathaniel and Chris hit the Toronto International Film Festival, We all watch the Emmy Awards. We'll also celebrate nw films like The Goldfinch, Ad Astra, Downton Abbey, Judy, The Laundromat,  and It Chapter Two, with lookbacks to Blue Sky (1994) and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) just for the hell of it. Any requests?

Will Brazil finally return to Oscar's spotlight with "Invisible Life..."?

by Nathaniel R

Brazil has arguably had a rough go of it with the Oscars. Though they've been nominated four times they have yet to win, and at least a couple of their "misses" are pretty major. Lately they've also been beset by political problems at home which has extended into their arts. Note the shunning of the intimidatingly great Aquarius (2016) in its year due to the righteous politics of both the film and its creative team.

But perhaps this year's awards season will hold a happy ending to Brazil's 21 year Oscar drought? Their candidate this year is the Un Certain Regard winner at Cannes, The Invisible Life of Euricie Gusmao (based on the novel of the same name, pictured left) a 1950s period melodrama about two sisters. The film is directed by Karim Aïnouz (previously best known for Madame Sata and Futuro Beach) and co-stars the legendary Fernanda Montenegro (Central Station) who has some Oscar history herself...

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