Bentonville: Geena Davis, Jamie Brewer, and the Fabulous Freddie Mercury

Part 1 of 3 by Nathaniel R

"Include," was scrawled across every sign at the 5th annual Bentonville Film Festival which just wrapped up. As part of the logo, it was hard to miss. More noteworthy is the fact that you would have been able to hear that message loud and clear at any of the screenings and events even if you'd never seen the logo. Oscar winner Geena Davis launched the festival five years ago. It's a smart offshoot of the actresses work at the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media... and that advocacy reaches beyond gender to include film industry representation for multiple minorities: queer people, people of color, and disabled people, too.

Bentonville, sight unseen at least, is an odd locale for a film festival. That is until you see how much money that corporate sponsor WalMart, headquartered right there, has poured into the festival. The Film Experience has had the pleasure of attending several regional festivals across the years and Bentonville is definitely among the most well-funded / well-run. The attending filmmakers even got a mini-retreat before the festival began for industry networking opportunities. The town itself is a little slice of Americana with little shops, cute restaurants, a charming town square, and a lux gorgeous museum named Crystal Bridges.

Geena Davis in the house!

Crystal Bridges is where the trademark opening event "Geena and Friends" is held...

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Beauty vs Beast: The Kindness of Strangers

Jason Adams from MNPP here, using this week's brand new "Beauty vs Beast" poll to celebrate the 48th birthday of the great Sofia Coppola, which is tomorrow. We are so lucky to have her! Quite honestly I think the world's been under-valuing her directing career, which's given us one great film after another after another. Her last one, 2017's remake of The Beguiled, is where we're focusing today -- another entirely under-appreciated one if you ask me. While I've long been a fan of Don Siegel's sweaty 1971 version I consider Coppola's an improvement for how it spins itself off into a gothic fable of female empowerment gone to seed. It feels like a sister film to Nicole Kidman's other movie about haunted folks isolated during war-time, The Others -- seriously, go watch them back to back. That'll be an excellent evening at the movies. But until then...

bike tracks

PREVIOUSLY
Switching over to the Elder Coppola, it turns out it was too tough for us to vote for a war-mongering maniac with last week's Apocalypse Now poll, even when he's played by Marlon Brando -- Martin Sheen's "Captain Willard" managed to score 57% of your vote instead.

Summed up by Tom G:

"Shouldn't we NOT be voting for crazy people with too much power?"

Theater World Awards: Jeremy Pope, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Paddy Considine

Tis the season of theater awards. We've already covered the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, and Tony nominations. Now it's time for the Theater World Awards. Unlike the other theater prizes the Theater World Awards don't have nominations, just winners. Their purpose is honoring performers who made either Broadway or Off-Broadway debuts or delivered breakout performances during the theatrical season. Most of the names are new to us but you'll recognize a couple of stars from film and television among the possible future theater legends. 

The thirteen performers who will be honored at their event are after the jump...

THEATER WORLD WINNERS 2019

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Showbiz History: Valentino's Wedding, Shirley's Discovery, Frasier's Ending

Six random things to celebrate on this day (May 13th) in showbiz history...

1919 It's the centennial today of the silent film Broken Blossoms starring Lillian Gish (which you can watch in full on YouTube), an interracial weepie romance with Richard Barthelmess in "yellow face" as a Chinese Man that Gish falls for. Some critics consider it D.W. Griffith's best film. 

Valentino and Rambova

1922 Silent film superstar Rudoph Valentino, who made millions swoon all over the world, weds costume and set designer Natacha Rambova at the age of 27. Valentino would then be arrested for bigamy since he'd been divorced for less than a year at the time (which was legally a no-go back then in California)...

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Posterized: Anne Hathaway

by Nathaniel R

Anne Hathaway's latest star vehicle, The Hustle, a gender-flipped loose remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), debuted this weekend. We're happy to see her back when she belongs -- in a leading role on the big screen.

She's one of our greatest contemporary stars, the haters be damned. Thankfully the anti-Hathaway brigade has quieted down a bit after her savvy post-Oscar low profile. She started right at the top with the $100 million hit The Princess Diaries, a rare and delicious but precarious place to start as a teenager as there's usually only one way to go (you guessed it, down). But Hathaway proved resilient, weathering the rise to adult stardom with inarguable skill buoyed not just by remarkable beauty (those huge expressive eyes are a camera's dream) but by even more remarkable talent and versatility as an actor.

The star, now 36, has made 27 features. How many of her films have you seen? The poster are all after the jump...

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