Halfway Mark - Team Experience Favourites

I'll be sharing my midyear ballots (such as they are) over the next couple of days but first let's hear from the whole team. Or, some of them - those that volunteeered their little in progress top fives. The team hopes you enjoy these little peeks into our individual film experiences from January through June at the movies (and in some cases, at home).

Chris Feil's midyear top five  
Twitter | Instagram | This Had Oscar Buzz | TFE Articles 

01 Her Smell's redemptive anarchy in five acts

02 Ari Aster's hilarious Midsommar -time sadness

03 Claire Denis' sci-fi descent into the black hole of our biology High Life.

04 The haves-and-have-nots horror of Us.

05 Zhao Tao giving another masterclass in Jia Zhangke's Ash is Purest White.  

Paolo Kagaoan's midyear top five
Twitter | Instagram | All of Paolo's articles

01 Homecoming: A Film By Beyonce... When  Beyonce descended from those steps, Sergei Eisenstein rose back from the dead, burned every copy of Battleship Potemkin, and killed himself.

02 Elizabeth Olsen in Endgame because she reminded me that Thanos is an asshole... 

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Would you rather?

Celebrating our fav recent Instagram pics through silly polling. So, dear readers, WOULD YOU RATHER... 

• levitate spaceships with the Force and Vincent Rodriguez?
• take a swim in the Mediterranean with Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace) and French hottie Pierre Deladonchamps (Stranger by the Lake)?
• learn the art of not giving a f*ck with Trinity the Tuck?
• swim in Tennessee with Christina Hendricks? 
• sunbathe in Italy with Uma Thurman?
• get psychotically cute with Cory Michael Smith? 
• do Madonna cosplay (?) with Erich Bergen? 
• receive an honorary degree with Angela Bassett?
• climb a mountain with former Velvet Goldmine collaborators Toni Collette and Sandy Powell (omg!)? 

Pictures are after the jump to help you decide.

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Queer critics on their fav queer films

by Nathaniel R

Pedro Almodóvar and Antonio Banderas on the set of "Law of Desire"

I didn't intend to point you to yet another "best LGBTQ films" list since we've been to that well twice with an overview of online lists and then my own personal list for Pride month. Nevertheless you'll surely want to check out this article at Paste Magazine called "50+ Queer Writers, 50+ Queer Films". Our friend Kyle Turner polled dozens of critics who identify as LGBTQ asking them to share a short thought about a cinematic favourite. We were only allowed one film, so I went with Law of Desire. We were also encouraged to think broadly about what "queer" meant so a lot of the choices you'll read are atypical rather than full on G-A-Y. Head to the Paste link above to read the whole exciting thing but after the jump I'm sharing three excerpts I particularly loved, two of them from trans critics since they don't get mentioned often...

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Linkgame

• IndieWire Avengers Endgame, which is still in wide release (985 theaters) at this writing will be "rereleased" on Friday. LOL. That just means it's adding more theaters again and this time it will have a deleted scene. It's fitting that the special poster for it is Thanos' fist since they're still trying to pummel Avatar's #1 status. 
• Variety on Wes Studi's landmark Honorary Oscar

After the jump news on Bond 25, The Irishman, a new take on Flash Gordon, animation awards, and a movie you probably forgot all about (I did!) finally getting released years after people wrote it off...

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Pride Month Doc Corner: Four restored queer classics in re-release!

by Glenn Dunks

The Film Experience and Doc Corner is celebrating Pride Month with a focus on documentaries that tackle LGBTIQ themes. In this final edition we're looking at four classic documentaries that have now been restored and are back in theaters (in select cities), waiting to be (re-)discovered: The Queen (1968), A Bigger Splash (1973), Before Stonewall (1984), and Paris is Burning (1990).

We will begin with the earliest and move forward through time. I was lucky enough to see The Queen on the big screen at a repertory screening in New York several years ago... 

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