Berlinale 2019: Three queer selections, a doc from the Sudan, and one walkout

Hallo! Seán here reporting from the 2019 Berlinale. It's the first big European film festival of the year, where new work premieres, deals get made, parties go on (and on) and where cinephiles prove their love of film by standing around in the freezing cold. I'm doing my best "Berlinale business bear" I'm here in an offical capacity: getting a first look at the queer TEDDY titles (which we'll talk about after the jump) and the short films for festivals in London and Dublin, but aside from that I'm also here to enjoy the film festival experience i.e. standing in the wrong line and walking in completely cold to something truly bizarre and extraordinary.

The Berlinale has many distinct and diverse sections, each with their own different forms and appeal. As someone who (a year later) is only a year later beginning to figure this out, allow me to impart my knowledge on the sections before we jump into the queer selection...

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Great Moments in Kissing: "The Last of the Mohicans"

For Valentine's Week we asked Team Experience to share favourite screen kisses. Here's new contributor Ginny.

Hello everyone! Ginny here from Los Angeles ready to share one of the hottest things 1992 ever gave us and one of the most romantic scren kisses of all time. A big thank you goes out to Daniel Day-Lewis (then at his all time hottest) and Madeleine Stowe (a gorgeous smitten kitten) whose on-screen chemistry in The Last of the Mohicans made 15-year old me sweat and blush in all the right ways. You could cut the sexual tension between these two with a blunt tomahawk.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw this movie. It was in my AP History class in tenth grade...

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11 days til Oscar - Is Bette Davis a 10 or an 11?

The closeup changes everything. In 1934, Bette Davis became a STAR.

A very random question for you Oscar fanatics out there. Do you count Bette Davis as having 10 or 11 nominations? In other words, do you count her write-in nomination for Of Human Bondage (1934), her breakout star-making role which obviously led to her first win for the lesser performance in Dangerous (1935) the very next year, as one of her nods or do you go by the Academy's 'Of Human Bondage is not an official nomination' stance even though it's such an intrinsic part of Oscar lore of the 1930s?

PETA's "Oscat" Winners: Bradley Cooper, Black Panther, Annihilation

by Nathaniel R

Here's an award you might not have heard of. PETA, the animal rights organization, gives out "Oscats" each year honoring the most animal friendly films and stars. So, even though Bradley Cooper has PETA's senior vice president says:

PETA is thrilled to recognize the people and projects behind Hollywood’s most significant animal rights advances of the year.”

The winners and why they were chosen after the jump...

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Soundtracking: Bridget Jones's Diary

by Chris Feil

We have so many emotional ties to movie music that represents love fulfilled, love remembered, love not meant to be. As Valentine’s Day comes around, and with it annual love story rewatchings, we’re reminded of the “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life”s and the “The Way We Were”s with sudden impact. But for some folks still waiting for their love story to begin, the reflection of their romantic reality gets foolishly less heralded. People like Bridget Jones...

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