The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
We will be looking at both the Documentary Feature and Documentary Short Subject category in February as we approach the Oscar ceremony, but this week we're taking a small trip to the Slamdance Film Festival in Utah. Situated alongside Sundance, this smaller festival obviously doesn’t get the attention of its much larger cousin – not helped by also happening at the same time as Oscar nominations – but we’re proud to give it a visit.
Here are thoughts on three of their documentaries this year....
Jane Campion and Michelle Pfeiffer embracing in New Zealand
Thanks to the twitter pfan account LaPfeiffer for alerting us to this but Michelle Pfeiffer was recently spotted in New Zealand hiking with her husband David E Kelley and... (gulp) Jane Campion, only one of the greatest living filmmakers. But why was she there...?
Hi, neighbor. Here's biopic casting that only America's Dad could take on: Tom Hanks will be filling the shoes (before he slips them off at the door) of beloved friendly icon Mr. Rogers. The film will be called You Are My Friend and center around Fred Rogers's relationship with journalist and cynic Tom Junod.
The film will also have a formidable assemblage beyond Hanks...
news • Coming Soon first image Zac Efron as Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked • TMZ Meryl Streep files for trademark claim on the use of her name. Wonder what prompted this? • WSJ Is the Star Wars franchise slipping in popularity? (This seems like a lot of panic for nothing since the movies are regularly grossing a billion)
• Variety Bernadette Peters off to a great sales start taking over for Bette Midler in Hello Dolly! on Broadway • Tracking Board Juliette Lewis joins the cast of the next Sam Taylor-Johnson movie A Million Little Pieces • The Wrap Oprah responds to her action figure from A Wrinkle in Time • Tribeca Film Matthew Eng, who co-writes our "Months of Meryl" column, interviewed the queen herself! Check out his chat with Streep about her work on The Post. • AV Club Sam Raimi likely to direct the Kingkiller Chronicles which already has Lin-Manuel Miranda attached for the music
opinion • Film Mixtape Our own Chris Feil's top 15 films of the year: Lady Bird, Raw, Personal Shopper, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and more... • Advocate Sir Ian McKellen on the 30th anniversary of his coming out • Fandor "What if Pixar made Phantom Thread?" <-- SPOILERS in that article, major ones, so be warned. I'm not sure what to make of this piece. I love the concept and the header image and the cartoon being described but it's basically like 2 separate articles shoved up against each other since they keep leaving the imaginary film for multi-paragraph detours into the real one. • Cinematic Corner Sati picks her 35 best shots of the year
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Nicole eats "micro-livestock" aka bugs for Vanity Fair's secret talent theater. Jason made me lol with his response to this video:
Nicole Kidman dislodged her jaw and swallowed Lars Von Trier whole one time on the set of Dogville so bugs ain't shit"
"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail.
“That’s the future,” the ad man says, “Green.” It’s a ridiculous observation, but it’s also a cruel way to tell Giles (Richard Jenkins) he should find somewhere else to pitch his illustrations. The future, the ad man means, is the replacement of Norman Rockwell with cartoon children selling neon, gelatinous green pie.
The Shape of Waterisn’t really about pie. But this comment on 1950s advertising is a helpful key to understanding the rest of this aqueous fantasy...
Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 11:42AM 
