Tribeca 2017: Super Dark Times

by Jason Adams

There was this boy named Donnie that was a year below me in High School that I was in love with in that way teenagers are always in love with impossible things. He was a wrestler in the mold of the an Apollo statue, and he was correspondingly popular – even though he was a year younger than me he hung out with the popular kids in my class, and all of them together had it in common that they had no time for the likes of me. I used to go to wrestling meets just to watch him – I’d skulk in the bleachers, trying not to be noticed, as he sauntered, full singlet, in spotlights. I heard a few years after graduation that Donnie was killed in a car accident – it’s likely he and I never spoke, but when I think of High School, I still think of him.

Stylish and moody and deeply sad, Super Dark Times brought back rushes of memories like this – of high school tinged through black times; youth and beauty all muffled and dark...

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Tribeca 2017: Hounds of Love

by Jason Adams

Even people who profess to like horror movies don’t always like it when horror movies make them really uncomfortable. It’s why you see F grade Cinema-scores for truly disturbing flicks like Wolf Creek  - we want to be scared in a fun way, but we don’t want to waltz with actual despair. There’s a scene in Wes Craven’s  Last House on the Left that made me feel so awful it still haunts me to this day.

Hounds of Love, the first film from Aussie director Ben Young, waltzes with such awfulness, and might just announce a real talent a la Craven too...

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Best Actress - April Foolish Oscar Predix

We always save the best category for last.

The April Foolish Oscar predictions are officially complete with the BEST ACTRESS chart which has just gone up. So many talent women. So much luscious actressing to come. We cannot wait to see these performances, wherever they happen to fall on the chart. Predictions are for fun and do not indicate who we're rooting for ever -- we try not to root for anything without actually seeing the films because "may the best performance win!" and we don't know what that will be yet, now do we? This year the April Foolish crystal ball says "all previous nominees" but that's largely because it does not appear to be a year where many women who aren't previous nominees have managed to land leading roles. But we shall see. 

Answer me these questions three:

1. Which actress's double feature are you most excited to see? The busy choices are: Jessica Chastain (A Woman Walks Ahead, Molly's Game), Kate Winslet (Wonder Wheel, The Mountain Between Us), Sally Hawkins (Maudie, The Shape of Water), and Charlize Theron (Tully, Atomic Blonde). Let's leave the very busy Nicole Kidman out of this survey since the size of her roles aren't totally obvious this year.

2. Do you think Annette Bening has momentum due to that near-miss last season (those sometimes build goodwill) or do you think 20th Century Women is irrelevant to this year's prediction equation?

3. Which performance are you convinced will be great sight unseen? ...and vice versa if you're feeling irritable today.

ICYMI 
Past articles on this new Oscar race
Last year's Oscars, the full index

Beauty Break: The Time 100

Chris here to start your weekend with some star gazing. Time Magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people is here! While there's the usual assortment of world leaders, innovators, and executives (not to mentions some unsavories), it's the magic makers of the entertainment sort that catch our hearts here at The Film Experience. That ebullient Viola Davis cover to your left is nothing if not a factory for happiness.

The assembled talent and wavemakers run the gamut from Ava DuVernay to Sarah Paulson to Riz Ahmed to Constance Wu, the kind of future Hollywood we actually want to see. But the real fun of the lineup is the profiles written by other famous types about the honorees - Naomi Campbell paying tribute to RuPaul? Your icon wishes! Take a look at the photo set and tell us your favorites in the comments!

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OTD: Annie, John Cameron Mitchell, and Field of Dreams

On this day (April 21st) in history as it relates to showbiz...

Anthony Quinn

1904 Oscar winning cinematographer Daniel L Fapp (West Side Story and Desire Under the Elms, among many films) born in Kansas City

1914 Cinematographer Gilbert Taylor born in England. Though he was BAFTA nominated Oscar never bit despite high profile films and collaborations with famous directors. Credits include: Repulsion, The Omen, Dr Strangelove, Star Wars, Frenzy, Dracula (1979) and MacBeth 

1915 Oscar's all time favorite Mexican actor Anthony Quinn born (Lust for Life, Viva Zapata, Wild is the Wind, Zorba the Greek, La Strada, etcetera)

1918 "The Red Baron," the famous German fighter pilot, shot down in World War I. Snoopy in Peanuts fantasizes about him repeatedly and he's also been a character in many films including Wings, Hell's Angels, and Darling Lili 

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