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.)
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Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 9:26AM 
Robert here, and before I begin, no, you are not having a stroke. That headline truly does read “Jack Nicholson and Kristen Wiig to star in Toni Erdmann remake.”
Tuesday, February 7, 2017 at 9:00PM Happy Hump Day Almost! Why do some weeks feel so much like surviving itself is the only goal / triumph? I have let the Q&A column go but we're getting back on the horse and will try to do them more regularly. Here are seven questions from last week and two from a long time ago.
Ready? Let's go! Questions about awards seasons calendar, Brie Larson, director/cinematographer teams, and coping with depression after the jump...
Tuesday, February 7, 2017 at 6:30PM NY Magazine's "The Cut" has treated us with a marvelous photo collection of Jessica Lange as eight pioneering women. The Sandro shoot was likely inspired by Lange’s upcoming Joan Crawford role in Feud. You’ll see Lange in top form (and significant makeup) as ladies like Frida Kahlo, Mae West, and Janis Joplin. The Cut article also includes side-by-side photo comparisons of the original photographs that inspired the portfolio, as well as a one-minute video piece of the shoot itself (which contains a few of Jessica’s patented, glorious hate glares).
It all feels inspired and particularly timely, hot on the heels of the Womens’ March and tantalizingly close to the hopeful pleasures of watching Lange go toe-to-toe with Susan Sarandon as two other major figures of Hollywood. It’s also a surprising and curious concept for a shoot, since Lange, while one of our best and certainly most live-wire actresses, isn’t known for transformation …so it has a particular kick.
Which of the photos is your favorite? Her Diana Vreeland more resembles Cherry Jones(!), and her Marlene Dietrich conjures good and bad memories from AHS: Freak Show. But I love the I’m-smarter-than-all-of-you energy she captures in her Gloria Steinem, and her Georgia O’Keeffe captures the inherent intelligence of the original subject but seems to cross over to what is markedly Lange: a deep well of sadness, fearlessly looking at the journey ahead.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017 at 3:30PM 
by Jason Adams
When it came time to choose a performance to honor here for Laura Dern Week I was a bit flummoxed - how does one on narrow it down? She's one of my favorite actresses, maybe the most favorite. So I did what any (semi)sane person in such circumstances would do: I made our host Nathaniel choose for me. I gave him two choices - I am pro-choice! One was my favorite performance of hers as Ruth in Alexander Payne's brutal abortion comedy Citizen Ruth, which I've written about a million times. And there was the one I said I had never seen before. Nathaniel went for freshness...
... but I realized ten minutes into 1991's Rambling Rose that I had actually seen it before. And I hadn't liked it! I'd blocked out the whole damn thing, actually. But a funny thing happened this time around - I found myself charmed.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017 at 2:00PM 
Tim here. Today marks the DVD/Blu-ray release of Trolls, the 33rd feature film and only the second musical made by DreamWorks Animation, and a recent Best Original Song Oscar nominee (and if I may say so, the wrong song got honored, but whatever).
We haven't talked about the film much at all here at TFE, and this seemed like the best possible reason to correct that lapse. For a lapse it is: despite its 100% boilerplate plot, vaguely inspired by a line of toys that haven't been popular in more than two decades, and its wall-to-wall "pop songs and dance parties" structure, Trolls is, like, pretty good, y'all. It is, undoubtedly, assembled according to some Modern Kiddie Cartoon Mad-Libs: a crabby outsider, from a community dominated by one personality trait, finds himself in the position of being forced to save the day when catastrophe hits. By the end of the movie's trim 92 minutes, we've learned that real happiness was inside of you all along, and true beauty comes from confidence in being yourself.
