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Thursday
Oct062016

Break me off a link of that

Vulture Amy Landecker is Julia Roberts' voice double. This is amazing. Especially if you love the movie Duplicity
Geek Tyrant yummy yummy fandom pies
Coming Soon backwards told and trippy actually is commercial Strange Dr new the

Variety Robert De Niro's The Comedian will be getting an Oscar qualifying run. I guess Cinelou really wants to make these Oscar Qualifying runs their thing (see also Cake). Sigh. 
Women & Hollywood Emma Thompson and Stanley Tucci will star in the adaptation of Ian McEwan's bestseller "The Children Act" to be directed by Richard Eyre (Notes on a Scandal) -- ooh, sign us up. 
Awards Daily Oscar hopeful Loving about the famous right to marry case from the 1960s has released interracial and same sex emojis
Tracking Board Wolverine 3 gets a title, Logan, and a spirit of the beehive poster moment 
The Guardian another report on Hollywood whitewashing of Asian stories and characters. I love Billy Magnussen but am sad that he's now involved in this too. Apparently the Bruce Lee biopic Birth of the Dragon has been saddled with a white character as lead, sidelining Bruce Lee in his own story What the actual fuck?
Variety Ian McKellen is getting the documentary treatment in McKellen: Playing the Part  

Today's Video
Kristin Chenoweth sings the Game of Thrones theme song

Finally...
Winter is Coming looks at the top paid actors per TV episode via Variety. These are so weird to look at. The numbers rarely align with what you think of as pop cultural worth. Though if you're on a phenomenal success like Game of Thrones the two sometimes line up. One assumes the numbers have a lot to do with how long a show's been running and whether actors have been able to renegotiate. And also network pays more than streaming which pays more than cable, etcetera. For instance... how weird is it that Taraji P Henson as the key figure on one of TV's biggest smashes (Empire) makes the same figure per episode as Michelle Monaghan a less famous star on a show people don't talk about (The Path).

Wednesday
Oct052016

George Sidney Centennial: "Kiss Me Kate"

by Tim Brayton

Our centennial tribute to MGM mainstay George Sidney continues with the director's 1953 musical Kiss Me Kate, and such a curious beast it is. Adapted with a slightly free hand from Cole Porter's hit 1948 musical, it's a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew that's also a backstage comedy about the staging of a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew, in which the actors playing Kate and Petruchio are recently feuding exes.

Don't let the plot worry you, though. Since this is a 1950s MGM musical the focus is obviously one one thing first and foremost, and that's big, heaving SPECTACLE.

Click to read more ...

Wednesday
Oct052016

NYFF: Almodóvar's Julieta

Manuel here catching up with Pedro's latest at the New York Film Festival

Following the New York Film Festival screening of his 20th film, Pedro Almodóvar admitted that, in adapting Alice Munro’s short stories (from her collection, Runaway), he had aimed for a more restrained tone. Indeed, especially in comparison to his previous outing—the mile high club comedy I’m So Excited!Julieta is an aggressively austere affair. Of course, “austere Almodóvar” is still inimitably Almodóvar. Take the film’s first shot: we’re awash in a sea of red fabric. It looks like draperie, perhaps a bedsheet or even a curtain. It pulses like a heart...

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Wednesday
Oct052016

Stream This: Bachelorette Married to the Warrior Mobs in Chinatown

It's that time again when we receive a new batch of instant movies to watch. As per usual Amazon Prime is running circles around Netflix in terms of selection because Netflix's focus has long since shifted from movies and TV to movies and TV that they create themselves. After becoming the 21st century Blockbuster they ditched it to become the new HBO. Which is fine except those of us who like to watch movies need better streaming services that function more like the way rental houses used to so that we can find the movies we want when we want them.

Okay. Let's play our game of freeze framing the new streaming selections at random moments and seeing what comes up, no second guessing...

NOW STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME

-Oh no, I'm not talking to you. At all.
-I just waited up all night for you!
- Oh She waited all night? How Cinder-fucking-rella.

Stonewall (2015)
I need more of you to share my pain of having watched this. Sacrifice yourselves immediately so that we may discuss.

Seven more streaming entertainments of vastly varying quality after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Wednesday
Oct052016

Judy by the Numbers: "Together Wherever We Go"

Anne Marie has been chronicling Judy Garland's career chronologically through musical numbers...

Episode 3 of The Judy Garland Show (which would eventually air in its eighth week) was an episode of personal importance for Judy. Her oldest daughter, Liza Minnelli, was joining her for a family-themed show. Liza was only 16 at the time, but she'd already begun building an entertainment resume. While in high school (or rather, while skipping high school) Liza appeared on a Gene Kelly TV special, The Jack Paar Program, Talent Scouts, her mother's London Palladium concert, and was in rehearsals for her Off-Broadway debut in Best Foot Forward. However, young Liza somehow found time in her every-busier schedule to put on a family act.

The Show: The Judy Garland Show Episode 3
The Songwriters: Jule Styne (music) and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics)
The Cast: Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, directed by Bill Hobin

The Story: Two observations stand out watching this clip: 1) These are two talented women who love to perform and 2) These are two talented women who love to perform together. There's something delightfully meta-textual about their decision to sing a song from Broadway's most dysfunctionally overbearing stage mom. As Judy watches Liza, Garland exudes nothing but pride and excitement to share the stage with her daughter. Likewise, teenage Liza - not yet fully confident in her own overwhelming talent - takes her cue from her mother.

Though they're both polished and skilled performers, this song does not come off as a professional production number. Every improvised forehead touch, handhold, or giggle renders a public performance into a personal mother/daughter moment, exposing that vein of reckless vulnerability that made both women incomparable performers. Anyone who grew up in a musical household will recognize this kind of musical intimacy. This is a mother and a daughter goofing off around the piano at home, or belting showtunes in the car on the way to school. Liza and Judy sing together with real affection and private joy. It just happens a TV camera caught it on tape.