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.)
Kieran, here wishing the happiest of birthdays to one of our most talented, specific, peculiar and mysterious pop culture icons--the great Grace Jones.
There are countless pop music mainstays today who owe a great debt to the trails blazed by Grace Jones and many have gone to great pains to cite her as a predecessor. Her signature, striking style, her unique music, her fascinating, inimitable look are incredibly influential. Make no mistake--a lot of your favs (and I take nothing away from them by saying this for it's the best artist that borrow from other artists) can be traced back to Grace Jones.
Jones has made forrays into film here and there, though she's arguably most known for her appearances in Boomerang where her character brashly declared...
Out this week on blu-ray/dvd is Robert Eggers's The Witch. Warmly received by critics, but divisive for general audiences, the film is a marvel of craft and inescapable dread. But the film is more than its horror elements and immaculate period detail - at the center is a potent family tragedy as well-developed as any drama you'll seen this year. And the bruised soul of that tragedy is actress Kate Dickie.
Dickie stars as the matriarch of a Puritan family banished from their New England settlement in the 17th century. Her Katherine begins the film essentially wordless during the excommunication, then is defined by her off-screen sobs after the film's first punishments. Once Katherine collects herself, she quickly reveals herself to be a devout believer firmly planted in her role as wife and mother. As things quickly turn from bad to worse, her agony surges with authentic depth until she becomes willingly deluded by her own suffering.
Dickie's portrayal is a prime example of The Witch offering more than its horror contemporaries...
Tuesday's revisit to the essential and apparently sorely underseen Queen Margot (1994) and the comments thereafter had me thinking about favorite films from 1994. This website wasn't around back then of course (I think the internet was just in listserv mode at that point?) but I was already making lists. So what would I have nominated had our Film Bitch Awards been around back then? What would you have nominated had you had an Oscar ballot?
The answers (fluid as they are should rewatching ever occur) are after the jump...
With this many filmmakers, photographers and journalists in one place, interesting moments are bound to happen and be reported on. Here’s Murtada with a few after the jump...
On this day in history as it relates to the movies...
1536 Anne Boleyn is beheaded. Her tragedy is later reenacted by hundreds of actresses on tv, stage and film including Natalie Portman, Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter, and Genevieve Bujold (Oscar nomination). 1836 Cynthia Ann Parker is kidnapped in Texas during an Indian raid after her family is slaughtered. That's a tough break but not many people get to live on in history through multiple classics albeit under pseudonyms like "Debbie Edwards" (Natalie Wood in The Searchers) and "Stands With Fist" (Mary McDonnell in Dances With Wolves). 1925 Malcolm X is born. 67 years later Denzel Washington wins his second Oscar playing him (Shut up! This is our preferred version of history because Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. Ugh, really?) 1941 Nora Ephron is born spewing witticisms.
1958Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is released in movie theaters. 1962 Marilyn Monroe, who looms larger than 50 Feet in the American consciousness, sings happy birthday to President John F Kennedy 1978 Thank God It's Friday released. Out-discoed in collective disco-movie memories by Can't Stop the Music, two years later. 1982 Rebecca Hall is born. Remains underappreciated 34 years later
1984 It is a very very bad day to be named "Sarah Connor" in Los Angeles. Unless you're unlisted. [src] 1989 Legendary bad movie Road House opens in theaters 1992 Sam Smith is born. 24 years later he tortures global audiences with an off-key rendition of a song no one likes and Hollywood hands him the Oscar -anything to make him stop. 1999Star Wars: the Phantom Menace opens in theaters which is something like discovering a razor blade in your Halloween candy. Jar Jar Binks is the razor blade. Nostalgia is the candy. 2017Baywatch: The Movie opens. God help us all.
and finally...
2154 Jake Sully will arrive in his wheelchair on Pandora and meet his Avatar. Just in time for James Cameron to be cryogenically unfrozen and announce that he's starting production on Avatar 2 and Avatar 3. For real this time, promise.
Thursday, May 19, 2016 at 6:00PM 
