Oscar and Lucinda Reunion!

Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett at the MOMA Benefit honoring Blanchett 11/17/15

Small Screen MVPs: The Leftovers, Transparent, Black-ish and more...

Each week or so we're asking member of Team Experience to share the MVP of whatever they've been watching on TV lately. The MVP may be a prop, a theme, a person, or a collective. In past episodes we've talked The Flash and Bob's Burgers, The Walking Dead and The Knick and a handful of others. Now five more shows hit our collective eyeballs. Maybe you're watching them?

The Leftovers' Showrunners
The first season of The Leftovers made for difficult but extremely rewarding viewing. But nothing could have prepared us for the show's second season, which has been more daring, more ambitious, and yes, even more difficult than the first. Take the season premiere, which spent its first nine minutes telling a prehistoric tale of a cavewoman and her infant child, before shifting to present-day Jarden, TX - thousands of miles away from the show's previous setting of Mapleton, NY. When characters we finally knew appeared, they were treated as supporting characters. And it wasn't until the fourth episode of the season that we finally came back to the opening scene's lake in the aftermath of the premiere-ending earthquake during which that entire lake and at least three girls disappeared. 

The sixth episode "Lens" was a killer dual showcase for the Emmy-worthy Carrie Coon and Regina King... More plus Transparent, The Mindy Project, and Black-ish after the jump...

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Special Report: Spirit Awards Preview/Predictions

?????The Spirit Award nominations are announced a week from today. Here's special guest and our podcast cohort Joe Reid to preview/predict the nominations.

The 2015 Film Independent Spirit Awards will announce their nominations next Tuesday, the earliest full slate of nominations (the Gothams can call me when they get supporting categories) and for many the clearest opening bell for awards season. After them, the critics awards start rolling in, then the Golden Globe nominations, and by then we're off to the races. I have always found the Spirits to be the most difficult to predict and the most fun. Partly because they happen so early in the season but also partly because the qualifications are always just a bit mysterious.

A reminder, per the Spirits' rules and regs: to qualify, a film must be an American film made for under $20 million, and have either been released in theaters in 2015 or played one of six major U.S. festivals (Sundance, Los Angeles, New Directors/New Films, New York, Telluride, Toronto). Of course, even with those rules, there are splittable hairs. 

predictions after the jump

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Moore and Haynes, Reunited At Last

Manuel here. In news that seem tailor-made for The Film Experience readership in general and Nathaniel in particular, Julianne Moore* is teaming up once again with her Far From Heaven director Todd Haynes. 

(Pause as we all gay gasp).

As you'll remember, Nat was already ecstatic about this project back when it was announced earlier in the year and while our host has been having a ball lately — in Los Angeles he overheard some Oscar whisperings, hob-knobbed with Adepero Oduye (!), Gena Rowlands (!!), Ian McKellen and The Lovely Laura Linney (!!!), and caught various films, you have to be sure that the news will surely knock him out all over again with glee.

Wonderstruck, for those of you who managed to regain consciousness after hearing "Moore" and "Haynes" in the same sentence, is Brian Selzknick's 2011 picture book/novel hybrid that follows two interconnected narratives, one set in 1927 and one in 1977 (in true Selznick fashion, one is told purely in pictures, the other purely in words) and involves a little girl obsessed with an actress and a boy intent on finding some family history that remains a mystery to him. For those of us who have already seen Carol, there is no doubt that Haynes is at the top of his game, so the fact that his next directorial project is coming together so quickly (no more waiting 8 years for another film!) is a welcome development. That it includes Moore? Well, that's just the juiciest cherry on top.

*This is your weekly reminder that Julianne Moore won an Oscar.

Curio: Art Awakens

Alexa here with your weekly arts and crafts. Last weekend Gallery1988 exhibited some amazing works of art celebrating the continuing saga of Star Wars. The exhibit, Art Awakens, showcases the work of over 60 artists; J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan were on hand for the opening.  Even better, the pieces are being auctioned on eBay for charity!  Original pieces and prints are available on eBay now to benefit UNICEF Kid Power, a program to provide food to kids in need worldwide. Bids on some of the original pieces are already at thousands of dollars!

Here are some favorite pieces from the show...

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