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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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Monday
Aug242015

Miscellania: Tarantino's Quotes, Horror's ROI, and Crown's Actors

Dan Callahan interviews Ingrid Bergman's daughters for her centennial
Vulture Quentin Tarantino interviewed. He likes the films of the Duplass Brothers, loves The Newsroom (um, okay?) and disses on Cate Blanchett and Oscar Bait. 
Salon is Daniel (Ralph Macchio) the real bully in The Karate Kid? A contrarian reading
Planet Money Horror films continue to be the best return on investments for producers 
AV Club rumor has it that George Miller is being courted for Man of Steel 2. Danger! There's no way Warner Bros would let him go as expectation averse wild with that franchise as he allowed himself to go with his own franchise for Fury Road 
Grantland rising screenwriter Max Landis (yes, son of John) talks American Ultra, studio franchises versus original material and admits he "despised" Jurassic World

Salon talks to Gaby Hoffman (Transparent, Girls) about her unique roles of late
Mashable now superheroes are even entering the beauty industry with face mask treatments
Variety names ten actors to watch but some of them have been with us a long time like mumbling Emory Cohen (he's got a huge role in Brooklyn later this year, and thankfully he's dumped the mumbling and excessive tics for that one) or are couple of years into it like Short Term 12's Keith Stanfield. Glad to see Tessa Thompson (Dear White People) and Bel Powley (Diary of a Teenage Girl) on the list
Empire the great Alfre Woodard joins the cast of Luke Cage for Netflix in a very big role 
Film School Rejects on the best shows of the summer coming from the most unlikely places (like USA's Mr Robot or Lifetime's UnReal). But maybe they kill their own argument with MTV's "Scream" which I keep hearing is truly terrible. 

About Male Privilege and Hollywood's Resistance to Female Directors
/Film good essay with very solid points on the lack of female directors being offered big studio jobs and Colin Trevorrow's recent responses about the problem. He clearly means well but his response is naive - suggested that women have too much integrity is a bit too flatteringly sexist -- like a 'but women are sugar and spice and too noble to lower themselves thusly!'

Off Cinema
The Hugo Awards this year's sci-fi literary awards had all sorts of drama with shady ballot stuffing and conscientious objecting to said ballot stuffing and so on so they've elected "no awards" in several categories. But big winners were Marvel's "Ms. Marvel" for graphic story "Guardians of the Galaxy" & "Orphan Black" for the drama prizes. The top prize for Best Novel went to "The Three Body Problem".
Boy Culture "Beat it, I'm Madonna" a great video mashup of Michael Jackson & Madonna
Vimeo Penis painting the Queen and Princess Diana. No really. And obviously NSFW 

Actors in The Regular News
Variety turns out one of the all time best French actors was on that Amsterdam to Paris train that was attacked. He sounded the alarm. Well done, Jean-Hugues Anglade.
The Wrap sad about this - Rosie O'Donnell's 17 year old mixed up with drugs, a 25 year old alleged heroin dealer arrested for endangerment of minor. And Rosie just played a sad mom with a troubled teen daughter onThe Fosters.

Finally
Netflix is making a series The Crown about the early reign of Queen Elizabeth. Helen Mirren had to step down from her signature role this time since the series takes place when she was but 21 years of age and inherited the thrown. Claire Foy, who played Anne Boleyn in Wolf Hall, plays the royal. People magazine has photos but they don't share this one so I thank Kevin Daly for providing. It's John Lithgow as Winston Churchill and the wondrous screen bitch Harriet Walter as someone... not sure who.

Love her. And she doesn't get enough credit. She's so terrifically callous in Sense & Sensibility (1995) and we've seen her several times in other costume dramas: Young Victoria, Downton Abbey, Cheri, A Royal Affair.

Monday
Aug242015

Beauty vs Beast: Audrey in the Middle

Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" -- you're probably vividly aware at this point that this month's Supporting Actress Smackdown is tackling the ladies of 1954, especially since just the other day the Smackdowners listed some of their favorite things about that year. And what a year it was! I was pretty tempted to give this week's contest over to my favorite movie of all-time Rear Window (it's in a lifelong dead heat with Rosemary's Baby for that mantle, actually) but... well that's awfully expected of me. How many of these posts have I already dedicated to Hitchcock movies?

So I looked a smidge deeper and found a perfectly pleasant second pick -- after all, who wouldn't want to put themselves in Audrey Hepburn's designer shoes for a moment? Sabrina it is! Make like you're Billy Wilder's leading lady and choose -- Bogart's puppy-eyed businessman or Holden's suave playboy?

PREVIOUSLY Last week we brought it on with the rival cheerleading squads of Bring It On -- but who brought it bigger in the end? In a reversal of the movie's well-reason donouement we've handed our trophy to the loveable cheaters the Rancho Carne Toros! The curse of the dropped spirit stick is broken! Said Jonn:

"Team Jesse Bradford brushing his teeth isn't an option?!"

Monday
Aug242015

H8teful Eight vs Black Mass: Character Posters

Manuel here bringing you two sets of character posters that are sure to adorn plenty of dorms soon. White, red and gray is in, apparently, as the new posters for Quentin Tarantino’s eighth film The H8teful Eight (am I doing th8t right?) and the Johnny Depp-starrer Black Mass show:

Click to embiggen (or see them individually here)

We probably knew these were coming for the Tarantino flick (whose trailer we discussed in all its gif-tastic glory), but I can’t be the only one surprised that we’ve got such stylish character posters for that Whitey Bulger flick. When discussing its trailer, we talked about whether this might be the film to bust Depp out of its rut or further bury him in prosthetically-enhanced performance purgatory. Jury is still out, though not for long as the film opens September 18th. We have to wait a bit longer for Tarantino's latest which is waiting until Christmas to be unwrapped.

Click to embiggen (or see them individually here) 

So many male actors! Only Leigh and Johnson offer some much-needed actressing at the edges to both casts. Which set gets your vote?

Sunday
Aug232015

Podcast: Straight Outta U.N.C.L.E. and Into Old Lady Movies

For this week's edition of the podcast, Nathaniel and Nick gab about old lady movies (I'll See You In My Dreams, Ricki & The Flash, and Grandma). Nick hasn't seen The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Nathaniel hasn't seen Straight Outta Compton so they tell each other about them, too.

Contents (43 minutes)
00:01 Grey Gardens to Straight Outta Compton?
06:45 I'll See You In My Dreams, Ricki & The Flash
19:30 Grandma
27:00 The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
30:00 Sam Elliott
33:00 Miscellania: The Gift, Tom at the Farm, Sand Dollars, and being over Helen Mirren


You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes

Straight Outta Old Lady Movies

Sunday
Aug232015

What did you see this weekend?

Question: Do you think that that amazing Straight Outta Somewhere internet meme, which was going strong for weeks before the film opened, helped the amazing box office tally for Straight Outta Compton?

The film has no "name" actors and is performing like a true blockbuster these past two weekends. I mean even I got into the act on twitter and instagram (see image below) and I have no real emotional connection to N.W.A. (Rap and Hiphop were never really an interest of mine outside of Missy Elliott in totality and a couple of dozen other songs and/or artists) 

In limited release both Grandma and Learning to Drive had solid starts and if word of mouth kicks in they could be looking at healthy runs. Phoenix, the German sleeper hit, continues to expand and will break the magical $1 million mark for arthouse imports any second now. Joe Swanberg's latest Digging For Fire with Rosemarie DeWitt had a tough time finding its audience though.

BOX OFFICE WIDE
August 21st-23rd estimates

01 Straight Outta Compton $27.8 (cum. $112.5)
02 Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation $11.7 (cum. $157.7) Tim's Review
05 Sinister 2  $10.5 new  Interview
03 The Man From U.N.C.L.E. $7.6 (cum. $26.8) Kyle's Review
04 Hitman Agent 47 $7.5 new 
05 American Ultra  $5.7 new
06 The Gift  $4.3 (cum. $31) Jose's Review
07 Ant-Man  $4.2 (cum. $164.6)  Tim's ReviewPodcast, on Paul Rudd
08 Minions  $3.9 (cum. $320.1)  Tim on the Minions phenom
09 Fantastic Four $3.6 (cum. $49.5) Tim's Review

BOX OFFICE LIMITED (EXCLUDING PREVIOUSLY WIDE RELEASES)
August 21st - 23rd estimates

01 Mr Holmes $.6 (cum. $15.3) on 430 screens
02 The End of the Tour $.5 (cum. $1.6) on 355 screens
03 Phoenix $.3 (cum. $.9) on 108 screens Interview
04 Mistress America $.2 (cum. $.3) on 32 screens
05 Diary of a Teenage Girl $.1 (cum. $.4) on 69 screens Michael's Review
06 Amy  $.1 (cum. $7.6) on 100 screens Glenn's Review
07 Grandma  $.1 on 4 screens NEW Nathaniel's ReviewJoe's ReviewPosterized: Lily Tomlin
08 Learning to Drive  $.06 on 4 screens NEW
09 Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet $.04 (cum. $.1) on 24 screens
10 Listen to Me Marlon  $.04 (cum. $.2) on 26 screens Amir's Review