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.)
Alexa here. I was honored recently when one of my collage pieces was chosen to be a part of the Orson Welles Centennial celebrations in Woodstock, IL. For those that don't know their Welles history, here are some facts: Welles attended the progressive Todd School in Woodstock from 1926 to 1931, after his parents' divorce and his mother's death. It was there where Welles met his lifelong mentor Roger Hill, the headmaster of the school; Hill essentially developed a curriculum to nurture Welles' interests in art and theater. It was in Woodstock that Welles directed his first play and made his first film. In interviews later in his life, he said that Woodstock was the closest place he had to a real home.
Welles, circled, during his time in Woodstock
Located about 50 miles northwest of Chicago, Woodstock is holding 3 weekends of centennial celebrations to honor Welles' 100th birthday. Of course there will be screenings: of Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, and Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles, a new documentary directed by Chuck Workman. There will also be stagings of "Rosebud: The Lives of Orson Welles," a one-man play by Erik Van Beuzekom, and a staging of "War of the Worlds." Oja Kodar, Welles' former girlfriend, is also set to speak, along with many others.
Coinciding with these events will be an exhibit that will include original art and a private collection of memorabilia. I was lucky enough to have festival co-chairman Greg Gantner give me a peek at a few of the items that will be on exhibit before the show opens on the 8th. The Welles nerd in me was very excited and snapped some pictures...
The Dissolve Emily Blunt is finally revving back up her career. After Sicario she's headlining Bronco Belle Guardian Ryan Gosling, ever the good sport about internet memes, finally eats his cereal, and a cancer fund is created to memorialize the meme creator Empire the very busy young actor Will Poulter case as Pennywise in the new version of Stephen King's "It" Awards Watch I was the special guest on their latest podcast defending my first wave of predictions, particularly why I got behind Sicario and am hesitant on Carol.
Film Actually 20 most anticipated performances (I keep forgetting about Ben Foster as Lance Armstrong) In Contention speaking of Foster, he's got a new film Comancheria, just picked up by CBS Films. Think they'll change the title before release? I'm taking bets. Playbill If you've never seen Broadway darling and sometime TV & film player Kristin Chenoweth in concert, do NOT miss her tour. I've seen her like four times live and she's magic. It starts in August and she's hitting 17 states so see if any shows are near you! MNPP who wore it best (skin suits edition): The Vision or Robbie Williams? The Dissolve has a cute Gremlins filled video about the history of the PG rating. Variety the rapping Granny from The Wedding Singer has died at 101 years of age Previously TV Joe Reid guests for a RPDR recap of the "prancing queens' episode. good stuff /Film Joss Whedon explains that messy Thor in the pool business from Age of Ultron (the more we hear about the making of the movie the more disastrous it sounds from an executive interference level; this can't be a good sign for the movies going forward.)
It's the Black Widow's World. Marvel Just Doesn't Know It Yet. Washington Post on "Black Widow's Feminist Heroism" - a great response to the weird outrage criticisms despite her film-rescuing place in those movies Think Progress on further linked e-mails which show Hollywood's absolute sexism and stupidity about female heroes, they think Elektra and Catwoman are the best that can be done? Yikes! Pajiba also Jeremy Renner doubles down on his sorry not sorry douchery about calling Black Widow a slut Polygon would watch ScarJo's Black Widow Romantic Comedy via SNL. (as would I)
Showtune(s) to go ~ Happy Alice Faye Centennial When I revisited the Oscar nominated In Old Chicago (1937) a couple of years ago I was a bit dismissive of Alice Faye, a major 30s film star (who isn't so well remembered today) who played Tyrone Power's conquest. After more investigation the appeal has become far more obvious and since May 5th is her Centennial you definitely have 5 minutes to give her major voice - that's a memorably warm deep contralto. Here she is in two incarnations as a pre-code bad girl singing about 'Fooling with The Other Woman's Man' in Now I'll Tell (1934) looking like a visual inspiration for Madonna's future Breathless Mahoney in Dick Tracy. And then in a more traditionally romantic Technicolor light in Weekend in Havana (1941) with John Payne (Tyrone Power and then John Payne? lucky girl) singing "Tropical Magic"
David Dastmalchian concludes his guest blog takeover with this playlist (which we've helpfully collated on Spotify for you) - you should follow him on Twitter & Instagram ! - Editor
Photograph by Braden Moran
Soundtrack of My Life -by David Dastmalchian
I read once that memory is like film editing. We cut and paste the sequences together in a way that make our past fit into the context of our present. I have this strange kind of daydream that feels like a movie trailer and I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. I look at a time in my life – or my life as a whole – and imagine it with few words but with a great deal of music. I change the songs often and the points of focus shift from day-to-day but I will share just a few of the predominant soundtrack jams from the life and mind of, well, you know – me.
1. Shine on You Crazy Diamond – Pink Floyd My parents used to shoot super 8 films of us as kids in Kansas and my dad had them all edited together onto a DVD a few years back. There’s no audio so you’re just sitting there watching us all blowing out candles or learning how to swim in silence. Actually, I think there was some bad Vince Guaraldi rip-off jazz that the Costco or wherever people had dubbed in. I just popped in my Wish You Were Here and listened and watched. Perfect music to sum up so much.
2. The Rainbow Connection – Jim Henson The Muppet Movie and its effect on my life are no small secret. I first took to a stage when I was 6 years old in Kansas so that I could strum a ukulele in my overalls and sing this song which says EVERYTHING you need to say about love and imagination. Beautiful, man.
3. Come Together and Let it Flow – Spiritualized These anthems of my late teens and early twenties sum up the tracking shot of a dude with blasted pupils, sitting wayyyyy back on a couch in a poster-lined apartment in Chicago and watching the wax slowly melt off the candles. I believe that I was really trying to find some way to link up with the people around me and only inadvertently succeeded in isolating myself from them all.
4. Goodnight, Irene – Leadbelly And old pal of mine used to do a bang-up version of this song when he would play around Chicago – but it really strikes up an image for me of driving across the long expanse of endless highway across my Kansas homeland. Those early memories of sitting in the back of my parents station wagon and rolling through the wheat-lined roads of the Midwest are some of my most cinematic mental images.
5. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes – The Platters My mother had a “Golden Collection” of the Platters (one of those record sets you’d order off TV that came with special liner notes and fancy packaging) and I loved it. We would listen to the records on the old Motorola console in our living room and I would slow dance with an imaginary woman of my dreams – I think at that time it was probably Kristy McNichol or Justine Bateman. Or Lita Ford.
6. Simple Twist of Fate – Bob Dylan AND Joan Baez have versions of this classic jam that sum up the quick cuts of my early 20’s when I was hitch-hiking and riding Greyhound busses from Seattle to Asheville and trying to find my way back to Alaska while riding out the decade-long trip of simpleadventure and recklessness that was starting to ramp up in speed and severity, which leads to….
7. Stuck on You (Failure) One of those songs that plays perfectly in the long, spiraling overhead crane shot as it comes down to face a guy who thought he knew what he was getting into and didn’t realize until it was too late that he was in way, way, way too deep over his head.
9. Which leads to that final deathbed moment. It’s a beautiful song but sad – but shouldn’t it be sad? It’s okay for deathbeds to be somber. I don’t want a marching band playing “Oh When the Saints” – I want all my loved ones crying and lamenting that we won’t be having any more adventures… for a while at least. Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd) Yes, that IS two Pink Floyd songs on my trailer track list – so sue me. It’s my guest blog and I can do what I want.
And now I leave you with this – the trailer for our upcoming release, ANIMALS, which will be in theaters and on VOD on 5.15.15. For details on where you can see the film, please visit www.animalsthefilm.com And if you love the song as much as we do, it’s from a band called “Lavendar Diamond”. Go find and buy all of their beautiful music here: www.lavenderdiamond.net
Thanks for reading and THANKS to Nathaniel for letting me sit in the driver’s seat for a day. It was a lot of fun and I hope you didn’t get too many unsubscribes during my brief tenure. Now… back to your regularly scheduled programming!
I have said this in jest many times – and will probably continue to joke about it again and again – but the truth of the matter is that I came dangerously close to having a severe nervous breakdown in the weeks that led up to the filming of Animals. For the uninitiated, Animals is a feature film that I wrote, acted in and produced. My close friend and Midwest compatriot, Collin Schiffli, directed the film about a homeless couple who struggle between the reality of their addiction to heroin (and one another) and the fantasy life that they imagine for themselves.
Although it’s not a “biopic” by any means, the film was definitely influenced by my own personal battles with the same demons as my characters. More...
One of our favorite rising actors, David Dastmalchian, is Guest Blogging! Learn his name. He's working with great people -Editor
Photo by Evelyn Leigh"What I Saw..." -by David Dastmalchian
There are so many films that have a special place in my memory and their impact on my life was made all the more powerful by how and where I saw them. My earliest memories of film-going are the Kansas City drive-in’s where I caught second-run screenings from the back of my folks old station wagon of Grease, James Bond flicks like View from a Kill and Moonraker, and being in my mom’s arms at the back of the theater at a matinee with my family of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I thought the tarantulas in the opening sequence were climbing the walls of the theater… Here are a few spectacular memories that I will always treasure:
What I Saw: THE MUPPET MOVIE Where I Saw It: The Oak Park Mall Cinemas (KS)
This will remain one of the most profound movie-going experiences of my life. The characters, colors, sounds, music, performances all exploded in front of my little face on the big screen as I sat enraptured beside my childhood buddy, Brian Bishop and his wonderful mother, Kathy. We went to a matinee at the local cinema and this was one of my first ventures into an actual movie theater. At that point in my development, the whole “suspension of disbelief” in my imagination was so strong that I believed wholeheartedly that ‘Sweetums’ the monster Muppet actually crashed through the screen in our theater auditorium at the end of the film. For years I would proudly boast that I had seen the film in a theater where a REAL Muppet made an appearance. The “Rainbow Connection” became my first on-stage performance in a preschool talent show and my wife even chose the song for her processional at our wedding. The effect of this film on my life continues to this day. Several times a year (especially in moments of disillusionment with the entertainment industry), I will watch the final five minutes of the film – from the moment that Orson Welles offers Kermit “The Rich and Famous Contract” through the end. Go do this now. Bring the Kleenex. You’re welcome.
Wednesday, May 6, 2015 at 9:04AM 
Welles, circled, during his time in Woodstock
