Klute, pt 1: Auditions, Tricks, and Transformations

Occasionally we'll take a movie and baton pass it around the team and really dive in. If you missed past installments we've gone long and deep on Rebecca (1940), West Side Story (1961),  Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Cabaret (1972), Silence of the Lambs (1991), Thelma & Louise (1991), Aladdin (1992) and A League of Their Own (1992).  

KLUTE
A Mini-Series Retrospective with "Best Shot" Choice
Part 1 by Nathaniel R

The Oscar winning thriller Klute (1971) is now just over a half-century old. Since it's a personal favourite of mine, and features the iconic Jane Fonda in her first Best Actress winning performance, it's high time we really gave it its due here at The Film Experience. So let's start from the beginning and dive into what makes it great. Along the way we'll pick a "Best Shot" from each section, too, to coincide with that series...

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Tribeca: Being Bipolar in 'The Year Between'

By Abe Friedtanzer

Parents don't always expect their children to thrive, and it's normal and actually somewhat common for young adults to return to where they grew up to live for a short time before they find their footing. But some children may be predisposed to not living up to expectations, and that may be through no fault of their own. The Year Between humorously explores the misadventures of Clemence (Alex Heller) recently diagnosed as bipolar.  Clemence is presented as a walking nightmare, wreaking havoc wherever she goes...

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More Quick (Belated) Reviews: Bob's Burgers Movie, Senior Year, etc...

by Nathaniel R

THE BOB’S BURGERS MOVIE
I was perplexed about how to talk about this movie as a longtime passionate fan of Bob's Burgers. On the one hand it was as enjoyable as any episode of the show and it was great to spend time with the Belcher family again. On the other, when I went to write a proper review of it a few days after the screening, I couldn't remember any of the specific jokes beyond the perpetual tease about whether Louise might lose her bunny ears...

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Tribeca: Sigourney Weaver Sells 'The Good House'

By Abe Friedtanzer

Film protagonists struggling with alcoholism dates back to the early days of cinema. While treatments, support groups, and the drinking age may have changed over the past century, the difficulty of needing that drink has not. It's interesting to see how films choose to portray such a common subject. The Good House, premiering at Tribeca ahead of a theatrical release this fall, definitely opens with a lighthearted approach.

Sigourney Weaver plays Hildy, a small-town New England realtor who spends as much time directly addressing the camera as she does trying to sell her clients on homes...

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Cláudio's Best Shot Pick: Klute (1971)

The next episode in our series, 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot,' arrives Thursday night. This week we're celebrating Alan J. Pakula's seminal Klute with multiple posts. You still have time to participate! In the meantime, here's Cláudio's entry:

"I'm afraid of the dark, " says Bree Daniels, a New York sex worker trying to keep herself from becoming a serial killer's next victim. This confession happens relatively early in a film bearing the name of the taciturn Pennsylvania detective who comes to the Big Apple to investigate his friend's disappearance. He is the man to which she tells of this private fear, not necessarily a gesture of honesty but a weaponizing of her vulnerability. As ever, Bree wants control of the situation, and to bear herself naked is often the key to such dominance. Nakedness, of course, can come from truth rather than bared flesh. Watching Klute, one gets the sense that Bree is truly afraid of the dark, even though that very darkness is the poisonous womb within which she exists at all time, like an unborn babe striving for the light of birth while keeping itself smothered in the comfort of shadow…

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