Day of Rest

It's the Sabbath, a day of rest. And sometimes you have to sleep in.

Some nights really take it out of you!

TFE's Coven

I apologize for the lack of American Horror Story: Coven coverage this past Thursday. Especially since you were so great about joining the conversation last time. I promise to do it weekly now...

Staring next Thursday. Which is Halloween! How perfect, right?

In the meantime for the next few days we're building our own coven of Big Screen Movie Witches for the holiday. Stay tuned! 

Introducing... Five Nominees 1968

I've hinted at it before but we're going to try "Introducing..." as a series, since we love contemplating how actors and filmmakers introduce us to key characters in the movies. There's a real specific art to it if you want the character to stick. So herewith, as prelude to Wednesday's Smackdown, is how the five Supporting Actress nominees of 1968 are introduced in their films. In future non-Smackdown episodes we'll just concentrate on one entrance. But for our purposes here, quintuplets!

I've listed the nominees by how soon they show up in their respective films.

8 minutes in... Estelle Parsons as "Calla" in Rachel Rachel
This entrance is smartly staged by first-time director Paul Newman. It has the clarity of a theatrical entrance albeit without any heightening or glamour. As Rachel (Joanne Woodard) leads her schoolchildren downstage right with some silly arm wavings, an atypically 'light' gesture from this uptight teacher, Calla descends stage left from a higher floor into view, with her own flock, as if conjured by that sudden shift in tone. You immediately sense that they're very different women but as Calla gets closer to the camera, her shift from screechy schoolmarm to close co-worker chum is complete; the women lean in together co-conspiratorially.

Click to read more ...

The Smackdown Cometh

Guess what's on its way?

That's right. Supporting Actress Smackdown 1968 coming at'cha on Wednesday October 30th. If you haven't yet voted on the Reader Ranking portion of the Smackdown, please do so by Monday. Rank only the performances you've seen on a scale of 1 to 5 hearts (5 being stupendous, 1 being totes unworthy and so on)

Let's meet our panelists shall we? Their bios and "what 1968 means to them" after the jump.

SPECIAL GUESTS

Manuel Muñoz
Manuel is the author of three books, including the Hitchcock-inspired novel, What You See in the Dark.  He teaches creative writing at the University of Arizona in Tucson and is a judge for the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

What 1968 Means To Me

❝It’s the Year of the Tie.  If nothing else, 1968 drives me bonkers when it comes to wish fulfillment for a tie in some other year when a split decision could ease the nagging feeling that Oscar couldn’t get it right no matter the outcome.  (I’m thinking of you, 1987.)  The sight of Ingrid Bergman opening that envelope with a look of delighted awe registers, for me, as a big ol’ can of worms for those of us wacky enough to reimagine these outcomes.  What a tantalizing, frustrating possibility—that you could reward a truly major performance and get the warm buzz of sentiment all on the same night, sometimes without knowing which is which.  Burstyn/Rowlands?  Dunaway/Spacek?  Hunter/Close?  Roberts/Linney?  It just kills me.  Better to just call it for Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction and leave it that.❞

Angelo Muredda 
Angelo is a contributor to Film Freak Central and Torontoist and a doctoral candidate in Canadian literature and film at the University of Toronto. He has his father's eyes. Follow him on Twitter 

What 1968 Means to Me

❝Sally Draper slumps back in her seat and takes her first hit of LSD as Keir Dullea goes beyond the infinite. She is fourteen years old. Unlike Sally, I wasn’t around for 1968, so I’m speaking in strictly retrospective terms when I say that for me it’s the year of the Star Child and Rosemary’s unholy issue — a good time for weird births.❞   

RETURNING PANELIST

Brad Griffith
Brad is a blogger/actor/writer/producer/etc living in Los Angeles and working at a large media institution that he's not sure he can name, but for sure can have no official opinions on their movies. Other than that, he spends his relaxation time being busy, and taking in as much culture as he can.

What 1968 Means To Me

❝1968, besides being the year of my birth, gave us "Funny Girl", which helped along a youthful appreciation (obsession) for Barbra Streisand. I used to ask to stay up late to watch it during its annual TV broadcast. Our nominee from that film has one of my favorite comebacks in cinema:

Fanny: A gentleman fits in any place.
Rose: A sponge fits in any place. To me, a stranger should act a little....strange.

What a wacky year 1968 was cinematically - from early independents to the grand scale musicals... and the Smackdown won't even include The Producers, The Lion in Winter, or Herbie the Lovebug.❞

YOUR HOSTS

Nathaniel Rogers
Nathaniel is the founder of The Film Experience, a reknowned Oscar pundit, and the web's actressexual ringleader. Though he holds a BFA in illustration, he found his true calling when he started writing about the movies. Follow him on Twitter but do not stalk him in New York City.

What 1968 Means to Me

Please sir, I want some more.

❝That's how I feel about every grand cinematic year but since Oliver! was my third favorite movie of all time as a child (Yes, listing predated blogging) the quote is especially relevant. I was shocked to discover much later in life that it was very uncool to love Oliver! but I love what I love and proudly. Aside from prematurely empty bowls of gruel there is no 1968 without: a pendant filled with tanas root, the voice of HAL 9000, the Statue of Liberty buried in sand, and a vinyl recording of Babs singing "My Man"❞

Brian Herrera (aka StinkyLulu)
Brian convened the first Supporting Actress Smackdown and hostessed more than thirty. He is a writer, teacher and scholar presently based in New Jersey, but forever rooted in New Mexico. Follow him on Twitter. 

What 1968 Means To Me

❝One of these movies came out the weekend I was born. I saw it about fourteen years later, on the evening of the very day I happily lost my virginity. Yet, as that remarkable day ended, I realized a life-altering fact. I was more thrilled by my first time seeing this movie than by my actual "first time." My name is Brian and I am an actressexual.❞

THE SMACKDOWN ARRIVES ON OCTOBER 30TH
Until then, daily at noon, little helpings of 1968 for context.
(Since reviving the series we've done 1980 and 1952)

A Gynecological Weekend

Three makes a trend, right? This weekend will open to you like an oyster. No... not like an oyster. The weekend will open to you like a magnificent vagina.

1. I must begin by warning you away from Ridley Scott's The Counselor. It's quite nihilistically repulsive despite elements you'd think would add up to an enjoyable watch, particularly Cameron Diaz's cheetah-obsessed bad girl. In one of the film's best moments -- and I use the term "best" only in the sense of grading on a curve -- Cameron spread-eagles on the windshield of her car. I'm sure Cameron Diaz has beautiful lady parts but, rather amusingly, her screen boyfriend Javier Bardem seems less aroused than shell-shocked. He finds the moment difficult to recover from describing it, dumbfounded, as "gynecological"

2. Not one to miss out on an impending internet meme, Jennifer Lawrence's big moment in the X-Men Days of Future Past teaser of a teaser is a spread eagle attack.

3. Finally...  the coveted ticket this weekend is the Cannes winning Blue is the Warmest Color, finally opening up to you. In this three hour lesbian romantic drama Léa Seydoux and Adele Exarchoupolos get naked (but for their prosthetic vaginas) for an explicit seven minute sex scene... a sex scene that so excited Cannes-watchers that the length of the scene was widely misreported to be twenty minutes. Despite my genuine love of sapphic drama I've managed to miss every critics screening so I'm seeing it this weekend with the masses.

Happy spelunking!