Oscar Volley It's Back
Oscar Charts Updated!
Thursday, October 31, 2013 at 12:00PM I was all about to complete "Our Coven" -- our series of holiday witch posts -- in the traditional way when I realized that this requested review of The Witches that I'd written years ago had been lost from the internet! So we must repost with a couple minor updates. I hope you'll enjoy this look back at a key film from 1990.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Celebrate with The Witches
Wednesday, October 30, 2013 at 9:31PM The revival of "StinkyLulu's Supporting Actress Smackdown" now in its new home at The Film Experience continues. The year is... [cue: time travelling music] 1968. Oscar skipped the Globe nominees in this category from For the Love of Ivy, The Lion in Winter and Finian's Rainbow and despite their love of Oliver! AND of women in musicals AND of prostitutes with hearts of gold they also skipped newcomer Shani Wallis. Instead they went with these five...
Tony Curtis presented the 1968 Best Supporting Actress Oscar
THE NOMINEES
Estelle Parsons, the previous year's winner in this category for Bonnie & Clyde returned for a victory lap (though she skipped the ceremony). She was joined by two showbiz veterans: Ruth Gordon, a three time nominee for screenwriting who was in the middle of a surprising golden years reinvention as a beloved character actress, and Kay Medford, who had previously experienced her greatest successes on stage. Filling out the shortlist were two fresh faces nominated for their film debuts: Sondra Locke (who would later partner up with Clint Eastwood both on and offscreen for 14 years) & Lynn Carlin (who would later vanish into a series of guest spots on television).
Who will win the Smackdown? Read on
Wednesday, October 30, 2013 at 7:04PM Team Experience is assembling our own coven of preferred witches for Halloween. Here's Anne Marie on Kim Novak and her kitty.
How does a studio follow up one of the most iconic thrillers ever made? With a supernatural rom-com, of course! Bell Book And Candle was released in 1958 a few months after Vertigo. Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak once again play a bewitched man and the woman who desperately loves him, but this time Kim Novak wields magic and doesn't die twice.
As Gillian Holroyd, Kim Novak is the sexiest sorceress to ever sling a spell. By day, Gil sells "primitive art" from her chic New York art gallery. By night, she weaves powerful enchantments to ensare her rival's fiance and exact her revenge. One thing that never changes is her sense of style: Gil pulls off this double life in some stunning (Academy Award nominated) ensembles.
Broom - Who needs cumbersome transportation in New York City? A true Greenwich girl can walk most anywhere she wants. (Preferably barefoot.)
Favored Spell - Love potions with a tendency to backfire.
Pointy Hat - Instead of a drab dull hat, why not this gorgeous backless gown?
Familiar - A communicative siamese cat named Pyewacket. Bonus - he matches her eyes.
"Only Bad Witches Are Ugly" - If Glinda is right, then Gil must be the Queen of the Good Witches. Never mind that she ruined an engagement through her witchcraft - she looks fabulous! Besides, she gets her comeuppancce: Gil falls in love and loses her powers as a result. Karma can be a real witch.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013 at 1:01PM 
Adele (Adele Exarchopolous) is voracious. We first note this when she’s devouring a huge plate of spaghetti at her family’s table. She practically hoovers it down, tomato sauce staining her mouth, before going back for seconds. She reads and writes the same way, albeit offscreen, devouring 600 page novels and writing intimate diaries. But what we see is her various oral fixations and one doesn’t eat literature. If she’s not shoving cigarettes in her mouth, it’s food (and, later, body parts). In one endearing moment she shoves a chocolate bar in her wet face during a crying jag getting a huge laugh from moviegoers who've also eaten their feelings.
Adele will eat anything but seafood. That would be a sly tongue-in-(uhhhh)cheek joke if the new lesbian drama BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR didn’t make a point of it in two separate scenes. Instead this provocative film -- already famous round the globe for its explicit sex and post-Cannes disputes between its actresses and director – risks camp by playing it straight. It shamelessly equates oysters to ladyparts and in one scene that is either comical, ridiculous, perverse or all three, Adele’s older girlfriend Emma (Léa Seydoux) teaches her how to eat them… in front of the parents!
Guess what? She likes it.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013 at 11:02AM 
Team Experience is building its own coven of favorite screen witches. Happy Halloween! Here's JA on that know-it-all from Hogwarts.
It's only been two years since the Harry Potter saga ended film-wise and for awhile I felt the need to take a break from it, it having eaten up a good decade of pop-culture and all, but I've got to admit I'm feeling some nostalgia for it these days all the same. And nowhere moreso than with Hermione, always my favorite character (I never stand a chance with the bookish ones, they always win) - what's she up to these days anyway, in between when the Battle of Hogwarts was won and that kid-laden flash-forward? Did she momentarily move to LA to take up robbing the rich and famous? More...
Emma Watson, Harry Potter, witches