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.)
JA from MNPP here, sharing the first look at the goddess named Nicole Kidman playing the goddess named Grace Kelly in Oliver Dahan's film Grace of Monaco, which IMDb lists for release in 2014 but I'd be surprised if it didn't come out next year. (via) It deals with Grace's late-life princess days; Tim Roth is playing Prince Rainier; also hanging around will be Paz Vega, Frank Langella, and Parker Posey (YES). Nicole looks fab, no?
Michael C. here, returned from having my skin properly crawled at the NYFF’s Midnight Movie series.
Barry Levinson's The Bay is the type of movie you would get if Al Gore decided to forget the whole PowerPoint documentary thing and made a movie where global warming boils everyone’s brain and brings on a zombie apocalypse. Levinson says he was first approached to make a documentary about industrial pollution killing Chesapeake Bay, but opted to direct The Bay instead. The premise involves a breed of sea lice - which look like those bed bugs you always see magnified in pest control ads - mutating into a creepy crawly menace after they find their way into the toxic chemical soup that is currently the Chesapeake.
Levinson says he and screenwriter Michael Wallach worked hard to keep the story grounded in reality. “85% based on fact” is the figure he used. Considering the majority of the film concerns itself with mutated ocean parasites eating Marylanders from the inside out that is not a comforting figure. At one point during the film a CDC official is presented with the image of one of these isopods grown to the size of a Doberman Pinscher. The CDC official can’t believe his eyes. “Tell me that’s Photoshopped!” It was found “trying to chew its way through the side of a submarine,” he is informed.
“That’s a real picture,” Levinson helpfully explained during the Q & A following the movie. The story about the sub? Also true. It was as if Danny Boyle came out on stage following a screening of 28 Days Later and said, “Oh, yeah. Scientists are totally working on a rage virus,” and then produced on stage an infected monkey, straining on its leash trying to bite audience members.
So, yeah. Disturbing.
Beyond its unsettling basis in fact, The Bay is a modest, well-crafted creature feature that breathes new life into the found footage device. Levinson describes his technique as “an archeological dig” which culls video from every available source to reconstruct the timeline of the outbreak. In classic disaster movie fashion we follow the stories of several characters over the course of the day, and Levinson and the cast of unknowns do a first-rate job simulating amateur footage without calling attention to the gimmick.
The Bay may disappoint casual viewers who wander in looking for the usual horror movie thrills. The trailer sells it as a sort of zombie movie, but the infected do little more than moan and beg for medical attention. The sea lice could potentially make for terrific movie monsters, but Levinson refuses to crank up the gross-out moments to Fangoria levels. By keeping it all on a more plausible scale The Bay prevents us retreating behind the comfort of familiar movie beats to avoid the story's implications. As a horror film The Bay is a solid entry. A scrappy low budget Contagion with sea lice instead of germs. As a piece of subversive environmental agitprop, on the other hand, it is scary effective. B
Geekologie What if Disney villains had won? Fun illustrations of our favorites including Ursula & Maleficent Pajiba reads my mind on the Olivia Newton-John / John Travolta Christmas Album !!! Well they read my mind except the part where the article is all obsessed about John Travolta's fake hair instead of Sandy & Danny reunited again! Film Dr 10 Notes on Looper and the reciprocal nature of violence Fleshbot *NSFW* Daniel Radcliffe gets naked for The F Word and Kill Your Darlings. After this and Equus... maybe he's telling us he's a naturist?
Gawker Liam Neeson does his naked part for charity on "Ellen" Badass Digest interesting piece on the splintering of pop culture. Film may no longer rule, but neither does anything else. PlaybillMiss Pettigrew Lives For a Day, the musically inclined feature that starred Frances McDormand, Amy Adams and Lee Pace may be headed for the Broadway musical stage In ContentionBeasts of the Southern Wild won't be honored at the SAG Awards who have ruled it ineligible. This could put a dent in Quvenzhané Wallis Best Actress hopes if you ask me since SAG has historically liked little girl performances even more than Oscar.
Team Experience Pop Elegantarium Alexa loves Looper and Looper paintings by the director's brother Stale Popcorn Glenn kicks off a miniseries 31 Horrors with Cat People (1982) MNPP JA loves Barry Levinson's The Bay Serious Film Michael survives ocean storms with The Life of Pi
Exit Music The hilarious Rebel Wilson sang from her "breast voice" for her Pitch Perfect audition
Thursday, October 4, 2012 at 12:42PM 
