Doc Corner: The art of restoration at TCM Classic Film Festival

By Glenn Dunks

Do you ever think about what career path you may have chosen in retrospect? You know, the one you would have selected had you been able to make such a life-changing decision after having actually experienced life? Maybe you already have your dream job, but even then—there’s often a niggling part of us that imagines something else. If I could turn back time, I think I would love to have gotten into film restoration and archiving. They are each fascinating professions that play to my niche interests including preservation and exhibition of celluloid, not to mention pretty, curated shelves. (I was the guy who would visit the video store and ensure the cases were in alphabetical order.) What's this go to do with anything though?

I bring this up because playing at this month’s TCM Classic Film Festival (May 6–9) is a new documentary called The Méliès’ Mystery about the efforts to conserve and restore the 520 films by the French pioneer, Georges Méliès. Yes, he of A Trip to the Moon had burned the original print negatives of all his movies as his career faltered at the start of the 1910s. His fairy tale excursions of light and magic were out of vogue and his production house of Star Films, with French and American studios, shut up shop.

Méliès’ story is not new to audiences, of course...

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Gay Best Friend: Sterling (Patrick Stewart) in "Jeffrey" (1995)

a series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope    

The gay comedy "Jeffrey" features a refreshingly fun and unbridled sendup of the "gay best friend" character.Of the few gay-centric movies made in the 90s, a large number of them were dramas centered around the AIDS crisis. Movies like Philadelphia were very important in making straight America identify and care about those suffering with the disease. However, they were just that. They were made for straight America with the goal of educating them and generating empathy. Sure, that is a worthy cause and many of those movies were incredibly successful in that regard. However, these weren’t movies specifically made FOR members of the gay community. That’s where a movie like Jeffrey comes in.

Director Christopher Ashley and screenwriter Paul Rudnick created an ambitious, irreverent AIDS-themed comedy that never turns any of its bitchy queens into sympathetic martyrs. It’s a film made by and for a community ravaged by a disease that was tired of crying and wanted hope, laughter and happiness. The 1995 comedy, now on Amazon Prime, doesn’t pass by current politically correct standards, but has a thorniness and candor that is shocking, authentic and delicious...

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The Fellowship of the Link

• EW The Pride Issue gives its four covers and profiles to Lil Nas X, Lena Waithe, Bowen Yang, and MJ Rodriguez
• /Film "Your favourite hobbits" Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan are launching a podcast about The Lord of the Rings
• IndieWire Why the Emmys should honor Bridgerton
• Deadline Timothée Chalamet, Billie Eilish, Naomi Osaka, Amanda Gorman set as Met Gala co-hosts

More after the jump including Ludi Lin, Thomasin McKenzie, Ewan McGregor as Halston, a new Amy Adams project, updates on Kevin Spacey's trial, and arrests in the Lady Gaga dognapping...

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Peabody Nominees 2021

by Nathaniel R

There are 60 programs nominated for the prestigious Peabody Award this year. As is tradition the Peabodys are a juried award and the nominating committee of 19 people looked at 1,300 potential honorees in various categories like children's programming, documentary, entertainment, news reporting, and the like. You can see the full list of nominees at The Peabody's Official Site which includes acclaimed limited series or series like I May Destroy You, Ted Lasso, Never Have I Ever, and The Good Lord Bird and more. We're just happy that the documentary feature and documentary short finalists we were most rooting for at the Oscars this year, neither of which were nominated, made the Peabody list.Yes, that'd be Welcome to Chechnya and The Speed Cubers, both of which we had interviews for here at TFE...

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Box Office: "Demon Slayer" is now an international hit

by Nathaniel R

People are slowly trickling back into movies theaters including Team Experience. There was an actual tight contest for #1 this weekend at the box office. How about that?! The anime hit Demon Slayer, which failed to score a Best Animated Feature nomination at the Oscars, is crying all the way to the bank. After breaking recrods in Japan it's now the first anime film to top the US charts since Pokemon back in 1999. That puts Mortal Kombat at #2 which had the disadvantage of also being free on HBO Max (for another two weeks)...

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