John Waters @ 75 : Desperate Living (1977)

Team Experience is celebrating John Waters for his 75th birthday this week

by Camila Henriques

The final chapter of John Waters's so called "Trash Trilogy" has everything you would expect from the filmmaker. Except for one pivotal thing: it doesn't have Divine, the iconic star that made the two previous excerpts from the trilogy - "Pink Flamingos" and "Female Trouble" - true camp classics. But even if her magnetic screen presence is always a sight in Waters's filmography, you needn't worry about Desperate Living, as the 1977 film represents the raunchy brand of comedy camp that makes the director one of our most fascinating auteurs...

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Doc Corner: Raoul Peck's brilliant 'Exterminate All the Brutes'

By Glenn Dunks

I suppose I could beat around the bush. I could skirt around the issue and try to temper my praise, worrying that people could accuse me of mere hyperbole. But what’s the point? Instead, I will just say it: Raoul Peck’s new four-part HBO documentary miniseries, Exterminate All the Brutes, is one of the finest works of art I have ever had the privilege to watch. A soaring epic that takes viewers on a journey over thousands of years—at one point to even the dawn of man—through humanity’s worst impulses for racial supremacy and colonial barbarism.

Peck pilfers from cinema (classic and otherwise), paintings, photography, music, archival footage, and adds dioramas, animation, graphic aids, anachronistic diversions, and dramatic interpretations. He rips a fierce and violent tear through history, yet with the precision and delicacy of a surgeon with a scalpel...

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The Furniture: John Waters, Small-Business Advocate

Team Experience is celebrating John Waters for his 75th birthday. So here's a special episode of "The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, our series on Production Design. 

Pecker is a rare, quiet(er) film in the John Waters filmography. It’s not as outrageous as Pink Flamingos or Female Trouble, nor as bombastic as Hairspray or Serial Mom. It’s plenty lewd, of course, and it’s hardly devoid of yelling. But it’s understated.

After all, it’s a movie about photography - pictures over words, that sorta thing. It’s about capturing the essence of Baltimore in crisp snapshots. The titular Pecker (Edward Furlong) is an amateur photographer with a passion for the little moments of his life: a burger on the grill, the Hampden neighborhood welcome sign, rats mating in an alley...

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3 days til Oscar. Who is the best three time winner?

Best Actress predictions change daily but where are we in regards to Frances McDormand's third Best Actress Oscars? Happening or not? I'm tentatively saying it will. That's where my brain is today at least. Frances would be only the seventh actor to manage three Oscars for acting in the 93 years of Academy history and become only the second woman to win three leading Oscars (after Katharine Hepburn).

The others who've won three acting statues:

Fargo (96), Three Billboards (17), Nomadland (20)

1. Walter Brennan -Come and Get It (36), Kentucky (38), The Westerner (40) - all in supporting
2. Ingrid Bergman -Gaslight (44), Anastasia (56), Murder on the Orient Express (74)
3. Katharine Hepburn - Morning Glory (34), Guess Who... (67), Lion in Winter (68), On Golden Pond (81) - all in leading 
4. Jack Nicholson - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (75), Terms of Endearment (83), As Good As It Gets (97)
5. Meryl Streep - Kramer vs Kramer (79), Sophie's Choice (82), The Iron Lady (11)
6. Daniel Day Lewis - My Left Foot (89), There Will Be Blood (07), Lincoln (12) - all in leading 

COMMENT PARTY QUESTION: Removing all other performances and movies from your brain (I know it's difficult) how would you rank these six packages of performances? 

COMMENT PARTY QUESTION 2: Are there any two-time winners not in the race this year that you could see winning a third?

My Spirit Award Ballot

Please welcome guest contributor Chels Eichholz for this preview of the Spirit Awards...

by Chels Eichholz

Anybody with $100 can be a member of Film Independent. Some people join solely for the screeners and the privilege of voting for the Independent Spirit Awards. Others, like myself, are filmmakers that use the other membership perks to help network and get our projects created, and voting is just a fun little cherry on top. The nominees are decided by small juries and winners are decided by all members. The awards will be held tomorrow Thursday, April 22 at 10:00 pm, exclusively on IFC and AMC+.

If you’re looking for a lineup that balances both an independent spirit and Oscar love, look no further. I do prefer when award shows have their own identity and don't try to predict the Academy Awards. The Oscar race itself isn’t a meritocracy, and Film Independent is great at highlighting  unsung gems of the year (along with a few more celebrated Oscar hopefuls). I’ve been a member for a few years now and always make it a point to watch every nominee before voting and this year gave us a great selection.  The categories and my own votes after the jump...

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