1981 Retro: Revisiting the Women of "For Your Eyes Only"

Team Experience is revisiting 1981 this week inbetween your regular programming...

by Deborah Lipp

For Your Eyes Only  (1981) is fairly well-loved among Bond fans; in looking at the 24 official movies plus Never Say Never Again, it ranks a bit above middle-of-the-pack. I slice my data on a few different metrics to get an accurate picture (but that’s a story for another day). The 12th Bond film is often thought of as Roger Moore’s best outing (I prefer The Spy Who Loved Me) and it's certainly his most serious.

My love for James Bond, and Bond movies, is unwavering, but each time I revisit them, I see them with new eyes. I’ve seen 1981’s For Your Eyes Only many times, but watching it in 2020 is necessarily different from watching it at any other times. After all, we always bring ourselves to our movie-going...

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Celebrity IOU: Brad, Melissa, and Viola.

by Eric Blume

And now for something completely different.  Not sure how many folks have caught it yet, but a few weeks ago, HGTV, center of home improvement and home selling shows, launched a new program called Celebrity IOU.  The concept is that a famous person treats a loved one to a home/property makeover, working in conjunction with the network’s twin “Property Brothers” Jonathan and Drew Scott. 

Usually we wouldn’t write about this here at TFE, but HGTV got some really big guns for their first three episodes, all recent Oscar winners or nominees.  Episode one featured Brad Pitt; episode two was Melissa McCarthy; and episode three, Viola Davis...

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Streaming Roulette May: Circus of Books, Song of the Sea, Etc...

by Nathaniel R

If you're new to the site this is how we share new streaming offerings for the month. We select a handful or two of titles and just randomly hit a place on the scroll bar to see what the film looks like - no cheating.  Ready? Let's play...

I'm sorry it's just upsetting to me to hear that.

Circus of Books (2020) on Netflix
Sometimes expectations can get too high when you hear nothing but raves (including one right here). This documentary about nice Jewish parents running a gay porn shop, is a good film and you absolutely should watch it, don't misunderstand. But the clumsy hand-held camera took us out of the picture way too often. It's curious to land on this image of the daughter/director  because though the scene is moving and the movie wouldn't have been possible without the insider feel, we kept wanting more context from/about the adult children to better illuminate the family drama... which isn't really a sidebar topic, though it often feels that way.

More after the jump including The Half of It, and all-too familiar rants about Angela Bassett's career, and Oscar's Best Animated Feature category...

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Ryan Murphy's "Hollywood" (Episode 1)

by Eric Blume

Our hero, the dreamer, hoping to be picked

We’ll be covering the latest Ryan Murphy show Hollywood for you, now streaming on Netflix. Instead of a retread of the plot each episode (because, who cares?) we thought we’d treat you to a succinct look at the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of it all each week.  And, because the show features a lot of beautiful eye candy, include the 'Not So Ugly' as a digestif.  Let’s take a look at Episode One…

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1981: Marília Pêra in "Pixote"

Please welcome new contributor Nick Taylor who is providing us with extra Supporting Actress pleasure inbetween the Smackdown events.

How close was Hector Babenco’s Pixote to an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1980? Or rather, why was it disqualified? Already lauded in Brazil for its unflinching, documentary-style depiction of the country’s unique epidemic of child criminality and the institutions benefitting from it, the film got axed for doing test screenings outside The Academy’s allotted time frame. That sounds as "necessary" as many of their eligibility nitpicks. Disqualified from consideration for 1980, Pixote became fair game upon its U.S. release in 1981, winning most of the critics prizes for Best Foreign Language Film and scoring a Golden Globe nomination over Oscar’s eventual winner, Hungary's Mephisto.

Pixote also won Best Film from Boston, who took a page from the National Society of Film Critics and gave Marília Pêra their Best Actress award. And while her performance absolutely deserved those prizes...

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