April. It's a Wrap

While April was late to arrive, given that March lasted 4 years as we all adjusted to the new world over, it was over in a flash. In case you missed any herewith a baker's dozen to highlight this past month on The Film Experience. We're working hard behind the scenes to make May truly extra so please support us with clicks, shares, follows, and subscriptions.

Most Popular / Discussed
• April Foolish Predictions - Best Picture contenders?
• Frances vs Sophie revisiting the grandiose Best Actress Battle of 1982
• Pedro's Quarantine Almodóvar reminisces about meeeting Madonna
• Emmy Predictions in all the major categories
• Oscar Rule Changes streaming + sound + international film
• Sondheim's 90s Birthday - Meryl Streep, Raúl Esparza, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sutton Foster and other divas toasted the GOAT. Moving moments galore
• The Smackdown Returns 1981 is up next!
• 5 Reasons the Oscars Won't be Cancelled we're hopeful

More Highlights
• Doc Corner Tiger King - a disturbing mess 
• In defense of The Artist - not a typical or bland Oscar choice
• Shirley Knight (RIP) the fine character actress has passed away
• Dune (2020) our first few glimpses of Denis Villeneuve's adaptation
• Choose Your Quarantine House -the cinephile edition of the meme

Coming in May
We'll discuss the Netflix series Hollywood, have not one but TWO Supporting Actress Smackdowns (1981 and 1947), review the new films Liberté, How to Build a Girl, celebrate movie pets, and more. 

Emmy Watch: Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

Can someone from Space Force, like John Malkovich, storm in with a relatively sparse field of players?

Comedy isn’t as crowded as drama this awards season, in part because more than half of last year’s nominees in the race aren’t eligible this time around, and there’s no wave of returning nominees set to automatically refill those slots. Henry Winkler, Anthony Carrigan and Stephen Root will all need to wait for whenever Barry premieres its third season. Two-time winner Tony Hale (Veep) won’t be back because his show ended. That leaves just two potential consecutive returning nominees, and it would be a big surprise if either of them missed: defending champion Tony Shalhoub (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and Alan Arkin (The Kominsky Method). They could easily be joined by a handful of eligible past nominees if voters are feeling nostalgic

The past four years...

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Cast This: Disney's Live-Action Hercules

by Nathaniel R

Disney still has lots of animated features to get through before they've made animated or live-action remakes or spinoffs of each of 'em. Word is they're now developing Hercules (1997) but then they're developing lots of these things to follow Mulan (2020) and Cruella (2021) into movie theaters.

Hopefully Hercules Redux gets some new songs because there aren't a lot as we recall and there's only so much of a score you can build from "Go the Distance". This will live or die based on how funny it is so we hope they lean heavily into its more camp aspects: bodybuilder lead, five muses, flamboyant villain. 

How would you cast this thing? More after the jump...

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Have you ever heard Cynthia Erivo sing 'The Last Five Years'?

by Nathaniel R

Twas very depressed last night scrolling through social media (rarely a good idea) when I chanced upon this reshare of a video from 2015 that I'd never seen. At some point just before The Color Purple' started its previews on Broadway a pre-fame (at last in regards to the US) Cynthia Erivo showed up at Marie's Crisis (for non New Yorkers, that's a very famous basement piano bar near Stonewall). She sang "I Can Do Better" in full (eagle eyes will spot her co-star Danielle Brooks right behind her). As a fan of Erivo and a crazy-obsessive Last Five Years stan (I went to the original Off Broadway run and listened to the cast recording on loop for a full year) this was pure heaven for five minutes...

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How Had I Never Seen..."Xanadu"?

by Cláudio Alves

In these stressful days, it can be nice to sit back and lose ourselves in the escapist marvels of cinema. Of course, what constitutes escapism varies from person to person. Some love the bloodlust of gory pictures while others revel in good midcentury melodrama. Whatever your poison of choice is, now seems like a good time to indulge. For me, one surefire way of dispelling the doom and gloom of day-to-day life is to bathe in the glamour of movie musicals. Other prime sources of stress-relief are those movies which are so terrible, so unbelievably miscalculated, that their turpitude becomes entertaining. The logical conclusion is that there's no greater joy than watching a movie musical that's so bad it's good.

Well, that's precisely what I did one monotonous afternoon, trading in the frustrations of reality for the disco disaster fabulousness of Xanadu…

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