Born in '91 Fun. Who will get an Oscar nomination first?

by Nathaniel R

It occurred to us this morning, since we're celebrating 1991 this month, that no one born in 1991 has yet been nominated for an acting Oscar! Which begs the question: who will be first among them? The following actors are all turning 30 next year and the early 30s is a GREAT time for movie star ascendancy if you have the skill and magnetism and also happen to get the opportunities and have some good luck (three of the four are required!). We narrowed it down to a dozen options for you (in random order) though of course the first to get there could be someone we haven't even heard of yet getting a late start. Make your case for which of these actors it'll be in the comments...

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The Furniture: First Cow and the Architecture of Settlement

Daniel Walber's series on Production Design. Click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

First Cow is a mossy and melancholy tragedy. Kelly Reichardt makes the failure of her protagonists clear from the start, showing us their skeletons before introducing them in the flesh. There’s a morbid air to everything that follows, though it’s softened by an atmosphere of tremendous beauty. It’s the best ASMR video of the year.

Cookie Figowitz (John Magaro) and King-Lu (Orion Lee) clearly think that they are in a land of endless possibility: Oregon Country in the 1820s. Decades before a settled border, the USA and the British Empire “jointly occupied” the Pacific Northwest, in accord with an 1818 treaty agreement that did not even acknowledge the presence of indigenous people.

This is the context for King-Lu’s utterly false observation:

This is still new - more nameless things around here than you could shake an eel at… History isn’t here yet.”

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Tweetweek

The aliens in Arrival when they found out the Oscars snubbed Amy Adams. https://t.co/RQHpOd775g

— Catt (@ChicCattLady2) July 7, 2020

More after the jump including Mad Men memories, West Side Story reduced, cancel culture, and other observations and silly bits that amused us including some responses to that "cake" meme.

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1991: Madonna's Most Fascinating Movie Year

Team Experience is celebrating the 1991 film year for the next couple of weeks.

by Camila Henriques

1991 was an interesting year, movie-wise, for Madonna. The Queen of Pop had just come off of her Blond Ambition Tour and what was, arguably, her first movie to have a major awards breakthrough, Dick Tracy (with the caveat that Desperately Seeking Susan did get a Golden Globe for Rosanna Arquette). So, with that, she entered the decade with her feet dipping, once more, into the waters of film stardom.

Madonna’s cinematic year started - in the eyes of the audience, at least - on March 25, 1991, with an iconic performance at the 63rd Academy Awards. Dressed in a Bob Mackie gown that gave her an air of Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe. She also made headlines as she arrived at the awards gala. That happens when you’re Madonna and you step on the Oscars red carpet arm-in-arm with Michael Jackson...

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Horror Actressing: Jodie Foster in "The Silence of the Lambs"

by Jason Adams

When I think back on Jodie Foster's Oscar-winning turn playing Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs in 1991 I tend to think of a overwhelmed young woman -- Demme is constantly framing Foster as the smallest person in the room -- but one who musters up unimaginable courage. She pushes deeper into that blacked-out basement as another young woman and an injured dog shriek from the bottom of a blood-streaked pit. And I tend to think of that same small and overwhelmed young woman standing in room after room after room of big dope-faced men staring down at her, eyes narrowed, disbelieving. 

What I don't particularly tend to think of first is Clarice Starling smiling. And yet she does... Often and broadly!

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