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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The New Classics: First Reformed

Michael Cusumano here with the most recent film I've yet to induct into this series. Despite its newness, it's one of the titles I'm most confident will earn the label of classic in the course of time.

Can you pinpoint the moment someone crosses the line between faith and fanaticism? Is it even possible to fully define the boundaries between the two? Most reasonable people would agree it’s around the moment someone commits an act of violence in the name of God, but an individual crosses that boundary internally long before he straps on a suicide vest. 

That elusive moment of radicalization exists somewhere in the vast gray silences of Paul Schrader’s First Reformed. It passes by so quietly that it is possible to be late into the film and have no inkling of the wild-eyed zealot Ethan Hawke’s Reverend Toller will become in the film’s shocking final movement...

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RIP Naya and Kelly and Nick

2020 continues to be a hellscape year. Apologies that we can't give these recently departed talents larger tributes. They will be missed for their contributions to the arts that we love so much here at TFE. 

• CNN As you've probably heard the very talented Naya Rivera ("Santana" on Glee) went missing days ago. Her body has now been found,  police learning that she saved her son just before drowning. She was just 33.
• Pinkvilla The Glee cast came together at Lake Piru as tribute (on the anniversary of another Glee star's death. This is when we lost Cory Monteith in 2013) 
• People Kelly Preston, John Travolta's wife, and an actress of numerous 80s and 90s movies, has also died. She passed away from breast cancer. 
• The Guardian pays tribute to Preston with a photogallery of her biggest movie roles
• NYT Grant Imahara, an engineer who worked on the Star Wars prequels and other Hollywood blockbusters and co-hosted "Mythbusters" has died from a brain aneuryism. He was just 49.
• NYT Ragaa el-Gedaway, Egyptian cinema star, has died from COVID-19
• ABC Tony-nominated Nick Cordero, who we just loved on stage -- for our money he even surpassed Chazz Palminterri's performance in Bullets Over Broadway when he played the Oscar-nominated role in the stage version -- has finally succumbed to COVID-19 after months of a torturous struggle. 

The biggest question marks before the Emmy nominations

By Abe Fried-Tanzer

We’re less than two weeks from the Emmy nominations announcement, and voting has officially closed. We have plenty of information now, including who’s on the ballot and how many nominees there will be in each category. Before we unveil our final predictions next week, let’s address some of the major unknowns and how they could play out across the board.

Just how well will frontrunners Succession and Schitt’s Creek do? Most prognosticators expect that these two shows could win the top prizes, with nominations at least  are guaranteed. But, looking to last year, neither actually performed all that well in other categories...

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