Retro Randomness. Born in 1981!

Since we're celebrating 1981 this week, let's look at who was born that year! Happy 39th birthday to all of 'em and if YOU were born in '81 say so in the comments. Look at these lovelies you share it with!

The Oscar Winners
In chronological order... 
• Jennifer Hudson (Best Supporting Actress, Dreamgirls)
• Natalie Portman (Best Actress, Black Swan)
• Ryan Bingham (Best Original Song, Crazy Heart)...

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Horror Actressing: Rita Macedo in "The Curse of the Crying Woman" (1963)

by Jason Adams

Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone! For this week's edition of our "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" series we're tackling the five-century-old Mexican folk-tale of "La Llorona" aka "The Weeping Woman," who's become perhaps the most iconic of all their legends and whose terrifying presence has graced the screen at least a dozen times, up to and including last year's middling Blumhouse production (part of their ever expanding and worsening Conjuring Universe) titled The Curse of la Llorona. 

We will not be talking that most recent version though, because despite perfectly acceptable screaming from a slumming Linda Cardellini (an actress I very much like)...

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The New Classics: Gosford Park

Hey everyone. Michael Cusumano here. If you've got to be trapped inside, why not be trapped inside with thirty or so of the greatest British actors ever? 18-year-old mystery spoilers ahead!

 

Scene: The Murder of Willam McCordle 
I don’t think you count yourself as having seen a Robert Altman film unless you’ve seen it three times, minimum. All great films expand on rewatch, but Altman movies transform, accumulating power as additional dimensions come into focus. In no film is this more apparent than his late-period masterwork, Gosford Park...

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National Pet Week: "Sam" from I Am Legend

Team Experience is celebrating pets at the movies (and in our homes) this week. Here's Tony Ruggio...

With my third family dog growing up "Sydney"

I’ve always been a dog person. Some of my first memories are of rolling in the carpet at three years-old next to our first pekingese bruiser Gin Gin. His death at the hands of a roaming pack of stray dogs in our neighborhood was my first real brush with tragedy and emotional trauma. Two more family dogs would come and go over the next twenty-five years, each one’s passing more devastating than the last. 

It’s no surprise then that I would take to the tale of a man and his dog in 2007’s I Am Legend, or its inevitable conclusion. The movie itself is a flawed slice-of-apocalyptic-life blockbuster, a one-man show for Will Smith wherein he and German Shepherd Samantha roam a desolate New York City...  

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Review: "Normal People" on Hulu

By Spencer Coile 

To adapt a work of fiction is to play with fire. I can only imagine that nimbly capturing the spirit of the original text while imbuing it with new levels of creativity is no easy feat. Discourse surrounding literary adaptations usually focuses on how the movie or series fails the original text - either it doesn’t cover everything sufficiently (like The Time Traveler’s Wife, a personal tragedy), it overstays its welcome (The Handmaid’s Tale), or an abundance of creative liberties are taken (recently Little Fires Everywhere). Comparisons are easy to make, and book lovers are quick to critique. 

On its surface, Normal People, now streaming on Hulu, masquerades as a straightforward adaptation. Born from Sally Rooney’s novel of the same name, it follows Connell (Paul Mescal) and Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones), two Irish secondary students who forge a connection despite their uneven social standings. The novel,  and now the BBC/Hulu limited series, chronicles their years-long relationship in all its complexities...

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