The Fake-arite

by Jason Adams

I'm not sure what the current status is on The Favourite director Yorgos Lanthomis' adaptation of the 1964 Western novel Pop. 1280 from author Jim Thompson -- it was announced as his next film all the way back in February but nothing's been said since and it's not on his IMDb page right now -- but now we know what else Yorgos has got in the pipeline, at least. 

Yesterday Deadline reported he's turning his formidable talents towards the small screen for a limited series adaptation of David Gilbert's book The Man In The Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Impostor, which tells the true-life story of "Clark Rockefeller," whose blue-blood lineage became unraveled once his suspicious wife Sandra began pulling at threads.  

The story was already turned into a Lifetime movie in 2010 starring Will & Grace actor Eric McCormick and ER actress Sherry Stringfield, which is just about the most "2010 Lifetime Movie Cast" I can imagine. Yorgos' take will be a little more complicated than whatever those folks came up with though, probably, one would guess. A film adaptation's been floating around for a bit -- Benedict Cumberbatch was attached at one point but no word now if he still is. Who might you cast as this chap:

Name 5 things you're currently obsessing over!

Apologies for the sparse posting the past couple of days we've been buried in screenings & events and the like. I'm currently obsessing about five things...

1) How wrong I was assuming the character of Amy could not be the MVP of any iteration of Little Women (hi, Florence!) so our SAG screening guest was correct. 

2) Potential trickery in the Original / Adapted screenplay placements with Ford v Ferrari attempting a Gangs of New York 'no, we're an original! a category in which they have virtually no chance of scoring... (so what is the campaign reasoning? Bizarre) and The Two Popes attempting a 'never mind that play the screenwriter wrote, we're an original)

3) TODD PHILLIPS DIRECTING STYLE ON JOKER WHICH IS THE MOVIE EQUIVALENT OF CAPS LOCK FOR AN ENTIRE DOCUMENT. 

4) How we're seeing Glenn Close on the campaign trail tonight stumping for Jonathan Pryce in The Two Popes and how lovely that is that she is undeterred by her own horrible recent loss and right back out there. 

5) We've updated Picture / Director / Screenplay / Actor and Supporting Actor Oscar charts but we know you're just waiting for the ladies and we'll do them tomorrow! 

Spirit Award nominations spread the wealth for 2019.

by Nathaniel R

Nominations for the 35th annual Independent Spirit Awards have been announced with the wealth really being spread. For example the 5 nominees for the top prize “Feature” only crossover with “Best Director” on a single film, the Safdie brothers Uncut Gem which co-led the nominations with 5 prizes though it’s yet to open in theaters. Tying that films lead for most nominations was The Lighthouse even though that black and white oddity did not score a nomination for Best Feature!

Interestingly enough, the just-opened indie Waves was (almost) entirely shut out even though it’s a Best Feature nominee at the often quite parallel Gotham Awards. On a similar note the acting nominations aren’t heavily dependent on Best Feature love, either. 

A complete list of nominations plus commentary after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Grammy Nominations for Movie People !

by Nathaniel R

The Grammy Awards aren’t really a crucial topic for The Film Experience. Except when they are. We do love to share the movie adjacent stuff that doesn’t get much press (‘hey, I didn’t know that actor ____ recorded a spoken word album’ etcetera). So herewith some key movie adjacent bits.

Beyonce’s efforts for The Lion King are up for a few pop prizes but that's no surprise since Queen B is a Grammy favourite. Former movie star and still legendary chanteuse Barbra Streisand, another Grammy favourite, has her presumably umpteenth nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for her latest “Walls”... the one with the unexpected unintended Girl-in-the-pit Silence of the Lambs homage cover.  

But there are some less expected showings, too.

Iconic cult director John Waters is up for Best Spoken Word Album for “Mr Know-It-All” where he’s competing with Former First Lady Michelle Obama. That juxtaposition is insane and we couldn’t love it more...

Click to read more ...

5 Things We Learned from the New CATS Trailer

by Chris Feil

After meow-ny long and empty weeks, we were finally treated to another trailer for Tom Hooper's Andrew Lloyd Webber's T.S. Eliot's CATS. And you might say that it was a little bit of a disappointment after the first look sent the internet into a giant flame of gleeful schadenfreude (or maybe we're all still waking up from the release of its catnap-inducing original song candidate "Beautiful Ghosts"). This quick tease featured no singing and was a bit too fast-paced to glimpse any of the dancing. But the final trailer did give us a few bits of new information to be both earnestly and ironically excited about:

1. It's apparently the "Most Joyous Event of the Holiday Season". Like the previous "You Will Believe" tagline, this also sounds like a threat.
2. LOTS more dialogue than expected highly suggests that the film will try to lean into some semblance of a plot or overexplain its "new life" conceit.
3. The cats have boobs and love to shake them.
4. The trippiest element may be the proportions of the cats to their environment. See: kitty door flap, trash cans, shoe sizes, entire miniature ice cream parlor, etc.
5. Idris Elba might be the slithering, villainous, sexy (?) MVP.

Did you notice anything new that made you more (or less) excited for Cats next month?