Happy Birthday, Jessica Lange (& Nina Foch)

by Cláudio Alves

Like Mark said in his Veronica Cartwright tribute, this 4/20 is an essential date for actressexuals... among others. After all, we celebrate the horror queen's 75th birthday and that of Jessica Lange as well. Initially, I thought about writing about the star's upcoming adaptation of O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, but that film seems trapped in some nebulous distribution limbo. By all accounts, production wrapped in late 2022 after a brief halt due to financing issues. Since then, there's been hardly any news, and Lange herself speculated it might not yet be finished in a Vulture interview. Let's hope we don't have another Blue Sky situation in our hands, though that farrago resulted in a Best Actress Oscar.

So, instead of dwelling on that mystery, why not remember The Film Experience's collective love for Jessica Lange? Going through the site, I came up with a selection of write-ups worth revisiting, plus some bonus Nina Foch to mark her centennial…

Click to read more ...

Drag Race RuCap: “Reunited - LipSync LaLaPaRuZa Smackdown”

Nick Taylor and Cláudio Alves are watching and recapping RuPaul’s Drag Race season sixteen. This week, it’s time for episode fifteen…

This week, Megami pulls a Silky and a star is born.

CLÁUDIO: After weeks of complaining about the season’s declining quality, the Drag Race producers shut me right up. This spin on a reunion episode is the best of the year, a super-charged queer Super Bowl of lipsyncing that serves as a respite before next week’s finale. Most of the girls brought their A-game, fighting for their Ru-demption with everything they got, and even the losers seemed to have a good time. Well, most of them. More important, still, was how the hour felt formed around the arc of one particular queen, subverting folks’ expectations both among the audience and the contenders themselves. To paraphrase Mother Jinkx, anyone saying Megami isn’t a star after this episode is so full of shit the toilet’s jealous.

NICK: As far as sports analogies go, I feel more partial to Sapphira calling this the gay Kentucky Derby, though perhaps I was swept up by the fantasy her gigantic hat inspired. But this was a total joy from the first second to the last. Megami’s superstar ascendancy is a Rudemption for the history books, bolstered in every way by how tough the competition was. I loved this episode, and I hope we get this format again in future seasons. . . .

Click to read more ...

Drag Race RuCap: “Booked & Blessed”

Nick Taylor and Cláudio Alves are watching and recapping RuPaul’s Drag Race season sixteen. This week, it’s time for episode fourteen…

Ronan Farrow has that All Stars glow-up.

CLÁUDIO: Just when we were starting to think the season had turned into a two-way race for the crown between Sapphira and Plane, here comes a new episode to shake things up. After years of top fours and a one-time fiver, RuPaul’s Drag Race has returned to a triadic finale, using this fourteenth chapter to boot its fourth-placer, fragilize one of the frontrunners’ bid, and bolster another contender’s narrative. A well-produced piece of television, this game-changer hour felt like a gift to Nymphia Wind fans everywhere, making it look like she might stand a chance after all. Considering her strange edit, I’m skeptical, but this episode gave me some much-needed hope. Were you similarly enthused, or is this season’s sagging energy getting to you?

NICK: The sagging energy is definitely getting to me. As much as I’ve been eager for this particular queen to get the boot, and as rewarding as this challenge was, I wouldn’t have minded a top four for the sake of wrapping it all up a little sooner...

Click to read more ...

A Julianne Moore Top Ten

by Cláudio Alves

Mary & George, Starz's new miniseries, premieres today, with a new episode every Friday for the next few weeks. Christopher James recently reviewed the historical drama, detailing its intersection of smut and scheming, all centered around its titular characters during King James I's reign. Hot new thing Nicholas Galitzine plays George Villiers under the camera's lustful gaze, but it's Julianne Moore's Mary who commands the screen as his mother. To honor one of The Film Experience's favorite goddesses on this occasion, I decided to do one of my actress-y top tens, focusing on the Oscar-winner's best performances across a career rich in excellence…

Click to read more ...

Drag Race RuCap: “Drag Race Vegas LIVE! Makeovers”

Nick Taylor and Cláudio Alves are watching and recapping RuPaul’s Drag Race season sixteen. This week, it’s time for episode thirteen…

Like last week, thank heaven for the hunks.

CLÁUDIO: Like many a makeover challenge over the series’ herstory, the latest season 16 episode is rather lovely up until the judges deliver their critiques. After that, it’s the usual shit-show of inconsistent rulings and baffling decisions, a nonsense cocktail that sours everything that came before and leaves a bad taste in the mouth going forward. As if inverting its predecessor’s trajectory, this season seems intent on decreasing in quality as it reaches its final stretch, each episode a bit more disappointing than the one it follows. At least we have hot men to ogle, eye candy from start to finish, with a spoonful of potential fetish content to make things sweeter. That is the one saving grace of these past few chapters. 

NICK: I’m very sad that my French Vanilla Love Dion fantasy was shot down this episode. Don’t look at me, I’m distraught . . . .

Click to read more ...