FYC Young Performer Award 2018

by Nathaniel R

Evan Rosado was just one of a handful of truly incredible child performances this year in "We the Animals"

Each year one of our award traditions here at The Film Experience is to help fellow BFCA members choose more wisely when it comes to the "Young Performer" category at the Critics Choice Movie Awards. We do this with a not-so-simple eligibility list. You see, our ballots don't come with lists of eligible choices so it's up to each member to think up a list and since the category gets no media coverage it's hard to think up choices on the spot so sometimes the nominations are quite lazy (You had a high profile child or teen role in a big studio film? You're nominated!). For instance this year, voters would be practically insane to skip Zain Al Rafee in Capernaum (only one of the best child performances ever) but given that that's within a foreign film hopeful that has yet to open in theaters (December 14th), voters ARE likely to be insane and skip him.

It takes a bit of research for the teen/young adult performances to see who is actually eligible. Given that we're apt to miss a couple of names, so do let us know if you don't see your favorite. The BFCA voting is about to begin so here are those cheat sheets to help them vote along with some trivia notes...

Click to read more ...

25th Anniversary Memoir: "Jurassic Park"

by Lynn Lee

June 1993.  It was my birthday, and I’d invited a group of my girl friends over for a small celebration that would include a movie outing.  I don’t remember exactly why I picked Jurassic Park.  I hadn’t read the book, I wasn’t yet a full-on movie buff, I didn’t like scary movies, and I wasn’t really into dinosaurs.  Yet something about the tremendous buzz surrounding this “adventure 65 million years in the making” must have penetrated my social bubble because I remember us all being excited to see it.

Whatever our expectations were, Jurassic Park blew them away.  From the moment that opening eerie chorus and single bamboo flute dissolved into the rustle of an unknown, unseen thing in a crate that within three minutes lay savage waste to one unfortunate worker, we were all transfixed in our seats and couldn’t have moved if our lives had depended on it...

Click to read more ...

Pretty Linky

• /Film Jake Gyllenhaal lands the villain gig in the next Spider-Man movie. He'll be playing Mysterio so let's hope they don't go with the comic book costume because enough with hiding gorgeous actor faces behind masks or in this case a whole opaque globe
• The New Yorker has a long read profile of the great filmmaker Claire Denis
• Deadline Andy Karl has replaced Steve Kazee in the Richard Gere role in the Broadway bound musical adaptation of Pretty Woman

• The Village Voice profiles Betty Gabriel of Get Out and "no no no no no" gif fame
• Vulture A Quiet Place has racked up a stunning $300 million worldwide
• Cartoon Brew BC is becoming an animated feature. What's BC you ask? It's that syndicated comic strip that's been running in newspapers forever about cavemen.
• Variety a report on the reshoots of Solo and Ron Howard taking over and shooting 70% of what's now on screen (unfortunately everyone is vague on details! Perhaps someday we'll get a juicy oral history)
• The Muse Björk makes her first TV appearance in years and years
• Towleroad the major studios get "insuffienct / poor / failing" ratings from GLAAD in its annual report. 
• Broadway World apparently the 50th anniversary of Hello Dolly (1968) is sparking a six month long celebration in Westchester and Putnam County along the Hudson River where filming took place. Who knew people were this into that Babs film? 

RIP
• NYT Patricia Morison, Broadway's first Kate in "Kiss Me Kate" and a movie actress in early franchises has died at 103 years of age 
• The Atlantic Philip Roth, literary giant, has died. Feels like the end of a particular literary era
• My New Plaid Pants Gorgeous beefcake Clint Walker, originally envisioned by the studios as a Rock Hudson rival, has died at 90

Exit Video
Sarah Paulson does a Drew Barrymore impression. And then runs into Drew Barrymore. 

Box Office: I Feel Pretty, A Quiet Place, and More...

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office (March 23rd-25th)
W I D E 800+ screens	L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide
I Feel Pretty	Lean on Pete
1. A Quiet Place $22 (cum. $132.3) REVIEW, SECOND OPINION, SCREENPLAY	1. 🔺 Bahrat Ane Nenu $2.8 on 305 screens NEW
2. Rampage $21 (cum. $66.6)	2. Beirut $1 (cum $3.9) on 755 screens
3.🔺 I Feel Pretty  $16.2 NEW	3. Death of Stalin  $340k on 210 screens (cum. $6.8) REVIEW
4.🔺 Super Troopers 2 $14.7  NEW	4.  Lean on Pete $177k on 65 screens (cum. $347k) REVIEW
5. Truth or Dare $7.9 (cum. $33)	5. 🔺 The Rider $78k on 9 screens (cum. $142k) REVIEW

A Quiet Place dominated the box office in its third weekend (it's added theaters each weekend despite opening very wide!). It's a genuine smash already earning back more than 10 times its budget in just three weeks time globally.  Super Troopers 2 and I Feel Pretty, two new wide release comedies, didn't fare as well though I Feel Pretty could prove to have legs given that word of mouth is much stronger than Schumer's previous film, the misfire Snatched, and the budget is reasonable, too...  

Click to read more ...

Blueprints: "A Quiet Place"

This week, Jorge dives deep into the unconventional formal elements inside the screenplay of the number one film in the country right now. 

A Quiet Place is an immersive experience. The film centers around a dystopian future, in which creatures that are attracted to sound have taken over. In order to stay alive, a family has to stay totally silent through their everyday lives. 

The film utilizes sound (the lack of, its intensity, its threat) as a formal device to guide us through the narrative. There is barely any spoken dialogue. Everything is conveyed visually, using alternative devices than those we are used to seeing in film. It is an experiment in form.  Its screenplay is much the same. Using devices that are rarely found in a regular script, the writers create an immersive, completely different experience that lets the reader know right away that this is not your regular horror flick...

Click to read more ...