Ashley Judd, Pulp Queen

Wishing Ashley Judd a happy 50th birthday this week. Here's Chris Feil.

Ashley Judd deserves some credit that’s mostly only afforded to television actresses: she’s a pulp queen. It’s like a horror movie scream queen, except for midrange crime thrillers that your dad loves. But when the movie gods dealt her a standard genre exercise she could elevate it to something incredibly watchable, like a femme fatale without all the trappings of a leacherous male gaze.

Judd would eventually riff on the dingiest of pulp for her greatest performance in Bug, but mainstream audiences are more likely to remember her for her cinematic entanglements with the courtroom, espionage, and serial killers...

Click to read more ...

Times Up at The Oscars

Many celebrities were sporting Time's Up pinsChris here. Last night’s Oscar ceremony was one to rejoice for how it brought the Times Up movement to the forefront of the proceedings. Viewers often forget what a global platform the Oscars are, and it was heartening to see a ceremony that seized the opportunity provided. This Oscar telecast didn’t leave the message for the acceptance speeches and instead integrated Times Up into the show to celebrate the movement alongside the movies themselves.

But it wasn’t merely about acknowledging the shift happening in the entertainment industry (and countless others), the theme was about next steps moving forward. This was best embodied in Frances McDormand’s thrilling and ebullient Best Actress acceptance speech. After having all female nominees across all categories stand for recognition, she ended her speech with “inclusion rider.”

Click to read more ...

Red Carpet Arrivals

The Oscars start at 8:00 but until then arrival madness...

• Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino were talking Times Up on the red carpet. My mind drifted to Marilyn Monroe, who they played together in a TV movie. Marilyn endured constant sexual harassment and I think she'd be proud of them.

• Adam Rippon wore a harness to the Oscars, doing his part to queer things up. We have a number of LGBTQ people / films up for Oscars tonight: Dee Rees and James Ivory (both in Adapted Screenplay), the Chilean nominatee A Fantastic Woman, and the Best Pic nominee Call Me By Your Name, and Rachel Morrison, the first woman nominated in Cinematography. More after the jump...

Click to read more ...

22 Black Dresses

by Nathaniel R

Since Hollywood's glamazons were a united force on Sunday evening towards a better industry with gender parity and less flagrant abuses of power Hollywood, we're opting not to rank the gowns this year. Hollywood's most beautiful were out in force but for the most part they proved that black need not feel funereal even if it's prioritizing solemn resolve above the more typical red carpet concerns: unique beauty, personal style, and either up to the minute contemporary trends or classic throwback glamour. 

Allison Janney, Samira Wiley, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mandy Moore

Here are the 22 gowns The Film Experience cherished most from Hollywood's second-most glamorous annual event...

Click to read more ...

Ashley Judd might have been Arwen... or Galadriel

by Nathaniel R

Ashley Judd in her blockbuster breakout "Double Jeopardy" in 1999I keep getting into trouble when I tweet out semantic arguments on the internet as if I'm missing the point of very serious topics. So let me assure you that I'm not missing the point. I am filled with rage when I read these stories about the toxic treatment of actresses in Hollywood but the only way I can cope (I live for actresses, duh) is to nerd out and take deep dives into thinking about their filmographies, or looking at Oscar stats, or other less fraught things to rage less. Lashing out in all directions with rage or feeding my rage by continually sharing it is just not my way and has never helped me cope with pain. So, in other words, I'll save my little semantics quibble until the end of the post. 

Anyway the reveals of what Harvey Weinstein was up to in his most powerful days keep getting worse. To stay within the confines of Weinsten adjacent imagery, let's just say it makes me want to watch an Inglorious Basterds ahistorical style rewrite in which some Ashley Judd gets the Brad Pitt role and her team of merciless female soldiers gives Weinstein what he deserved back then...

Click to read more ...