Still there. Still there. Gone.

The new poster for Before Midnight has just been released via EW, reminding us all that the next chapter in the lives of Celine and Jesse is only 32 days away.

Are we all excited yet?

Also: for anyone living in the L.A. area, the LA County Museum of Art will be hosting a double feature of the first two films, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset on Friday, May 17th. Tickets are available here starting Thursday at 5:00, and at $10 for both films on the big screen, it's not even a bargain anymore. It's a freakin' steal.

Get them, lovelies. 
-Beau

Reader Spotlight: Zé Vozone

We're getting to know The Film Experience community with little spotlights on YOU the readers. Here's Zé from Portugal who you've talked to in the comments section as he's a regular.

What's your earliest movie memory?

Zé: The dinner scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, what with the beetle hors d'oeuvres and the "chilled monkey brains". I live for Kate Capshaw's histrionics in that scene and throughout the whole movie.

Your three favorite directors?

Zé: Roman Polanski, David Lynch and John Cassavetes 

When did you start reading The Film Experience?

During the 2006 Oscar season. I had always been a huge movie and awards buff and in that year I was particularly outraged that Helen Mirren (who I nevertheless thought was wonderful in The Queen) was steamrolling what I thought was one of the best Lead Actress line-ups ever. So more than ever I started looking up "second opinions" on the matter and eventually ran into The Film Experience, where you had just awarded Meryl the gold medal for Prada. I loved the weekly charts for each category and the more I explored the more I came to appreciate such a witty, unpretentious and most of all passionate take on cinema, its history and the inevitably love/hate affair we have with The Academy Awards. 

I've always loved the special care you give to actressing without ever disregarding other aspects of moviemaking. I do admit having a bit of nostalgia when I go dig for old posts. Speaking of which, the quartet with you, Joe, Katey and Nick on podcast is one of the msot delightful online experiences out there. I still crack up thinking about that mess of the 2008/2009 awards season and those back-to-back Globe/SAG podcasts, with Nick being pissed off at Salma Hayek for going all "there she is. my sister. my friend. it's an honour to be presenting this movie on which my soulmate's in" to everything Penelope Cruz-related and how Meryl reenacted the running through the woods scene in Mamma Mia! after beating Kate Winslet at the SAGs. The best!

Nick is too funny. Speaking of that moment... which 3 movies make you running screaming like Meryl, filled with crazy joy? 

I have to go with both Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. Can we count them as one? They're so different though... I watched both back to back when Sunset came out and I was like 16, and for a while I was in the narrow camp which preferred the whole naive and carefree vibe of Sunrise. As the years have gone by though it's been Sunset that keeps hitting home. I don't think I've seen any other movie where a feeling and the chemistry between the two leads remains so intact 9 years after the first was made. It's mesmerizing that they made that specific format work.

Zé's first actress crush reveals...awesome taste!

Same Time, Next Year used to be a (random) favorite of mine when I was a kid. I watched it like a gazillion times and again the uncomplicated nature with which those two characters so genuinely enjoyed each other's company really moved me. Ellen Burstyn was the first of my (many) actress crushes. I was 8 or 9 when I watched Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore for the first time, and that was probably the moment the Oscars really started meaning something to me as my mom told me she had won.

I can't not talk about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. At first I found it extremely depressing even though I kept watching it. I thought that ending was so disencouraging, that yeah you just have to deal with the fact that you can't live without a relationship which is way past its expiration date. But now I have a brighter take on being dependable and that needing someone is can actually be a sweet thing.

I'm seeing a weird pattern in these three... so I'm going to say The Witches. "You may remove... YOUR VIGS!"

Previous Reader Spotlights

Burning Questions: What Kind of Sequels Should Be Made?

I've hijacked Michael C's column this week because I have a burning question of my own to ask. 

With that hot buzz for Before Midnight from Sundance warming the expectant hearts of even the coldest cinephiles this winter (it'll win more fans in warmer temperatures next month at SXSW), I've been thinking about movie sequels. Why do we get them, how we receive them, and whether or not we need them.

The first and usually sole reason of "why" is money. Humans are creatures of habit so it's an organic reality that nearly every artform indulges in sequels (whether they're named as such or not) and has since long before "branding" was a term people without business acumen understood. Branding is so common and catch-phrasey now that even non-sequels feel like sequels. What is, for instance, each new Johnny Depp and Tim Burton collaboration but an endless series of sequels Johnny & Tim: Now...Vampiric. Johnny & Tim: Now... Caloric... Now... Johnny & Tim: in Garish 3D. Usually sequels make enough money to suggest that Hollywood should make them forever and preferrably split each sequel up into two parts to double investment. And, if they can control costs, make them for everything that was successful. 

But what kind of sequels should be made?

Maybe it's the edge-of-my-seat expectant bliss/wracked nerves regarding Before Midnight (dare I trust the critics who've already seen it? Critics are least trustworthy, I find, during the heat of festival mania and during the heat of awards season when constant conversation/groupthink and jetlag/movie-binging are most likely to affect them.) Maybe it's my now comical tries at seeing Yossi (things keep going wrong and I still haven't seen it!) which is the ten-years later sequel to the charming Israeli gay drama Yossi & Jagger (2003). The point being that I've decided that my absolute favorite kind of sequel is the "let's drop in on these characters again for no particular reason" When these films are done right it feels like they're done for the art of it, to illustrate what changes and insights the passage of time brings. And because we love spending the time with the characters. Now of course this doesn't always work out. The Evening Star was a big letdown for anyone expecting Terms of Endearment 2. But in concept, why not revisit one of the most indelible characters of 1980s cinema?

Terminator 2: The Return of Sarah Connor

Come to think of it this stance also helps explains my super-intense abiding love for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) which is a sequel of the traditional kind (i.e. this will make TONS of money!) but which I would rank -- easily -- near the tippity top of a list of the greatest sequels ever made. And that's largely because of the authentically shocking evolution of character. The Sarah Connor therein is nothing like the one we met in 1984 but once you're past the 'what the hell!?'reveal the new one feels like a natural progression nonetheless to traumatic events from the first film. And it immediately shows how lazily written most characters are in sequels where nothing between films has ever affected them. Big blockbusters so rarely feel that deeply rooted in actual human drama. 

What kind of sequels do you long for?
Which film characters would you love to drop in on again?

Unmissables I Nearly Missed on Vacation

Nathaniel, here, returning to home base. I'm baaaa--aack. Did you miss me? I shan't take another day off until late October so I'm all yours again! But before we get started again, hugs and kisses and floral bouquets and firm handshakes to Leslye, Melanie, Beau, Jose, JA and Matt for filling in for the week.

The internet moves with such speed -- except while visiting relatives in internet challenged rural Utah -- that if you're gone for a week you can totally miss seismic events. Here are some webthingies I'm so so glad people alerted me to so that I didn't miss them in my spotty connectivity travels. I'm sharing them on the off chance you missed them. No one should have to!

Revenge came out on DVD! - a magical elf in PR made sure I received mine. Thanks you! The cover of the Season 1 box is Emily in her promotional thematic thorn dress but we all know the true magic of the best nighttime soap in decades and decades is Madeleine Stowe's icy glares... deadlier than any thorns have ever been! If you have any love for Stowe's early 90s heyday (Short Cuts, Mohicans, Blink - holla!) or the art of the prime time soap opera, you owe yourself this series. The first handful of episodes are a bit too procedural repetitive for me but once the gears catch... oh my diva, this is an addictive series. Madeleine Stowe for the Emmy! Damn. She wasn't even nominated. #unforgivable. 

Cooler Cinema on the Sight & Sound List - This handwringing discussion of critical failure online is yet another example that that S&S List is proving to have an unusual shelf life in terms of continually trending topics. While it reads a bit to me like too much complaining about the lack of "instant classics" on the list -- I'm personally glad that canon lists focus on the past as that's what canons are for, to give you a foundation of cultural literacy rather than pat you on the back for your pleasure in the world's current favorites -- there's much food for thought here.

AO Scott's Review of The Oogieloves and the Big Balloon Adventure - Speaking of instant classics -- this review! The punchline is The. Best.

Karen O's Best Original Song Contender "Strange Love" - If Tim Burton's animated expansion of his early short Frankenweenie is as weird/cute/fresh, he might really have something. As usual Rich Juzwiak says it best:

I don't know whether Karen has lost her edge or merely child-proofed it, but the song is pretty fucking adorable.

David Fincher: A Film Title Retrospective - his films always have great credit sequences, don't they? This interview and wonderful quote only add to their appeal.

I don’t know how much movies should entertain. I’m interested in movies that scar.

Finally... two things I forgot to write about that I had totally planned to before I left. 

I had the scoop on the Before Sunset sequel prior to anyone in the States and I stupidly forgot to post anything in my rush to pack and fly (Sorry Manolis!) so The Playlist got their first. Good on them. Word is Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke are already filming their third romantic duet and Before Midnight might be the title. I love that series so much. If it's as good as Before Sunset several cinephiles could well experience the rapture and vanish from the Earth.

Finally Finally there's one more week left in a peculiar challenge set by Lars von Trier who is asking young filmmakers to choose from one of six masterpieces

• James Joyce's work Ulysses
• August Strindberg's famous play The Father
• The Zeppelinfield in Nuremberg, created by Hitler's main architect Albert Speer.
• Paul Gaugin's painting Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? 
• French composer César Franck's improvisations. 
• Sammy Davis Jr. (in general)

...and create a short film inspired by it but NOT too obviously/directly. A collaborative film will be built around the submissions by female director Jenle Hallund in a project they're calling Gesamt. Sounds interesting/weird/Five Obstructions Von Trier'ish. If you're all "why didn't you tell me this two weeks ago, Nathaniel ?!? I could have created a masterpiece" just think of yourself as a reality TV show contestant. They never give them any time to speak of and they manage. Create quickly by the seat of your pants. Create all the (possible) way into Danish film history.

Burning Questions: The New Classic Quotes

Michael C. here to see if I can blow some of the dust of the all time lists to make room for some new blood.  

If you read as much film writing as I do you know one of the most tiresome attitudes one encounters is the rose-colored “they don’t make them like the used to” mindset. This is the Pleasantville way of seeing things that insists cinema attained a sort of perfection in the forties and fifties and has been on a downhill slide towards Transformers sequels ever since. 

One of the most common forms this viewpoint takes is the lament that movies aren’t as quotable as they used to be. "Why, when the American Film Institute released its list of the 100 greatest quotes in 2005" the argument goes, "Casablanca landed six spots on the list alone, while Gone With the Wind and Wizard of Oz landed three apiece." The problem with this argument is that, while I wouldn’t deny those films a single one of their spots, it is meaningless to compare films that have had the better part of a century to secure their place in the cultural pantheon to those that have just been released. More often than not cinematic greatness emerges over time rather than instantly emblazoning itself on the face of the culture.

So if I’m correct and in four or five decades the films of the early part of this century do manage to slide in some lines alongside “You talkin’ to me?” and “Frankly My Dear, I don't give a damn.” what will they be?

photo src

What are the new classic quotes in the making?

Since the most recent quote on the AFI’s top 100 is “My Precious” from 2002’s Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers I think that would be a good jumping off point. In the decade following where the AFI list left off here are, in my best estimation, the ten quotes that have most thoroughly permeated popular culture: 

Click to read more ...