Months of Meryl: An Epilogue

John and Matthew watched every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep. 

Meryl has been a superstar for 40 years now

MATTHEW: You never forget the performers who first reach out to you from an illuminated screen and lay claim to your gaze, mind, and devotion. Before I knew anything about the art of screen acting, I knew about the miraculous and almost mythic marvel that is Meryl Streep. Months of Meryl was an undertaking that exhausted and aggravated me without end: for every unparalleled Silkwood in Streep’s filmography, there are at least two The House of the Spirits; for every forgotten or underrecognized gem like The Seduction of Joe Tynan, One True Thing, or A Prairie Home Companion, there are at least three Still of the Nights, Primes, or Dark Matters. But, more importantly, this project illuminated a great deal about a veteran artist whose empathetic interest in the lives of others moved me at such an impressionable age and will never cease to do so.

Watching and writing about Streep’s films side by side by side for well over a year has not taught me a single overarching lesson, but only deepened my appreciation for her mastery...

Click to read more ...

Months of Meryl: The Post (2017)

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep. 

#52 — Katharine “Kay” Graham, pioneering Washington Post publisher who authorized the printing of the Pentagon Papers.

JOHN: Since it was first announced in March of 2017, deep into the first hundred days of the Trump presidency, The Post moved at a breakneck speed from rewriting to shooting to post-production before it quickly arrived in theaters in December of that year. Spielberg had paused production on his historical drama The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara and after reading a spec script by Liz Hannah, set the gears into motion on The Post, assembling his usual team (cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, composer John Williams, editor Michael Kahn, among others), along with two screen legends who had never before shared a single frame. This urgent sense of timeliness is palpable in The Post, which is both a riveting period piece about a landmark historical moment and a rousing paean to the free press in our distressing present...

Click to read more ...

Podcast: Ben is Back, Beale Street, Vice, and those pesky SAG nods

Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl welcome special guest Alfred Soto to talk new films & SAG fallout

Index (61 minutes)
00:01 SAG nomination leftover feelings
05:00 None of us liked Vice and the reviews are mixed. We still think it's an awards contender so we discuss the question of latebreakers in each awards season. 
11:45 Randomness: Ethan Hawke, Bohemian Rhapsody, and the Florida Film Critics Circle
20:40 Ben is Back starring Lucas Hedges (with sidebars of Boy Erased and Beautiful Boy)
33:40 If Beale Street Could Talk
45:00 Reader Q: A fine element of a buzzy movie that's not being talked up
49:17 Reader Q: Is Best Actress actually set already?
51:00 Reader Q: If there wasn't Category Fraud this year what would be happening in Supporting Actress?
53:30 Reader Q: Reassign an Oscar win - what's the cascading effect?
59:40 Wrap up

Further Reading / References
• Murtada's If Beale Street Review
• Nathaniel's If Beale Street Quick Take
• Alfred's controversial review of Roma
• Alfred's Florida Film Critics ballot
• Best Actress Race 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Beale St, Ben is Back, Vice

Review: Ben is Back

by Eric Blume

In writer-director Peter Hedges’ new film Ben is Back, Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges perform a heart-rending duet.  They’re so locked into their characters, with their lived-in emotions so close to the skin, that they make the film soar.

Young Ben (Hedges) returns home for Christmas, 77 days clean from sober living from his drug addiction, to the joy and hope of his mom (Roberts), and the skepticism of his family.  While the plot is straightforward, Peter Hedges takes the peace out of the domestic setting in the second half of the film, where he has his two main characters on the road facing various elements from Ben’s past...

Click to read more ...

Team Experience's Happy Gay Thoughts, Our Globe Reaction Finale.

Thank you for your robust comments on our the Golden Globe nominations, Globe snubs, and Vice/First Man nomination theorizing! Please do enjoy your weekend but it'll be busy here non-stop through the Oscar nominations so please check back in daily... or several times a day, bitches! To wrap up our Globe nomination reaction coverage, let's get happy and gay.

We asked friends and teammates at The Film Experience to share their giddiest thoughts and we hope you'll answer these final three questions, too. Here we go...

1. Which acting nomination were you most thrilled about?

DEBORAH LIPP: Alex Borstein 4Ever! I am here for any woman who appears on television in boxer shorts. 

MURTADA ELFADL: John David Washington because he is the real star born in 2018 and should be rewarded as such... 

Click to read more ...