Yes No Maybe So: If Beale Street Could Talk

by Nathaniel R

James Baldwin's "If Beale Street Could Talk" was published in the summer of 1974, forty-four years ago. It feels like we've waited about that many years for any hint of what Barry Jenkins film adaptation might look like since he announced his intention to film it, a year or so ago. The trailer has finally arrived, temporarily satiating our curiousity. Temporarily. It's the type of trailer that relies extensively on moodiness rather than what-the-film-is-actually-like reveal. Let's break it down after the jump with our Yes, No, Maybe So system...

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Cabaret Pt 1: 'You have to understand the way I am, mein herr.'

Three-Part Mini-Series
Occasionally we'll take a movie and baton pass it around the team and really dive in. If you missed past installments we've gone long and deep on Rebecca (1940), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966),  Rosemary's Baby (1968), Silence of the Lambs (1991), Thelma & Louise (1991), and A League of Their Own (1992). Now... Bob Fosse's Cabaret (1972) which is showing this weekend at the Quad Cinema in NYC - Editor

Team Experience is proud to present a three-part retrospective deep dive into Bob Fosse's Cabaret (1972), winner of 8 Oscars, and one of the most singular films ever made. Though it takes place on a stage it's entirely cinematic in a way many film musicals --even the ones that don't involve actual stages -- ever even think to be.

Part 1 by Nathaniel R

00:01 Cabaret begins in total silence with white text credits on a black screen. Countless movies begin this way, but not musicals. There is no bright and colorful title card, no overture to prep you for its famous song score. Cabaret takes place at the dead end of the Weimar era in Germany, and emerged onscreen at the dead end of the musical genre's dominance of movie culture. This is not lost on the genius dancer/choreographer turned film director Bob Fosse, who throws us immediately into a dark and dingy underworld... as if we've already eaten pomegranate seeds and sealed our fate...

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Natalie Portman is going to Venice and to Space

by Murtada

Remember when Natalie Portman’s Jackie appeared seemingly out of nowhere in competition at the 2016 Venice Film Festival and put her on the top of the best actress Oscar list? Two years later Portman might have a similar scenario in store for us.

Vox Lux is her new film, directed by Brady Corbet and co-starring Jude Law, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Stacy Martin. It will be playing Venice next month in competition and will probably appear at some other fall festivals as well. While it remains without distribution, it will sure be snapped up if it's warmly recieved. This time however Portman is not playing an Iconic American but rather a pop star. The film charts its lead character's rise to superstardom.

Rooney Mara was first cast when the film was announced 2 years ago, with Sia providing the music...

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Months of Meryl: The Hours (2002)

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

#29 —Clarissa Vaughan, a higher-up and hostess of the New York literary scene attempting to throw a party for her dying friend.

MATTHEW:  Even before Meryl Streep stepped before the cameras as the unraveling hostess Clarissa Vaughan on Stephen Daldry’s The Hours, the actress already possessed a role in Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer-winning, tripartite meditation on love, loss, and Virginia Woolf. Early on in Cunningham’s 1999 novel, Clarissa, while shopping for flower, catches sight of a movie star who may be Streep or Vanessa Redgrave or, much less excitingly for Clarissa, Susan Sarandon emerging from her trailer with an “aura of regal assurance.” Streep’s ephemeral appearance in what will prove to be one of the most pivotal days of Clarissa’s life signifies, quite literally, the sublime; her quasi-cameo is a perfect encapsulation of one of those chance, indirect encounters with a famous face that we use, with varying levels of embarrassment, to distract us from the mundanities of our daily routine, a glimpse of the extraordinary amid the everyday. That Streep the Star, who was gifted a copy of "The Hours" by Redgrave’s late daughter Natasha Richardson, is removed from Daldry’s film speaks to the many, many excisions that occur within any page-to-screen transfer, but it also informs us that Streep’s cinematized Clarissa Vaughan is simply beyond distraction...

I will always appreciate Daldry’s version as a rare if principally partitioned meeting of three extraordinary screen stars...

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YNMS: Mary Queen of Scots

by Chris Feil

As promised yesterday, the Mary Queen of Scots trailer has arrived. Think of it like the less demented and much more traditional flip side of an actressy coin to the antics of that trailer for The Favourite. Becauseonce again we've got some heavily costumed fireworks on our hands.

And what take does this version of the oft rehashed history have to offer? The film jumps off from the amicable relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, played respectively by last year's Best Actress nominees Margot Robbie and Saoirse Ronan. Then begins a rivalry for the throne, but this film plays handily with the underpinnings of affection both women have for one another and the men underneath their power forcing their hands. As your middle school history books will tell you, it doesn't end well for all parties.

This is one of our more anticipated Oscar players of the season, so all eyes are on what Ronan and Robbie have in store as their awards stars continue to go upward. But will the movie have the goods? Take a look at the new trailer and we'll break down the Yes No Maybe So...

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