The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
Jason from MNPP here... or am I? Is this me? Am I here? So many existential questions here on the eve of the release of Blade Runner 2049 this weekend and all I have is a "Beauty vs Beast" poll to face them down with. Y'all gotta help me suss it out! Are we a Deckard (Harrison Ford) or are we a Pris (Daryl Hannah)? And is this the version of life with the voiceover and the unicorns or isn't it? I am so confused...
PREVIOUSLY Last week we wished David Lynch's Eraserhead a happy 40th birthday, and in a delightfully close contest you came down on the side of the pulsating little baby pod thing - a testament to a special effect that Lynch himself steadfastly refuses to label as such, I'd say. Said Nick T:
"Baby, because I asked my dad if he resonated with Henry's parental struggles raising me and he gave me a look that said I was still making him struggle."
Yes, International Owl Awareness Day is a real thing. For our purposes at The Film Experience owl awareness would be how those nocturnal birds are portrayed onscreen. They're hit-and-miss on celluloid and television. For example, we always needed more personality from Hedwig in the Harry Potter series, that damn mechanical owl in Clash of the Titans is an anachronistic disaster, and is it sacrilege to say that 'Owl' in Winnie and the Pooh is the least engaging Hundred Acre Wood denizen?
The following list is dedicated to the Twin Peaks owl(s) and Archimedes in The Sword and the Stone (1963) who didn't quite make it but we love them. TFE's five favorite screen owls are after the jump
Chris here. Exactly one year out from release, we've now learned that Denis Villeneuve's upcoming Blade Runner sequel is officially titled Blade Runner 2049. Should 2049 likely be the time in which the sequel is set that keeps the followup quite accurate in the timeline considering 35 years will have passed between films. However, this still raises lingering questions about Harrison Ford's Deckard and aging - is the film backing off of Ridley Scott's confirmation of Deckard's replicant status. With Villeneuve and Ryan Gosling on the Oscar trail this season, we're hoping to get more hints in the coming months.
Adding to the mystery is our first set photo, with stars Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford oddly keeping it cazh considering the original's chilly aesthetics.
Tell us in the comments: what are director, producer, and stars discussing? What's casting that loving glow in Gosling's eye for Villeneuve? What's Ford indicating about Scott?
It's link time which also doubles as news catch up! (Yes, Oscar Chart updates are currently in progress. So more on that and the foreign submissions very soon)
Think Pieces, List Mania, Celebrity • Movie City News launches another "Gurus of Gold" season where all of us have named our current top 20 "general field" predictions. Yes, I'm updating my charts over the next three days! Manchester by the Sea and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk are expected leaders • Gawker Rich Juzwiack says goodbye to one identity through a George Michael lens. It's wonderful • MNPP Paul Bettany is vacationing in Ibiza • NYT talks to Kirsten Dunst about life after Fargo and her Emmy nomination • Mind of a Suspicious Kind Martin Scorsese's Silence is supposedly his longest ever (over 3 hours) but is it actually coming out this year?
• Cinema Enthusiast polled film twitter on their favorite films of 1982. The results are interesting but weird. The Thing at #1? Erm, okay. Star Trek II above Victor/Victoria? NO. I have to admit that I'm quite spotty on early 80s cinema though because I couldn't drive myself to the cinema back then. • Forbes on the easy-to-predict failure of the new Ben-Hur and how it's a fitting end to this particular summer • Little White Lies wonders if there still a place for eroticism in cinema while watching shorts in Montreal • i09 what went wrong with this summer's blockbusters • AV Club talks to Clea DuVall about past roles on the eve of her directorial debut with The Intervention • MNPP Dagmara Dominczyck's Patrick Wilson appreciation social media game • ...TFE we interviewed her once and she is stunningly gorgeous herself • Slate that nude Trump statue hitting various cities is not amusing to everyone • ...EW including actress/author Amber Tamblyn
News & Miscellania • The Guardian more trouble for Birth of a Nation. AFI cancelled screenings and Q&A • ... icymi TFE previous handwringing about this scandal and film • Forbes Jennnifer Lawrence & Melissa McCarthy top the annual highest paid actresses list this year. Two actresses outside of Hollywood made the list this year: Deepika Padukone (India) and Fan Bingbing (China). Figures include not just films but endorsement deals and such. The Zeéeeee apparently banked a lot for returning to her signature role in Bridget Jones's Baby since she almost made the list.
• /FilmBlade Runner 2 adds Jared Leto to the cast and Jóhan Jóhannsson as composer • Theater Mania Jennifer Holliday joining the cast of the Broadway revival of Color Purple. I guess they've decided to make Shug Avery the short-term award-winning star draw (they've already been through Jennifer Hudson and Heather Hedley) • Screen Daily undervalued British actor Andrew Scott has a lead role. He'll star in the thriller Steel Country • KotakuGhost in the Shell supporting cast photos leaked • Towleroad on Frank Oceans new video Nikes • Coming Soon Amazon developing a TV series based on The Departed. Hmmm. Isn't that an odd fit for long term storytelling. It would imply we can never move past the double crossing discovered stage • Playbill Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher documentary will premiere at the NYFF • Film Stage the first image from Euphoria with Alicia Vikander & Eva Green
Madonna Mania - It's Around This Summer For Some Reason (not complaning) • Boy Culture on a star studded Truth or Dare screening in NYC... • People ...Madonna even showed up super briefly! • Village Voice Michael Musto recalls his up and down relationship to the material girl through their very long contemporaneous careers
And I'll leave you with the new La La Land trailer. (If you missed our discussion of the first trailer, that's here.) This movie can't open soon enough!
Jason from MNPP here with a quite happy bit of new news - we've been a little on the wary side of the Blade Runner sequel. Even as excellent stuff was announced - Harrison Ford returning is excellent stuff! And we're probably bigger fans of director Denis Villeneuve as of this moment in time than we are of Ridley Scott as of this moment in time (that's our way of saying if we were talking about "Ridley Scott as of the 1980s" it would be a different story). These are all net positives!
And yet we're wary. We're talking about Blade Runner here! The film that basically built the entire aesthetic of cinematic dystopia on its slick neon-in-the-rain shoulders. You kind of can't look at any movie set in the future that was made in the past 34 years and not see its influence.
Well today we're a smidge less wary, and we might actually be on our way to excited, because the film's just cast one of our very favorite actresses - Mackenzie Davis from Halt and Catch Fire (which is so underrated it pains my insides) as well as the terrific upcoming thriller Always Shine, which I reviewed from the Tribeca Film Festival (and which she won Best Actress at that same festival for). No word on who she's playing (naturally they're keeping everything tight to the vest) but I get a little giddy picturing her done up a la Daryl Hannah's Pris, I have to say.
Monday, October 2, 2017 at 3:00PM 
PREVIOUSLY Last week we wished David Lynch's Eraserhead a happy 40th birthday, and in a delightfully close contest you came down on the side of the pulsating little baby pod thing - a testament to a special effect that Lynch himself steadfastly refuses to label as such, I'd say. Said Nick T:
