Split Decision: "All Quiet on the Western Front"

No two people feel the exact same way about any film. Thus, Team Experience is pairing up to debate the merits of each of the awards movies this year. Here’s Eric Blume and Cláudio Alves on Germany's Oscar contender.

ERIC:  Claudio, let's get down and dirty on Edward Berger's All Quiet on the Western Front.  I'm in camp "love" and I think you're in camp "don't love"?  The only real dissent I've heard from folks is that "it says nothing new about war" (which I look forward to addressing).  But let's start with overall impressions of the film.

CLÁUDIO:  Well, it's adapting a seminal anti-war novel – maybe THE anti-war novel pre-WWII – already made into a Best Picture Oscar winner before. So it's not like it had much hope of saying something new about its subject. Nevertheless, Edward Berger and company bring plenty of "new things" to the narrative presented in the literary work and its previous adaptations, so there's that...

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Leslie Jordan (1955-2022)

Finally, in terrible terrible news beloved and hilarious Leslie Jordan has passed away. He was 67 years old. He had a medical emergency and crashed his car on the way to the hospital. The joy he brought so regularly on Instagram during the Pandemic with his gleefully Southern Gay Mischief energy will not soon be forgotten. He even managed to write a bestselling memoir during that late career rise to all new levels of popularity.

The 4'11" comic actor was best known for his memorably named characters like "Beverley Leslie" on Will & Grace and "Brother Boy" in the stage play turned movie turned TV series Sordid Lives. Other credits include The Help, The United States vs Billie Holiday, Love Ranch, and multiple seasons of American Horror Story. His last television role was "Phil" on three seasons of Call Me Kat. Have any favourite Leslie Jordan memories to share? 

I'll Link to That

TODAY'S MUST READ Self-Styled Siren debunks myths surrounding John Wayne and Sacheen Littlefeather at the Oscars in March '73. Really interesting piece as it shows you how press and stars speak about charged incidents, how incredible stories get started, how they change over time, and how often they're accepted as gospel once enough time has gone by. (P.S. Personally speaking I have always disliked John Wayne but even so, I have had trouble believing this story)

More after the jump including a biography of an Almodóvar regular, funeral screenings for Batgirl, the cult of A24, Black Panther toys, and a couple of remakes. Question: why does the entire internet call all remakes (and even some sequels) reboots now? The three separate words actually do mean three separate things... 

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Links: Exciting Memoirs, Luscious Italians, and the Out100

• The Hollywood Reporter Paul Mescal and Josh O'Conner to star in early 20th century gay love story, The History of Sound (the curious part is that it's about America and both stars are British and the director is South African)
• The Guardian Eternals banned in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait over gay content
• People actor Kal Penn (Harold & Kumar) has come out publicly before his memoir "You Can't Be Serious" hits. He'll be marrying his partner of 11 years soon

More after the jump including a Paul Newman memoir, new roles for Joe Alwyn and Gael Garcia Bernal, Titane's Oscar dreams, luscious Italians and the annual OUT100 list...

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Winona Ryder @ 50: Little Women

We're celebrating Winona Ryder for her birthday this week

by Lynn Lee

Was Winona Ryder miscast in Little Women? Boy, was she ever. Or so I thought back in 1994 when I first heard she was playing Jo, second of the four March sisters, in the then-new film adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott classic.  As a teenager who’d read Little Women so many times it had become personal canon, I found the casting ludicrous on its face.  After all, in the book Jo is lanky, tomboyish, awkward, and plain.  Ryder, by contrast, was tiny, graceful, and so exquisitely pretty I had a bit of a crush on her, a fact that sharpened rather than softened my disapproval.  Still, in the end curiosity and my family’s tradition of going to see a movie on Christmas meant I got to judge for myself just how wrong she was for the role.

Readers, what can I say?  She completely won me over....

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