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.)
Playbill recently announced that one of our very favorite Oscar nominees/hunks/great actors, Jake Gyllenhaal, will reprise his four-day stint from October as French painter George Seurat in Steven Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with Georgefor an official ten-week Broadway run. Previews begin February 11th.
I was able to catch Jake in the initial staged-concert run of the show, and he’s a sight to behold...
Nominations have been announced for the 59th annual Grammy Awards honoring the year in music (sort of.. their timelines can be very confusing). More than any of the other big 4 awards shows (Tonys, Emmys, Oscars) Grammy nods are largely based on financial success so it's usually the superstars in the major categories and that's true again this year with Beyoncé leading with 9 nominations and other superstars not far behind. The surprise this year was country star Sturgill Simpson (A Sailor's Guide to Earth) sharing the most coveted category "Album of the Year" category with Beyoncé (Lemonade), Adele (25), Justin Beiber (Purpose), and Drake (Views).
Adele's "25" is so great. But if she loses everything she can console herself with her 10 previous Grammys
But since the Grammys have over 80 categories (we are not exaggerating) here at TFE we just focus on those in which film, tv, or stage types are in play. i.e. the ones that can sometimes lead to EGOTing are after the jump.
Andy Warhol's prescient statement 'in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes' has been requoted to death. If he had been even more specific in his prophesies he could have added '...and every movie made in the 80s and 90s movie will become a stage play.' The latest film to make the jump is Peter Weir's boy's school drama Dead Poet's Society which was a big hit with the public and Oscar in 1989. For those who've never seen it (I'm sure you're out there somewhere) Robin Williams plays an unconventional teacher who convinces high school boys to "carpe diem / seize the day!" but this inspirational message has unintended tragic consequences when one boy's dream (Robert Sean Leonard) clashes with his reality in the form of a disapproving father. In the new play film actors Jason Sudeikis and Thomas Mann (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, The Stanford Prison Experiment) get those two marquee roles...
The Kinsey Report looks back at the troubled history of early 80s sensation Gene Anthony Ray (aka "Leroy" from Fame) Variety Director Fred Schepisi (Six Degrees of Separation, Roxanne, Plenty) is lining up an all star cast for his new dramatic thriller Andorra: Vanessa Redgrave, Guy Pearce, Toni Collette, Clive Owen and more. Can he regain some of his 80s/90s heat? None of his films have had much impact in the last 20 or so years /Film Lin-Manuel Miranda is working on a secret Disney project with Zootopia's director. Guess he liked that Moana experience
Towleroad an interview with Martha Plimpton on The Real O'Neals and becoming a new gay icon Metro Michael Shannon is not afraid to speak his mind on the current political climate. Also he has a bajillion movies coming out AV Club why Moana will be named Oceania in Italy AV ClubBeauty & The Beast (1991) remains Disney's best modern movie Pajiba Carrie Fisher & Harrison Ford were totally doing it on the set of Star Wars in 1976 Coming Soon Robert Heinlein's classic Stranger in a Strange Land is being adapted to series on the Syfy network LAist Multi-hyphenate talent Rob Reiner, like Michael Shannon, is not holding his tongue about our new US nightmare
Stage Theater Mania Philippa Soo of Hamilton fame takes on Audrey Tatou's famous role in the musicalization of movie favorite Amelie beginning in LA next month before a Broadway transfer. If you're in LA let us know how it is, won't you?! Playbill Molly Ringwald is back on stage, taking on Shirley Maclaine's role in a stage version of Terms of Endearment. It opens tonight. Playbill If you've never seen Sweeney Todd on stage you have another chance early next year at the Barrow Street theater. The British cast of a new production is transferring over but when they leave in early April, Norm Lewis and Carolee Carmello (both of whom have sensational vocal instruments) will replace them. I guess we've got to see it twice!
Today's Watch: A new "Billy on the Street" Would you have a threesome with Billy and Jon Hamm?
The Only Magically Great News in Weeks Hayao Miyazaki wants to come out of retirement for one last film. The 75 year old director has pitched a feature (sprung from a short Boro the Caterpillar) that he wants made by 2020.
Last week we looked at a group of films among the mammoth collection of titles playing Doc NYC. The festival continues and so we're looking at a few more films, taking a sort of cinematic road trip from the big city, down the highway to the Rocky Mountains and then back again.
The “chiffon jungle” is what the subject of Otis Mass’ debut film, The Incomparable Rose Hartman, a fashion and pop culture photographer whose images are as iconic as they are striking, labels her home of New York City. A place where fashion is as integral to daily life as breath is to life. Feel to free disagree, but as the first person to understand the appeal of the decadent backstage of celebrity life and master it into something truly artful, Hartman soon built a reputation that put her subjects at ease and made her none synonymous with New York’s cultural scene in a more extravagant way than the likes of Bill Cunningham. Whether she was photographing the models backstage and on the runways of Donna Karen, Caroline Herrera or Halston, or capturing the more candid, celebratory side of celebrities like Jerry Hall, Andy Warhol, Grace Jones, Liza Minnelli and Cher at Studio 54, her work is justifiably as iconic as it is extraordinary...
Monday, December 19, 2016 at 10:21PM 
