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.)
Laurence here with a couple of juicy actress news tidbits. After a string of well-cast disappointments, we're all hoping for a return to Tim Burton magic this year with his new film Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. We finally have some images from the film, which has what might be Burton's most formidable (live-action) cast since Big Fish, including Judi Dench, Samuel L. Jackson, Allison Janney, Terence Stamp, Kim Dickens and Rupert Everett. Whoa.
Most importantly, though, here's Eva Green in the title role. [More...]
People say such strange things when they're talking about Oscars • Bwin predicts Leo will lose the Oscar. One especially weird bit of reasoning is that all of the Actor nominees are playing good guys. Um, did they watch Steve Jobs? • The Guardian says a "conservative" estimate is that Australians will win 10 Oscars tomorrow. Conservative? Have they not heard of The Revenant? • /Film Stunt people want their own Oscar and recently protested again. Unfortunately they also felt the need to belittle other industry talents saying:
People love action; that’s why people go to the movies. No disrespect, but who goes to the movies to see the hairstyles?”
*raises hand*
More Oscar Mania • Vanity Fair fun interview with nominated Jenny Beavan, Mad Max Fury Road costume designer, with a choice Charlize Theron quote • Boston Globe really interesting piece from Ty Burr on "what if the Oscars didn't exist..." and it takes you to place I personally wasn't expecting • Psychology Today on why we're obsessed with the Oscars. STOP PSYCHOANALYZING ME! • IndieWire Ira Deutchman suggests changes to make the Academy more diverse. "First film" would be interesting and skew young but I am adamantly opposed to breakthrough since that is too easily gamed -- see the "breakthrough" prizes Charlize Theron won for Monster after several years of stardom. We'd have a whole new category fraud problem with that. • The Guardian has an interesting take on the Short Film categories -- why don't people watch them when they're increasingly available -- and why do they feel like commercials for features? • Variety beautiful reminiscence from Alfre Woodard on her earliest theatrical success and her 80s Oscar nomination • Tim Brayton's Oscar Predictions • Movie Motorbreath's Oscar Predictions
General Film • Interview ZOMG Julianne Moore interviewing Christina Vachon! • Instagram The Sleeping Beauty dragon via LEGOs! • i09 JJ Abrams is claiming Star Wars will feature gay characters. I'll believe that when I see it (but until then it's fun that Oscar Isaac winked to queer fans with Poe Dameron. And also the Star Wars Saga is largely asexual anyway so...
Off Cinema • Pajiba nails Marco Rubio with a great Turing Test joke • i09 Bram Stoker Awards -- for horror fiction. Which of these will end up as movies? • /Film Tom McCarthy is going to follow up Spotlight with a Netflix series called 13 Reasons Why... it's based on a bestseller but honestly the suicidal premise sounds atrocious / reductive. Already worried! • Jeanne the Fangirl amazing find - a letter to Marvel from 1974 complaining about Iron Fist's whitewashing. Here we are in 2016 and Marvel is STILL planning a white Iron Fist even though the story is Asian by origin • Playbill.com has a badly needed redesign. Check it out if you love Broadway
Today's Watch A Cat predicting the Oscars. (Monty, TFE's Oscar predicting cat, wouldn't cooperate this year but he's always been temperamental about his psychic duties. Also: he's very very old now and only wants to sleep.) So anyway here is some random cat who thinks he can do it. Rampling, eh?
Imagine your parents or maybe your grandparents gathered 'round a 21 inch television on February 18th, 1966 on ABC to watch this. If you were born in October 1966 I apologize that the weirdest things got your parents frisky.
Wowee Wow. Here's Our Dolly now! 🎵
There were only three channels in 1966 and, I mean, why would ANYONE have been watching anything else? She was on Broadway at the time with Hello Dolly. Broadway had such a cache back then. Can you imagine a Broadway star getting a whole hour of television to promote their celebrity today?
Some highlights... 04:10 Wanna hear where Lady Bunny got her voice. It's right here. 12:22 David McCallum (The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) reads T.E. Lawrence and speaks multiple languages with Carol, cracking each other up 24:20 Mona Lisa musical comedy sketch. The takeaway: the 1960s were a very strange and alien time from an alternate Earth. Possibly another Galaxy altogether 33:00 Los Angeles, skewered. Must see if you've ever hated on L.A. 50:30 George Burns & David McCallum join Carol for the finale. "The Monkey Rag"
As you may have heard Frozen will be coming to Broadway in the Spring of 2018. The original composers will write additional new songs which is smart since the second half of Frozen the movie is weirdly not a musical at all. The songs abruptly end after "Let It Go"
It will be curious to have two versions of Wicked on stage simultaneously, though.
Shade. (I couldn't resist.)
No matter how much one loves Frozen, it's hard to deny that it shamelessly rips off of Wicked. When Wicked's producers rather dimly dragged their feet on a film version of their 3 billion dollar smash (they should have started immediately since it takes years to get a picture made properly and now a picture will feel "old" when it arrives) Disney swooped in with their own version of Wicked called Frozen -- even using the same leading lady with the huge pipes (Idina Menzel) and had their own billion-dollar smash (with endless revenue yet to come in merchandising).
Consider:
Sisters / Besties. One is good and likeable. The other is secretive and perceived as "Wicked"
The "Wicked" girl is strong with magic and this scares people and she hides herself away from the fearful citizens of Arendel/Oz
During her escape/rise into her power she sings an athem of self-actualization "Let It Go"/"Defying Gravity"
And then the villagers come after her and the good girl has to intervene. (From their the stories diverge... as they do with the supporting cast, too)
Wicked will obviously still be selling out in 2018 when Frozen arrives. 12 years and a few months into its run it's still always near the top of the box office charts. It will be so strange to see them side by side. Do you have a preference?
The Daily Beast the Coen Bros on diversity vs the Oscars. But they don't take kindly to complaints about Hail, Caesar!'s whiteness Decider Joe Reid ranks the top 50 performances in Coen Bros movies. Much to argue with but also to agree with. The #1 is indisputable. i09 Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) signed as the male lead of X-Men spinoff tv series Legion who may or may not be insane Variety Jake Gyllenhaal's Boston Marathon bombing movie is a go Decider "Let My People F***" amusing piece on the conservative sexual morality of the Duplass Brothers filmography
IndieWire Viggo Mortensen's new film Captain Fantastic, which sounds intriguing, will open on July 8th. It co-stars Frank Langella, Kathryn Hahn, and George Mackay (who played the young photographer in Pride) Theater Mania Mark Rylance, fresh off his Oscar nomination, returns to the New York stage with Nice Fish (and possibly Farinelli and the King) THR Bel Powley and Martin Wallström who both broke out this past year in Diary of a Teenage Girl and Mr Robot, respectively,will costar in WWII drama Ashes in the Snow Playbill Oooh, look. They're putting up the marquee for American Psycho on Broadway. Benjamin Walker, currently in theaters in The Choice (and who is a singing charisma machine onstage) is playing Patrick Bateman Interview Peter Dinklage interviews Paul Dano
DANO: I just did this film, called Youth, that Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel and Jane Fonda are in. And I have to tell you, Michael Caine is so happy. Happy and healthy. I think he enjoys life. I think he's 82 now, and I have no clue if I'll be working at that age, but it was amazing and inspiring to see him bring it, because you know that the search never ends. I talked to Jane Fonda about acting and about what we want to work on, and I was like, "Jane Fonda and I are talking about how to be better actors."
DINKLAGE: It never stops.
DANO: Which I also find so beautiful and healthy to see in people who have had so much success. They still have skin in the game.
Tuesday, March 8, 2016 at 8:00AM 
