How had I never seen... "Cabaret"?

In this new series, members of Team Film Experience watch and share their reactions to classic films they’ve never seen. 

By Ben Miller

Cabaret is Bob Fosse’s “musical” into the world of bohemian performer Sally Bowles and uptight Brit Brian Roberts.  Both try to navigate the world of love along with the struggle to reach a level of extravagance, all the while experiencing the adapting political climate of 1930’s Berlin.

Shamefully, I had never seen it.

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Posterized: Liza Minnelli

by Nathaniel R

Some people's talents are so supersized that they're destined for fame. Others are born right into it. In the delicious nutty case of Liza Minnelli it was both. She was famous at birth, being the first child of a superstar couple (Movie star Judy Garland and celebrated director Vincente Minnelli) but later her talents proved that she would have become LIZA even if she'd been born to a phone operator and a brick-layer.

Liza is currently back in select movie theaters as herself in the documentary Halston (2019). But we're here to look back today. You can actually catch baby Liza (uncredited) at the end of the Judy Garland musical In the Good Old Summertime (1949) but her film debut proper came in 1968 in the Albert Finney comedy Charlie Bubbles. 

How many of her movies have you seen? Every poster is after the jump but since she's an all platform star we included notes about other major work where it applied... 

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Fosse/Verdon - EP 3: "Me and My Baby"

Previously: Episode 1 and Episode 2

by Eric Blume

Fosse/Verdon certainly isn’t flawless, but it’s very strong out of the gate in these first three episodes.  Hamilton director Thomas Kail guided the first two episodes with an assured hand, throwing us headfirst into the theater world with little set-up, allowing audiences to feel their way into the environment, and trusting that his two star performances will keep people hooked.  His instincts were right on, and despite some awkward editing and temporal shifts, the show is arresting, absorbing, and intelligent.

Episode Three is directed by Adam Bernstein, a very talented guy who won an Emmy for 30 Rock and was nominated for Fargo...

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1972 Revisit: Awards Darlings

by Nathaniel R

Before the '72 Smackdown THIS SUNDAY (have you voted yet?) we thought it might be fun to look back at how the awards race played out across the big six categories by comparing the Globes, Oscars, and various other awards organizations of the time to see what the hottest commodities were. 

Where the Globes and Oscar lined up, I've lined them up on the chart belows (obviously the Globes have two wins for Best Picture and Leading Actors do to how they split the categories.) You'll notice that except for Best Actress no categories were closer than a 3/5 match. We wish awards season were that excitingly differentiated now! It's unfortunate that opinions have become so homogenized. As we've said many times, you don't need dozens of groups if they all feel exactly the same way about art. The "other" column is for key wins and nominations that season (if it's a different year for Oscar eligibility we've noted that) that add broader context to what excited people in 1972. 

Ready? Let's time travel...

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Fosse/Verdon - EP 1: "Life is a Cabaret"

by Chris Feil

FX’s Fosse/Verdon begins with two intriguingly quiet moments for a series founded in musical theatre. First, an older Bob Fosse waits alone in a hotel room, and someone comes knocking. Then we flash back to the genius working in tandem with his wife and partner Gwen Verdon, perfecting a piece of choreography in his iconic style. Gwen offers a slight adjustment to his angular positioning, and they proceed. “Yours is better,” he says decisively. This kind of personal and creative symbiosis, which has made the two depicted here into the stuff of Broadway hallowed history, is sadly only fleeting in the premiere of this new limited series.

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