Bentonville: Geena Davis, Jamie Brewer, and the Fabulous Freddie Mercury

Part 1 of 3 by Nathaniel R

"Include," was scrawled across every sign at the 5th annual Bentonville Film Festival which just wrapped up. As part of the logo, it was hard to miss. More noteworthy is the fact that you would have been able to hear that message loud and clear at any of the screenings and events even if you'd never seen the logo. Oscar winner Geena Davis launched the festival five years ago. It's a smart offshoot of the actresses work at the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media... and that advocacy reaches beyond gender to include film industry representation for multiple minorities: queer people, people of color, and disabled people, too.

Bentonville, sight unseen at least, is an odd locale for a film festival. That is until you see how much money that corporate sponsor WalMart, headquartered right there, has poured into the festival. The Film Experience has had the pleasure of attending several regional festivals across the years and Bentonville is definitely among the most well-funded / well-run. The attending filmmakers even got a mini-retreat before the festival began for industry networking opportunities. The town itself is a little slice of Americana with little shops, cute restaurants, a charming town square, and a lux gorgeous museum named Crystal Bridges.

Geena Davis in the house!

Crystal Bridges is where the trademark opening event "Geena and Friends" is held...

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SLO Film Fest: Katharine Ross and Hollywood Dynasties

by Nathaniel R

The opening night event about to begin

Film Festivals are a joy so we rarely pass up the opportunity to discover a new one. We're here in sunny but brisk San Luis Obispo (it's March in California) for the 25th annual edition of their film festival. San Luis Obispo was once named "the Happiest Place in America," by Oprah Winfrey, and at least four locals (kid you not!) tell us this within hours of our arrival! Does it live up to the title? It's hard to say but we did meet a gorgeous super nice 30something couple (hi Connie & Michael) who invited us to sit at their table at the opening night party and they seemed pretty happy to be there. Everyone else did, too. The fairly universal thing about film festival gathering is that everyone seems happy to be right there. Films were meant to be seen in groups, something we hope we don't lose with  'watch it on your phone / at home' ease of streaming.  It's the primal sitting 'round the fire' to listen to stories instinct. 

Speaking of old forms of storytelling, the opening night festivities went way back, pairing spoken word with music...

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Review: Bohemian Rhapsody

The review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

‘C’mon Gay Shame!’ That’s what we imagine the movies are shouting at us right now, spirits ablaze and fingers snapping. Though it’s surely a coincidence, the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody (‘yaaas, Queen’?) and the gay conversion therapy drama Boy Erased have arrived simultaneously. This accidental double feature is a double closeted whammy. 

It’d be wonderful to report that they’re both worth seeing, but only one might rock you. And it isn’t the one with the famous “we will we will rock you” chorus. But more on Boy Erased later since it’s just beginning a platform run on 5 screens and will be expanding as awards season heats up. Bohemian Rhapsody, on the other hand, is opening wide on 4,000 screens and hoping to fill them like Queen filled stadiums…

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Middleburg Celebrates Diane Warren with the "Impact Award"

by Nathaniel R

Each year at the Middleburg Film Festival, TFE's favorite event is a live concert honoring a film composer. This year Sheila C Johnson, the co-founder of BET who created the Middleburg Festival opted to do things a bit differently. Though there was a composer honored at a smaller event (29 year-old rising talent Kris Bowers who scored both the likely Oscar smash Green Book and the critically acclaimed indie Monsters and Men this year) the main concert and "Impact Award" was reserved for hit-machine songwriter Diane Warren.

This year Warren co-wrote the much memed "Why'd You Do That?" from A Star is Born but her Oscar bid for 2018 will surely be the theme song from the documentary hit RBG, "I'll Fight"

More after the jump including a couple of song snippets...

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50 Kristins for Kristin's 50th

by Jorge Molina

Today, Tony, Emmy and Grammy-winner (that’s right, she only needs an Oscar to EGOT; get on it, Hollywood) and human ray of sunshine Kristin Chenoweth turns 50 years old. To honor her career, her legacy, and that impossibly high pitch matched only by her charisma, let’s take a look at 50 roles and appearances that she has gifted the world in almost three decades of work, in no particular order:

1) Her Broadway debut in an adaptation of Moliére’s Scapin as Hyacinth in 1996. 

2 & 3) Her two most iconic Broadway roles: A featured Tony-winning turn as Sally in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown in 1999, and the Best Actress Tony-nominated performance as Glinda, the Good Witch in the world phenomenon that was Wicked in 2003.

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