Honorary Oscars 2019 - The Speeches

by Nathaniel R

Our dream is to one day attend that invite only Honorary Oscars / Governor's Awards. The ceremonies aren't televised but for clips for YouTube and such but everyone who is anyone in Hollywood is there with an emphasis on Hollywood's golden history which we here at The Film Experience have always appreciated. Sites that only cover new releases -- what are you doing with your lives?!?

Here are the speeches and some notes from the special night.  First up Geena Davis, Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award winner who shares that it was really Thelma & Louise (1991) that changed her life (you and me both, diva!) and set her on the path that she's now being honored for. Her face when Tom Hanks says her name... ❤

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David Lynch's "Eraserhead" Debut

The Governors Awards (Honorary Oscars) will be held on October 27th, 2019. We've been discussing two of the honoraries: Directors Lina Wertmüller and David Lynch. Here's Mark Brinkerhoff...

Having just retrospected Mulholland Drive, David Lynch’s penultimate film (to date at least), let’s venture back to 1977’s Eraserhead, the debut film of American cinema’s enfant terrible ne plus ultra. 

To say that Eraserhead is weird would be a profound understatement. Not only is it deeply weird, but it’s wildly inventive. Made for a tight (even for the mid-‘70s) $10,000, Lynch’s first feature, shot in glorious black and white, seems like both a precursor and a post-script to the legendary director’s storied career...

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The Honoraries: David Lynch's masterpiece "Mulholland Dr"

The Governors Awards (Honorary Oscars) will be held on October 27th, 2019 with director Lina Wertmüller, actress Geena Davis, director David Lynch, and actor Wes Studi celebrated. We'll be discussing each of them.

by Eric Blume

The decision to give David Lynch an honorary Oscar this year is among the Academy’s smartest and most inspired choices.  Lynch’s movies are so singular, so not-conceived for commercial consumption, that he was never likely to gain enough popular majority to actually win as Best Director. But he has garnered three nominations over the years: 1980’s The Elephant Man, 1986’s Blue Velvet, and 2001’s Mulholland Dr.  Each of these films contains stunning and memorable images, a feverish sensibility, a subversively compassionate worldview, and a mastery of storytelling... even when the story feels incomprehensible.  

Mulholland Dr truly merits the term overused word "masterpiece".  Lynch is in complete control and it’s a film that could only have sprung from his mind and heart.  While we’ve seen many versions of the American Dream story, none has ever emphasized the “dream” portion of that term in the way that this film does...

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De Laurentiis pt 5: the Schlocky 80s

This week at TFE we've celebrated the centennial of one of cinema’s most prolific and legendary producers, Dino De Laurentiis... with look backs at his Italian breakthrough, his expensive taste in 60s epics, an American reinvention, and the hubris of King Kong.

Here's Chris Feil to wrap things up...  

With the exception of Hannibal Lecter, history tends to overlook Dino De Laurentiis genre contributions. In fact when Manhunter (1986) would arrive, Hannibal was somewhat the closing chapter to what Dino would bring in the late 70s and 80s. Instead the interim brought its share of delightful schlock, namely giving David Lynch enduring battle wounds and introducing the world to Arnold Schwarzenegger. I’m talking about the earnest disasterpieces Dune and Conan the Barbarian.

Think of this as the De Laurentiis dessert of our week-long series...

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Honorary Oscars to... Davis, Lynch, Studi, and Wertmuller

by Nathaniel R

Just this weekend we loved you all anew for that robust conversation about worthy Honorary Oscar recipients. News broke yesterday that the Board of Governors has named the four 2019 recipients. Honorary Oscars will go to the actor Wes Studi (who many thought should have been nominated for Last of the Mohicans in 1992, his starmaking role), and two previously nominated directors, David Lynch (who we've been campaigning for) and Lina Wertmüller who was famously the first woman ever nominated for the directing Oscar for her total masterpiece Seven Beauties. In addition to those three artists, the actress Geena Davis will receive this year's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. That's a special subdivision of the Honorary that's not actually about the movies but your "outstanding contributions to humanitarian causes"...

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