Over & Over: 1987's "Baby Boom"

by Eric Blume

Baby Boom, directed by Charles Shyer with a script by him and his then-wife Nancy Meyers, encapsulates 1987 beautifully.  From young James Spader's Wham!-like hair to Keaton's fashions to the dated woman-in-the-workplace-can-she-have-it-all plot, it could be a time capsule film for the year and its essence.  While we're celebrating 1987, this film couldn't be a better example of exactly where we were.

And yes, Baby Boom is a mercilessly commercial enterprise, engineered with cliche characters and "adorable" cutaway shots to the child inherited by the "Tiger Lady", J.C. Wiatt, played by Diane Keaton.  I can't defend this movie as a work of fine cinema, but I've returned to it over a dozen times for the sheer joy in Keaton's peerless performance...

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New Podcast: Poms, The Hustle, and Under the Silver Lake

by Murtada Elfadl and Nathaniel R

 

Index (50 minutes)
00:01 Diane Keaton and Jacki Weaver and Pam Grier (sort of) in Poms
10:30 David Robert Mitchell directs Andrew Garfield in bizarre red-herring filled hallucinatory noir called Under the Silver Lake
24:45 Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson in The Hustle 
34:00 Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir starring Tilda Swinton's daughter
40:22 Olivier Assayas' Non-Fiction
42:30 Ralph Fiennes's Nureyev biopic The White Crow
48:18 Bye for now! 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Poms, The Hustle

The Gay Heart of "The Family Stone"

Members of Team Experience have been asked to share their favorite holiday film. Here's Spencer Coile with his...

I vividly remember the trailer for The Family Stone when it first came out in 2005. I was thirteen, a recent film and Oscar snob, and still incredibly naïve. I was swept into the two-and-a-half-minute long saga of uptight Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) visiting her boyfriend Everett’s (Dermot Mulroney) family for their first Christmas together and the family’s cliquey antics. Add on a stellar cast and the Maxine Nightingale classic, “Right Back Where We Started From,” and I was hooked. I couldn’t possibly wait until December to see it. 

And I didn’t. I waited even longer, months after it was released...

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81 days til Oscar

by Nathaniel R

Diane & Warren / Don & Meryl at the 1981 Oscars

You know what I feel is tragic about online Oscar history, dear readers? It's the lack of abundance of Oscar night photos before, say, 2000. Oh sure you can usually find photos of the winners holding their Oscars but try finding complete gowns of all the Best Actress nominees if you (hypothetically) wanna fantasize about ordering custom doll sets of every vintage. You're out of luck for any year prior to the explosion of 24/7 media coverage and constant Oscar coverage. Take the 1981 Oscars for example...

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Months of Meryl: Marvin's Room (1996)

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep. 

 

#24 —Lee, a frazzled single mom and aspiring hairdresser who reunites with her ailing sister.

JOHN: Marvin’s Room begins with a slow outward zoom of assorted pill bottles and other medical paraphernalia scored to whimsically upbeat music that immediately establishes the film’s split personality between dysfunctional family comedy and sentimental illness drama. We soon learn that the titular Marvin is the bedridden and near-death father of Bessie (Diane Keaton) and brother of Ruth (Gwen Verdon), three members of a looney Floridian family. No sooner than Marvin’s illness and medical routine is introduced, Bessie is herself diagnosed with leukemia by Dr. Robert De Niro (who also produced the film). He recommends that Bessie's family members be tested for a possible bone marrow transplant. This diagnosis is the film’s engine, reuniting her with her sister Lee (Meryl Streep) and nephews Hank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Charlie (Hal Scardino), bridging a twenty year gap between this estranged family...

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