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.)
Chris here. Have you been wondering where Noomi Rapace has been hiding? Well, she's been busy getting cloned for her upcoming Netflix film Seven Sisters. (Just kidding, obviously, but just imagine the gifts we could receive if we started cloning actress!)
Rapace stars as septuplets in a world where siblings are outlawed. Raised by father figure Willem Dafoe, each woman is named for the day of the week that they get to go out into the real world, all assuming the identity of one Karen Settman. As if this doesn't sound looney tunes enough, Glenn Close shows up as the bureaucratic villain for maximum camp nefariousness. When Monday doesn't return home, it's up to the rest of the week sisters to find out what happened to her. And you thought your Mondays were the worst!
Seven Sisters will arrive on stateside Netflix sometime at the end of the year (though it opens elsewhere this summer), and I'm already a little giddy for its sci-fi silliness and what looks like Rapace having a good time. In your sci-fi dystopia, what one day of the week would you choose to leave the house?
It's impossible to keep up these days. So herewith a bunch of news we haven't covered and other enjoyable places to go on the web today...
News Baz Lurhmann has written a letter to fans about the cancellation of The Get Down, his Netflix series. My favorite bit because I like having him on the big screen in 2 hour doses:
All sorts of things have been thrown around for the future... even a stage show (can you imagine that? I can, concert version anyone? Next summer? Just saying.) But the simple truth is, I make movies. And the thing with movies is, that when you direct them, there can be nothing else in your life. Since The Get Down stopped, I have actually been spending the last few months preparing my new cinematic work...
Variety IFC is on a buying spree at Cannes, including Lars Von Trier's latest, a serial killer drama named The House That Jack Built starring Matt Dillon and Uma Thurman BBC Star Wars' John Boyega hits the London stage in Woyzeck. Reviews are a bit mixed but everyone seems to love that he challenged himself to such an extent post stardom Cartoon Brew Pixar has a new experimental shorts division without executive oversight. This sounds like a great idea for the company, fostering new creative visions without much investment or interference Kenneth in the (212) Jeffrey Schwarz, who specializes in documentaries about gay or gay-interest historical figures (I Am Divine, Vito, etcetera) has a new documentary on Producer Allan Car (Grease 2, Can't Stop the Music) Broadway World Glenn Close stops a performance of Sunset Blvd to address a rude audience member:
We can have a show or we can have a photo shoot
Variety Kirsten Dunst gets emotional at The Beguiled premiere Variety Gina Prince-Blythewood (Beyond the Lights) tapped to direct Spider-Man spinoff Silver and Black about the characters Silver Sable and Black Cat. Angry Asian Man there's a Joy Luck Club tv series in the work and they're looking for Chinese American women
Good Reads Vanity Fair on that new unforgivably hideous Spider-Man Homecoming poster Jezebel on the terrible Dirty Dancing TV remake. (I have to ask though, why do people keep watching TV remakes of movies. They're all just t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e... remember that trainwreck that was Beaches recently?)
For Fun Gay Comic Geek [nsfw site] Wonder Woman cosplay... by men The New Yorker Joe Dator draws a comic about his fortieth anniversary with Star Wars. Cute.
Exit Video Dynasty is getting a reboot.
I object that Krystle isn't a blonde and doesn't look that much different than Fallon (why does the CW have such trouble varying haircolors/styles and overall looks in their casts in all their shows?) but otherwise some of the changes are fun. The most potentially interesting touch being that trashy golddigger Sammy Joe (the Heather Locklear role) is a gay man this time but still after the same mark, Steven Carrington (the family's gay son). But, is this really the right era to idolize the super wealthy? Not sure it will sit as well in 2017 as it did in the 80s when people were more naive about the 1%'s havoc-wreaking on the economy of everyone else.
In ContentionLion is using T****'s unconstitutional travel ban its advertisements Boy Culture 70s star and Battlestar Galactica hunk Richard Hatch has died Awards Daily Jazz talks to Joel Harlow about the Oscar nominated Hair and Makeup of Star Trek: Beyond Towleroad a close-up of Glenn Close returning to Sunset Boulevard
Cottages & Gardens the Grey Gardens estate is up for sale Variety Stanley Tucci has directed a movie about Alberto Giacometti starring Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer Tracking Board the Coen brothers are polishing the remake script for Scarface (which was made twice already in the 30s and 80s) Towleroad Finland is the first country to release their own national emojis and one of them is for the gay artist Tom of Finland MNPP "Smile like Trevante Rhodes" New Yorker Oscar Spotlight: The Actresses World of Reel a synopsis of Nicolas Winding Refn's new Amazon series AV Club "Johnny Depp close to completing his transformation into mole person" Interview Jay Baruchel talks Man Seeking Woman and his first time as director on the sequel to Goon Comics Alliance weirdest Aquaman moments in comics
MNPP How hot is Matthias Schoenaerts? So hot he's steaming. 빛나는 special Korean posters for Moonlight - Chiron drawn at all ages Theater Mania Meryl Streep to present Stephen Sondheim with the PEN Award in April in NYC /FilmMary Poppins Returns has officially startedc production with Ben Whishaw, Emily Mortimer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Julie Walters, Colin Firth, Dick Van Dyke, Emily Blunt as "Mary Poppins" and Meryl Streep as Mary's eccentric cousin "Topsy"
We've reached the penultimate episode of our Tarzan series. Now sailing into Disney wilds...
by Nathaniel R
For over half a century in film and television storytellers didn't think Tarzan needed an origin plot but when the movies told it (Greystoke, 1984), it was as if everyone had always wanted to. Why not Disney then? Disney hadn't quite run out of classic fairytales to adapt by the mid-nineties but they were shifting their focus to boys. This was arguably due to their gargantuan back-to-back biggest-ever successes of Aladdin (1992) and The Lion King (1994), two animated features that deviated from their princess focus. Enter Hercules and then Tarzan. Neither were girly fairytales but both were still firmly embedded in fantasy and heightened enough for musical numbers.
Sort of.
By the time Tarzan rolled into town, Disney executives had clearly begun to wonder if audiences were done with the musical part of their Animated Musicals because Tarzan is only a musical in the sense that non-diegetic adult contemp ear worms keep popping up. They arrive without warning, with all the subtlety of a slasher movie jump scare.
Glenn Close is not going to be ignored. Anymore. Six years after Albert Nobbs she has signed on for a new part. It’s not a supporting authority figure (Guardians of the Galaxy) or an uncredited cameo (Warcraft) -she’s playing the title character! The film is The Wife in which Close will play Joan, a woman who gave up her own literary ambitions to support her successful novelist husband. On the eve of him receiving the Nobel Prize for literature she has a crisis of faith in him and in their marriage and starts re-examining her choices.
The film was first announced last February but it seems that whatever kinks they had then, have been smoothed out and shooting stars in a couple of weeks. The film is helmed by Swedish director Björn Runge and adapted by Jane Anderson (Olive Kitteridge) from Meg Wolitzer’s novel. Frances McDormand, Logan Lerman and Brit Marling who were previously attached, have dropped out. Now the supporting cast includes Jonathan Pryce (as the husband), Christian Slater, Elizabeth McGovern, Max Irons (Glenn’s Reversal of Fortune co-star Jeremy’s son), Harry Lloyd (Stephen Hawking’s friend in The Theory of Everything) and Glenn's daughter Annie Starke.
Sounds like a juicy part for Glenn. Hope she goes all Marquise de Merteuil on Pryce, that would be a fun battle of wiles to watch. Are you excited to see Glenn leading a movie again?