Gone With The Wind... Blown To Wednesday Night!

For all your procrastinators, a gift. I'm having an issue with my copy of Gone With the Wind which will postpone my own choice for "Best Shot" until tomorrow. So we'll move the Best Shot party until tomorrow night giving you an extra 24 hours to get on that if you wanted to but were having trouble cramming it in.

If you're shaking your fist into the sunset eager to read about iconic shots from Gone With the Wind (1939) do not fret. Some of our favorite bloggers are already on it:

Timothy -" one of those movies that's so much bigger than anything you can measure it against that even calling it a "movie" seems inadequate..."
Lam - "one of the first English-to-Vietnamese literary translations that my mother read as a child..."
Jason -"The film has no shortage of sumptuous images of the war's destructive power..."
Kacey- "In the seventh and eighth grade, I had this social studies teacher. We’ll call her Ms. B. [she] announces to the class that we’re going to spend a week watching Gone With the Wind..."
Shane - "No matter how you feel about the film, there's no denying its visual grandeur...."

And a brand new participant who starts with this wonderfully funny promise!

Clover - "I barred myself from anything that has been or ever will be used in an Oscar montage..."

Scarlett is NOT pleased that you aren't planning on picking your own "Best Shot". Get on it, people!

Reminder: This "Best Shot" episode is a two-parter. Choose a Best Shot from somewhere between the opening credits and the "I'll never go hungry again" intermission. Next Tuesday, August 26th, we'll complete the film with our Part 2 selections.

Frankly, you should all give a damn. Join us. There's still time.

Gone With The Summer

Hattie is judging you. Stop with your fiddle-dees and choose a 'BEST SHOT' alreadyI'm like one of those horrible teachers that gives you endless homework. But I hope in the end when you graduate you'll be all 'he was the best. O Captain My Captain' and whatnot.  But here's what you should be watching for maximum participatory glee here at The Film Experience as the summer draws to a close.

Retro: To close out "Best Shot" we'll be celebrating Gone With the Wind in two parts for its 75th anniversary year on August 19th (pre-intermission) & August 26th (post-intermission) and The Matrix on September 2nd (if you've always wanted to participate, why not now?); Anne Marie will look at Long Days Journey Into Night and Guess Who's Coming To Dinner as she hits the glorious 1960s in "A Year With Kate". And we'll be celebrating a few films from 1989 leading up to the Supporting Actress Smackdown on August 31st: Julia Roberts (Steel Magnolias) vs Dianne Wiest (Parenthood) vs Brenda Flicker (My Left Foot) vs Lena Olin + Anjelica Huston in (Enemies: A Love Story). Make sure to get your votes in on those since you are the 7th panelist! 

The Now: Emmy countdown madness. More on Boyhood. Reviews of The Giver, Frank, and The Congress. And coverage of two must-see indies Love is Strange with John Lithgow and Alfred Molina and The One I Love with Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss. 

Elisabeth Moss in "The One I Love"

And then we hit The Toronto International Film Festival to start September off right. This fall is going to be so exciting. I can feel it. More interviews. More festivals. More guest star actors. More. Whoo-hoo! 

Film on Film: 5 Classics That Deserve a Film of Their Own

[Editor's Note: Here's abstew with 5 Hollywood on Hollywood pitches. Co-sign!]

It's no secret that one of Film's favorite subject matters is, well, itself. The past two Best Picture winners (The Artist and Argo) have had Hollywood and the art of film-making at their core. And this weekend another film-on-film, Saving Mr. Banks, about Walt Disney's decades long struggle to bring Mary Poppins to the big screen expands across the country in its quest to join those previous films in Oscar glory. The story seems ready-made for the movies - beloved source material, larger-than-life characters/personalities, and, just because it can, a hard-knock-life childhood back-story thrown into the mix. (If the old Hollywood angle doesn't win them over why not add the Academy's other irresistible allure: the biopic. It's two films for the price of one!)

I'm sure many people were unaware what went into trying to convince author P.L.Travers to sign over the rights to Disney and I'm sure even fewer people knew about Travers' back-story. But so many classic films have equally fascinating behind-the-scenes stories that would make just as compelling films. In honor of Saving Mr. Banks, here are 5 other classic films that deserve their own film treatment. So, quiet on the set...Action! 

The Wizard of Oz 

Click to read more ...

Interview / Giveaway: "Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait"

TFE's Vivien Leigh Centennial Celebration (November 2-6) 
Here's David with an interview and book giveaway 

Vivien Leigh was only nominated for two Oscars, but she won both of them. More impressively, both of her winning performances are still frequently said to be among the finest of all-time. If she’d done nothing else in her career, that would be a legacy to be proud of. It’s even more extraordinary when you consider the personal struggles that the actress went through: constantly striving to feel worthy of acting alongside the love of her life, Sir Laurence Olivier, and an undiagnosed and mistreated bipolar disorder that increasingly overtook her. In Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait, Leigh scholar Kendra Bean digs into the actress’ dramatic life story, using a myriad of photographs both legendary and rare to imbue Vivien’s life with the vulnerability of her delicate beauty.

book contest and interview after the jump

Click to read more ...

Team Experience: "Maleficent" and More

I'm always curious about your film experiences out there in the dark. That curiousity extends to the contributors here at TFE, not all of whom I know in real life given that they're spread across the globe. You know them, virtually speaking. Hopefully you love them. But I thought we'd ask them a couple of questions each week. Feel free to answer yourself in the comments and join the conversation.

WHAT'S THE BEST THING YOU SAW THIS WEEK?

JA: A tie between every single second of Emmanuel Lubeszki's photography for The Tree of Life (it's a gorgeous film that left me cold), and that probably photoshopped image of Jake Gyllenhaal doing the Grace Jones pose in his underpants. I see beautiful things!

Andreas: John Carpenter's The Thing -- after several viewings, it retains all of its original power.

Robert: Ramin Bahrani's short film Plastic Bag. I stumbled upon it while attempting to keep my Herzog high going after being enthralled by Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Bahrani's film follows and anthropomorphized plastic bag (shades of American Beauty are minimal) and finds itself spiraling into themes of life, death, and meaning and best of all, it's narrated by Werner Herzog himself... as the plastic bag of course!

Michael (Unsung Heroes). The best thing I saw this week was, without question, the montage of drunk cast members from the latest episode of Parks and Recreation. I want an episode length edit of all the improv that went into that scene.

Jose: Since theaters here are only playing four movies (Rio, Fast and Furious 5, Thor and Priest) I re-watched Gone With the Wind in HD. Mind blowing!  Sure gives any new movie a run for its money. It also felt much shorter than Thor.

WHAT'S THE WORST?

Michael : the worst thing I saw, or rather didn't see, was screen time for Rene Russo in Thor. It's been forever since Russo had a high-profile gig and she gets 30 measly seconds of screen time? You can't tease me like that Thor.

Andreas: The first 10 minutes of I Know Who Killed Me. (Nonetheless, I may revisit it later; I'm a glutton for punishment.)

JA: The worst thing I saw was the original ending to Alexander Payne's Election. Truly, stupefyingly awful.

TIM BURTON HAS OFFICIALLY LEFT DISNEY'S "MALEFICENT".

Robert: The marriage between Tim Burton and Disney makes me so sad. They're like two people who were really sexy back in high school, still trying to fit into their cheerleading and football uniforms, telling each other how great they still look, and wondering how that dorky kid Quentin got so popular (this metaphor has gotten away from me). But I still want to like them very much. So I guess what I'm saying is I wish they'd split and find new partners who could convince them to hit the gym... cinematically speaking.

JA: Never much loved Sleeping Beauty as a kid - I was all up in Alice in Wonderland and Fantasia - so I was never attached, beyond really liking the way the word "Maleficent" rolls off the tongue. Maaaalefahcint! I don't understand why people didn't take it up as a name for their children. Little Maleficent would rule pre-school with an iron fist.

Jose:  Maleficent would serve itself better from a director with an eye for actual Gothic, I say call Jane Campion or Catherine Breillat!

YOUR TURN...

• Who do you think should direct MALEFICENT with Burton gone? 
• What's the best & worst anything you saw this week? I've been enjoying True Blood and Ishtar (more on the later in a bit.)