Would you rather?

Would you rather...

• Enjoy an ice cream cone with Debi Mazar?
• Return to the Met with Helen Hunt?
• Quarantine with Cheyenne Jackson?
• Learn to drive a truck with Juliette Binoche?
• Make an Italian dinner with Sir Anthony Hopkins?
• Go horseback riding with Colman Domingo?
• Do an Escape Room with Gina Gershon and Jamie Lee Curtis?
• Scuba dive with Brie Larson?
• "Audition" for Cruella 2 with Alec Utgoff?
• Welcome in the summer with January Jones?

Pictures are after the jump to help you decide!

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Gay Best Friend: Simon (Greg Kinnear) in "As Good As It Gets" (1997)

a series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope   

Turns out, gay best friends can get Oscar nominated too. They just have to get beat up first.

Happy Oscar Hangover Week! Now is a time to rejoice in the winners we love and lick our wounds from the snubs along the way. In honor of the Oscars, we thought we would look back at a nominated example of the “Gay Best Friend.” We don’t often see Gay Best Friends get Oscar nominations or wins. Since this caricature is used more as window dressing and less like a fully developed character, there often isn’t enough meat for an actor to get awards traction. Even if they are a scene stealer, they often will fall short. That is… unless trauma is involved.

Case and point: the 1997 Best Supporting Actor race. Our first entry in the column was about the formative work of Rupert Everett in the hit rom-com My Best Friend’s Wedding. His George still stands as one of the best examples of the “gay best friend,” as he elevated the trope and crafted a fan favorite character. Some pushed for him to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but there was only room for one gay character in the category. Instead, Greg Kinnear showed up in the Oscar lineup for his mincing performance as Simon in As Good As It Gets, a gay artist defined by his trauma. Dear Oscar, is that really as good as it gets for this category?

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Would you rather?

We haven't done one of these in a month or two. So let's gaze at pretty Celebrity instagram pics.

Would you rather
...meditate with Chris Hemsworth?
...take a hike with Helen Hunt and pup?
...go horseback riding with Hilary Swank?
...relax in Mexico with Tessa Thompson?
...get a face mask with Alan Cumming?
...attend storytime with Sandy Powell and Glenda Jackson?
...hit the waterfall with Luke Evans? 
...admire Stacey Abrams with Kerry Washington?
...get fit with Viola Davis?
... or revive Cruella DeVil with Glenn Close?
...do a press day with Nicole Kidman?

Pictures are after the jump to help you decide. 

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Over & Overs: Twister (1996)

In Over & Overs we ask Team Experience to share movies that they've seen countless times and tell us why.

by Tony Ruggio

As a kid growing up in Texas, with family in Oklahoma and Nebraska, I had a morbid fascination with tornadoes and the would-be thrill of storm chasing. My fascination was outweighed only by the sheer fear of death. The possibility of finding yourself at the mercy of mother nature was all too real in Tornado Alley, at least for a nine year-old. In the summer of 1996 in air-conditioned theaters an entire country (and myself) learned about the Fujita scale, from itty-bitty F1 tornadoes to mile-wide F5 monsters. Twister was a multiplex phenomenon and the first disaster film in decades to strike hot at the box office. With mixed reviews and Independence Day casting a big shadow, it was then somewhat forgotten...until cable came to the rescue. 

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'97 til Oscar

It's 97 days til Oscar so we thought it might be fun to discuss Best Actress 1997. When I asked on twitter and here at the site what everyone's first Oscar ceremony was, this one came up alot. Titanic-mania was in full force in March 1998, bringing the Academy Awards many new young viewers! In fact, Titanic which had opened for Christmas had never left the number one spot at the top of the box office by the time Oscar night rolled around 14 weeks later. (Titanic spent 15 weeks at #1 in total. Can you imagine? in today's movie culture you're basically a true phenomenon if you can stay on top for more than 3 weeks - only Black Panther managed it this year with 5 weeks)

Do you remember these gowns? And who would you have voted Best Actress that year?

click to embiggen

• Judi Dench, Mrs Brown
• Helen Hunt, As Good As It Gets
• Kate Winslet, Titanic
• Helena Bonham-Carter, Wings of the Dove
• Julie Christie, Afterglow

Kate Winslet wasnt winning anything (besides millions upon millions of fans), but the rest of them divvied up the Best Actress gongs. Helena and Julie were neck and neck when it came to critics awards; Bonham-Carter snagged the NBR, BSFC, and LAFCA while Christie swiped the NYFCC and NSFC. That was it for both of them because Dench and Hunt both took home Golden Globes. It was something of a nail-biter between them on Oscar night, though Hunt had the edge given her SAG win. But would they really give a TV star the Oscar (remember the TV and movie divide was so much greater in the 1990s) ???