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.)
• The Guardian Isabelle Huppert has really outdone herself with her answers in this new Q&A • Variety Roseanne cancelled at ABC after Roseanne couldn't help herself and went on yet another round of racist remarks. Still, that's quite a move by ABC given the success and profitability of the show (and their past indifference to her statements). Corporations aren't really known for not letting money do the loudest talking. • Variety interesting buiness related follow up: In the very recent upfronts ABC had basically built its whole Tuesday schedule around Roseanne as ratings savior. What will they do now? • Slate an oral history of The Muppets • Coming Soon Uma Thurman to star in Netflix's supernatural drama series Chambers. Let's hope she has better luck than Naomi Watts did with Gypsy. • Pajiba Let's talk about Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag, Solo)
Much more after the jump including Jake Shears new song, George Takei exonerated, Interview magazine, Mean Girls album, a Spawn reboot, and what to do when stars disappoint us...
This is always so much fun. Why do I go so long inbetween "episodes"? You asked a bunch of questions so here are a bunch more answers. Continue the conversation with your own answers to these questions why don't you? We thrive on community here not just blabbering at you.
So let's get right to the Reader Qs, shall we?
RYAN T: Just got back from vacation where I visited Italy for the first time. Alas no epic romance Call Me By Your Name style... but it did make me wonder: what are some of your favorite Italian films?
NATHANIEL: I have never been to Italy. AND I have never had an epic vacation romance. I FEEL CHEATED! I could definitely use some boning up on Italian cinema and am happy to take suggestions from all of you.
I'm afraid my answers in this regard are very "basic cinephile" but here are the 8½ I'd probably list as my favorites...
It might be surprising to know that François Ozon likes to learn what children think of his films. He says their responses are clever and innocent, especially if they believe the world on the screen. Though he realizes that he can’t always get their feedback since his movies often deal with adult themes, like the psychosexual thrillers Swimimg Pool (2003), Young and Beautiful (2013) and his latest Double Lover.
Ozon’s films cannot be easily categorized, he has also directed the campy musical 8 Women (2002) and the haunting WW1 romance Frantz (2016). He says...
• Criterion Close Isabelle Huppert makes her picks! • i09 Netflix odd email phishing scam promotion of The Punisher (I received this too and was like hmmmm... clever but gross and no thank you) • Gr8ter Days Ann Wedgeworth, a favorite of the National Society of Film Critics prizes in the late 70s and early 80s (Handle with Care, Sweet Dreams) and a Tony winner for a Chapter Two (which later became a film albeit without Wedgeworth) and a TV regular has died • Boy Culture It only took 50+ years but the Star Trek franchise just got its first gay kiss via Star Trek: Discovery thanks and out actors Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz • Playbill Broadway hit Come From Away, which is about passengers stranded in a small Newfoundland town during 9/11, is going to get a film version with the Broadway director and writers transferring over • Tracking Board Mahershala Ali and Carmen Ejogo (YAS! She's so undervalued) will headline the third season of True Detective for HBO
Our Ongoing Collective Trauma • HuffPost a fine piece by Matt Jacobs on loving Hollywood and the pop-culture machine but realizing how rotten its been since its inception when it comes to abuses of power and the treatment of women • Deadline Marti Nixon on the recent allegations against Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner • Variety Matthew Weiner denies the allegations but admits to being angry on set a lot of the time and wishes he had behaved differently • AV Club Lena Dunham defends a Girls writer accused of assault • Nylon a personal essay from Evan Rachel Wood about what the psychotic hurricane of these past two years and what she's learned about herself and others during this awful decline in time. • Film School Rejects on the way film sites have been reacting (or not) to the growing list of accusations
Two Videos On Hela's hello cool antler headpiece in Thor Ragnarok and the short teaser for Incredibles 2 (basically Jack Jack giggling and causing havoc with his laser beam eyes)
Off Screen for Fun • New Yorker Disney princes reimagined as allies
Prince Eric is extremely committed to female equality in his kingdom. He has so much to tell Ariel about the plight and oppression of women that he fails to notice that she doesn’t have a voice.
Isabelle Huppert walks out and stands in front of her classroom in Serge Bozon's Mrs. Hyde and she seems to disappear into the wall - the chalk on the chalkboard has more color than she does. She's paste in sensible shoes. We first meet her being harangued publicly by her students, and in a slow painful succession of scenes she's humiliated by everyone she comes into contact with. This is no Huppert Dragon Lady, then.
And then, voila, she's struck by lightning. And given what we drag into the movie theater with us, given this film's title, we think to ourselves, "Cue the dragon!"
So the most interesting thing about Mrs. Hyde is simultaneously its most frustrating thing - it's as if Bozon took it as a challenge to deny us what we came to this movie for.