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.)
As per usual the BAFTAs aren't broadcasting live but tape delayed but we'll be watching the arrivals and sharing the winners as we hear about them after the jump...
Right now we're watching clips from the nominee party yesterday and we learned that Melissa McCarthy is a huge fan of The Favourite, saying:
The Favourite broke my brain in the best possible way.
Time for another round of our Instagram-blessed silly celebrity gawking game. For some reason it's a mostly manly lineup this morning. We'll get back to the actresses soon enough. They are never far from our hearts and minds and eyeballs.
Would you rather ... do morning beauty treatments with Laura Linney and Tony-nominee Ashley Park? ...accompany Tom Holland and pup to the vet? ...gamble it away with Bianca del Rio? ... reminisce about Elektra with Jason Isaacs? ... visit Thailand with Dan Stevens? ...seek career advice from Karl Urban? ...feel the hope with Patrick Stewart? ...convalesce with Nico Tortorella? (poor baby!) ... chill with Orlando Bloom and lots of teddy bears? ... or read with Nicole Kidman and Liane Moriarty?
Today is my birthday! Wish me well. Or better yet, donate to the site (see right hand sidebar) to keep it healthy. That's my only birthday request since I have a roof over my head and food in the fridge and friends to have weekend activities with and really that's the important stuff in the grand scheme of things so I'm hashtag blessed... without the icky religious connotations! My only church is the cinema.
Anyway, here's what was happening in showbiz history on June 6th throughout the years!
1933 The first ever drive-in movie theater (location: Camden, New Jersey) opened starting a popular but now essentially lost tradition.
1944 D-Day a World War II and inspiration for many filmmakers since.
1950 Director Chantal Akerman born in Belgium
1954 Multiple Tony winner and queer icon Harvey Fierstein is born in Brooklyn. I love that one of my heroes shares my special day. Credits include Torch Song Trilogy, La Cage Aux Folles, Hairspray, and more...
They say it's your birthday.♬ ♩♬♩♬ it's my birthday, too.
Herewith, in semi off the cuff order, the greatest peoplethings born on this day in history. Happy June 6th!
Honorable mention... Jason Isaacs -The impossibly hot 49 year old actor studied to be a lawyer but if he had stuck with it we would have never had his Captain Hook, or his Lucius Malfoy, or his bickering married screenwriter in Friends With Money, or even known who he is. Tragedy averted.
VC Andrews - not for writing the ridiculous "Flowers in the Attic" but for inspiring the ridiculous genius of Parker Posey's Waiting for Guffman scene in which the brilliant comic actress uses it for her small town theater audition.
"and who's on top and who's on bottom now? Huh?!"
TOP TEN JUNE 6TH BIRTHDAY PEOPLETHINGS!
10 Levi Stubbs From the Four Topps to Audrey II. I ♥ Little Shop of Horrors, don't you.
09 Chantal Akerman I feel such guilt that I still haven't seen Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
08 Billie Whitelaw She hasn't appeared in a movie since Hot Fuzz but the BAFTA winning actress and Samuel Beckett muse has been giving it on stage and screen since the 1950s in everything from Quills, to Hitchcock's Frenzy to Charlie Bubbles and was even the voice of crazy ass eyeball dropping muppet astronomer Aughra in The Dark Crystal.
Fun trivia: Billie Whitelaw played the evil nanny of that little toddler Anti-Christ in The Omen, whose birthday was also June 6th. Not So Fun Triva: When I was little I snuck into the living room to watch The Omen on TV by myself. I was so scared I could barely sleep for the next two nights and since I was also a June 6th baby, I had to search my scalp for the mark of the devil afterwards!
07 TETRIS! The video game turns 28 years old today. Nine time out of ten its geometric puzzle descendants are the cel phone apps that I accidentally become obsessed with. I would have placed it much higher but for all the months of my life it has consumed... and for what?
I'll never have those months back! Curse you Tetris.
06 Aaron Sorkin For A Few Good Men, The American President, Moneyball and especially The Social Network. If he cared a little more about writing great female characters to go with his tremendously interesting male characters he'd be just about the perfect screenwriter.
05 Aleksandr Pushkin For being such a crucial figure in Russian and, hell, world literature. The Russian noble and poet's legacy can't be denied. He even inspired one of the great Oscar Best Picture winners Amadeus (1984) with his short work "Mozart and Salieri"
04 Harvey Feirstein The inimitable croaksqueak voice, the great wit, the wonderful plays and movies, the multiple Tony Awards, the homo bravery. Such a trailblazer, such a great performer and man. Edna Turnblad (#2) forever! See: Torch Song Trilogy, La Cage Aux Folles, The Sissy Duckling, and more.
03 Sandra Bernhard For her Oscar nomination worthy brilliance in King of Comedy (1983). For one of the best and bravest concert films of all time Without You I'm Nothing (1990). And for just being her own inimitable self. The best stars are always irreplaceably singular.
And though the Sandra/Madonna days are long gone *sniffle* I just have to share my single favorite talk show appearance of all time... I watch it at least once every couple years. It is serving up 1988 authenticity. It is time machine realness.
02 The drive in movie theater! For reals. On June 6th, 1933 the first one opened for business. Thank you New Jersey. I have rarely been to the drive-in in my life but I love the concept and I love drive-in scenes in movies even more than the concept.
The first movie I ever saw at a drive-in was this (incidentally the only time I ever remember my mom and dad taking me to the drive in *sniffle*) and the best time I ever had at a drive-in was this (college was so fun. sigh) and the last one I ever saw was this. Point being: it's hard to forget going to the drive-in.
me, plotting eternal youthful middle age01 Me I'm turning 40 (ugh). Again! I'm so happy that people can legally discriminate against me in the job market now. Wheeee. If you'd like to soften the blow, take the subscription rush challenge and I'll see you again on June 30th.
Since Wisconsin's citizenry tried to ruin my birthday last night I'm turning to actresses for solace, as I am wont to do: An Evening with Jane Fonda tonight and Jane Krakowksi live this weekend. Yes.