Happy Birthday, Laura Dern!

by Cláudio Alves

Laura Dern has been blessing us with her existence for 55 years. The Oscar-winning actress started young, being the daughter of two screen titans in their own right – Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd. Indeed, one of her earliest big-screen roles was by her mother's side in Martin Scorsese's 1974 Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Since then, Dern has flourished into one of American cinema's most important modern performers. Often driven to auteurs with bold visions, she's a director's actress whose commitment to her roles is never in question. She's never in danger of dispassionate acting, giving it her all 100% of the time and often twisting her visage into terrifying extremes. She really is 'The Face.'

To celebrate the occasion, a list of favorite Laura Dern film performances…

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Team Top Ten: Steven Spielberg for his 75th Birthday

by... our team here at TFE!

West Side Story, now in theaters. is Steven Spielberg's 32nd motion picture. Though he directed one self-financed "feature" at 17 (shown at one movie theater), Duel (1971) a made for television movie was his first Hollywood gig. His movie career proper began with the spring release of The Sugarland Express in 1974. By the end of the following summer, due to Jaws, he was globally famous and a bankable A list director, lists he'd never fall off of. To celebrate Spielberg's 75th birthday (today, December 18th) we recently polled the team about the work of America's most beloved auteur: his best, worst, and most underappreciated.

It was fascinating to be reminded how widely viewed Spielberg's filmography is. Of his 31 pictures prior to West Side Story, not a single one of them went unmentioned in the answers to our three-part poll which 23 members of our team participated in. That said the least often cited for any reason (so probably the least seen?) were Sugarland Express and 1941. Of Spielberg's blockbusters Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom  and War of the Worlds were the two that had the weakest turn out under any section of the polling.

In the end we opted not to focus on the Worst as that isn't celebratory and, what's more, there was not a clear consensus but if you're curious Ready Player One, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Terminal, The BFG, and Lost World Jurassic Park all sprung up regularly. Hey you can't win them all but Spielberg has won more than most. Ready for the Best of List? Enjoy...

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Thankful for... Ben Miller!

This year for our "thankful for" column we're doing things differently. I'm interviewing the team so you can get to know them better. First up, BEN MILLER.

Ben joined Team Experience in the summer of 2017. He lives in Texas with his wife and kids. Like most of us here at TFE he's into Oscars and the related niche trivia fascinations that come with that. In the few years he's been at TFE he's revealed impeccable taste in actresses, caught up with classics he'd missed like Cabaret and reviewed a lot of TV including the final season of Game of Thrones. And though he called his own piece on connecting with his son through WALL•E "corny,"  I personally love his family man perspective. Sometimes sentiment is earned! 

OUR THANKSGIVING QUESTIONNAIRE FOLLOWS...

Okay, Ben, when did you first fall in love with the movies?

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Locarno Diary #3: Phil Tippett, the "Mad God" of special effects

by Elisa Giudici

Being a prestigious European movie festival but not one of the crowded and powerful ones, Locarno is the perfect size to showcase the work of  artisans. Every year there are one or two guests who are legends in peculiar, unseen, less discussed niches of the movie industry. I am confident that meeting Phil Tippett, a legendary special effects creator, animator and supervisor, will be one of the most vivid memories of this edition of the festival.

Before Locarno and the opportunity to meet Tippett, I knew close to nothing about his career other than that he was a collaborator and close friend of Paul Verhoeven's. So much so, he said, that on the set of RoboCop they asked each other, with dry humour, who they were forced to be nice to...

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The Emperor's New Link(s)

Heads up! At Movie City News the first "Gurus of Gold" charts are up with yours truly along with several other pundits - apparently I'm the only one nervous about Riz Ahmed's Oscar prospects and the one who is most certain about One Night in Miami's prospects. Extremely grossed out that Aaron Sorkin makes the top five in Best Director. Yes, he's a talented writer but come on now... that's a different skill set.

• Vulture an oral history of the making of The Emperor's New Groove
• Variety 'Actors on Actors' gets Steven Yeun and Riz Ahmed talking
• Digital Spy on WandaVision's use of tv tropes to give away its secrets 

Amazing cast for HBO miniseries, new Kelly Reichardt, and terrifying Pee Wee after the jump...

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