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.)
Women get all 98% of the attention on the red carpet but we'll get to the gowns a bit later. For whatever reason, order of programming or specific films, or what not, in the first weekend of the festival the male-centric stuff is what's popping from the French film Les Miserables (not an adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel or Broadway musical) to the polarizing Brazilian film Bacurau (from the director of Aquarius - yay!) to the Elton John bio Rocketman.
Rocketman had the glitziest premiere - give or take Jim Jarmusch's opening night screening for Dead Don't Die, so today we're gazing at the men in their finery from the first few days of the festival and at the reviews for a few of the early films screened, too. It's all after the jump...
Anne Hathaway's latest star vehicle, The Hustle, a gender-flipped loose remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), debuted this weekend. We're happy to see her back when she belongs -- in a leading role on the big screen.
She's one of our greatest contemporary stars, the haters be damned. Thankfully the anti-Hathaway brigade has quieted down a bit after her savvy post-Oscar low profile. She started right at the top with the $100 million hit The Princess Diaries, a rare and delicious but precarious place to start as a teenager as there's usually only one way to go (you guessed it, down). But Hathaway proved resilient, weathering the rise to adult stardom with inarguable skill buoyed not just by remarkable beauty (those huge expressive eyes are a camera's dream) but by even more remarkable talent and versatility as an actor.
The star, now 36, has made 27 features. How many of her films have you seen? The poster are all after the jump...
Let’s all take a moment to celebrate the half-century birthday of one of our most versatile and underrated actors, Hugh Jackman.
Underrated, you question? Sure, Hugh has a Best Actor Tony for The Boy from Oz, an Emmy Award for hosting the Academy Awards, and a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Les Miserables. But if you asked folks to list ten of the best working actors, would most people remember to put him on their list?
During the 85th Academy Awards, there was a somewhat arbitrary musical tribute to three modern musicals in between Seth MacFarlane's sexist monologue and Jennifer Lawrence's fall: Chicago, Dreamgirls, and Les Misérables. Besides being the soundtrack of my college experience, I noticed that all three had one thing in common: they had all won Oscars for their Supporting Actresses.
This threw me into a rabbit hole of IMDb pages, Wikipedia charts, and showtune playlists to look into the historic relation between movie musicals, supporting actresses, and the Academy Awards. If I’d put this much effort into my thesis, I might have graduated in time...
1152 King Henry II marries Eleanor of Aquitaine. Their romance is later fictionalized in the ever popular play/movie The Lion in Winterwhich we've written about several times
1897Frank Capra is born in Italy. He'll immigrate to the US at five years old and become one of the most famous film directors of all time. Across the ocean in London a public reading of Bram Stoker's new novel "Dracula, or, The Un-dead" is staged. Frank Capra never makes a movie influenced by Dracula but everyone else does.
Meredith Wilson writing music1902 There's trouble right here in River City Mason City when Meredith Wilson is born. He'll later write The Music Man but not before accruing Oscar nominations for film scoring (The Little Foxes, The Great Dictator)
1912 The first Indian film Shree Pundalik is released in Mumbai. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of movies will follow in its wake from the ever prolific Indian film industry, better known as "Bollywood". Over in the US, Richard Brooks is born and will go on to become a famous screenwriter and director. Four must-sees from his filmography: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Elmer Gantry (1960), In Cold Blood (1967), and Looking for Mr Goodbar (1977)
1931 Robert Morse is born, becomes darling cross media actor winning 2 Tonys and 1 Emmy.
...Unfortunately Emmy, given the opportunity to reward him with a career capping statue, robs him blind decades later for his unforgettable farewell on Mad Men.
1985 Simple Minds hits #1 with Don't You Forget About Me" the theme song from teen classic The Breakfast Club. Oscar forgets about it in the Best Original Song category. Do you think it deserved to knock one of these songs out? Let's readjudicate the race in the comments.
2003 Musical sensation Les Misérables closes on Broadway after 16 years and 6,680 performances. Becomes super-divisive big-grossing Oscar-winning movie 9 years later. Is nominated for Best Original Song
Sunday, May 19, 2019 at 10:14AM 
Richard, Taron, and Elton at the premiere.
