121 sea-faring days 'til Oscar

Oscar night will be here before you know it! It's time for your daily Oscar trivia. Today's is Biblical epic style... sort of.

So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
-Genesis 1:21

Oscar's favorite sea-faring and/or sea-creature adventures are after the jump but soon we will have to add The Shape of Water (now opening December 1st -- one week earlier than as originally planned) to this list. Where do you think it will land in the following list:

OSCAR'S DOZEN FAVORITE 
SEA-FARING or SEA-CREATURE MOVIES

01 Titanic (1997) - 14 nominations | 11 wins including Best Picture

02 Life of Pi (2012) - 11 nominations including Best Picture | 4 wins

03 Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) - 8 nominations | 1 win for Best Picture (and by extension it's remake Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) 7 nominations including Best Picture...

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Happy 50th to Julia Roberts!

by Nathaniel R

The biggest female movie star of the 1990s hit the half-century mark today. Happy 50th pretty woman. Herewith my personal votes as to her ten best screen performances. Yours? How will you celebrate this milestone?

1. Erin Brockovich (2000)
2. My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)
3. Closer (2004)
4. Pretty Woman (1990)
5. The Normal Heart (2014)
6. August: Osage County (2013)
7. Notting Hill (1999)
8. Duplicity (2009)
9. The Pelican Brief (1993)
10. Mystic Pizza (1988)

More thinkin' on that '100 Best Comedies' list...

by Nathaniel R

Since I haven't been able to stop thinking about the BBC top 100 comedies list (previously discussed) the only way to exorcize it is to make my own. These are presented in rough order and extremely subject to change since I basically made the list in 30 minutes and argued with myself about whether or not certain films (not on this) were comedies or not and whether or not one should list as "funniest" or "best" which are two very different things, even with comedies...

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The Top 100 Comedies: Screwball Dames and Male Auteurs

by Seán McGovern

The limit of list culture is the absolute bias of the person compiling it (except of course the Dewey Decimal System which is without imperfection). To compile theirs, the BBC polled 253 film critics - 118 women and 135 men -  from 52 countries to determine what exactly are the "100 Greatest Comedies".

It's good to look at these lists to remind ourselves that since the majority of films are made by men, so too is the work that's considered both the funniest and the best. Right-on caveat aside, some great, female-centred comedies make the list: 2016's Toni Erdmann at 59; Mean Girls, which we can now call a modern classic, at 57; and Clueless (iconic) at a very healthy 34...

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Happy 'International Owl Awareness Day'

by Nathaniel R

Yes, International Owl Awareness Day is a real thing. For our purposes at The Film Experience owl awareness would be how those nocturnal birds are portrayed onscreen. They're hit-and-miss on celluloid and television. For example, we always needed more personality from Hedwig in the Harry Potter series, that damn mechanical owl in Clash of the Titans is an anachronistic disaster, and is it sacrilege to say that 'Owl' in Winnie and the Pooh is the least engaging Hundred Acre Wood denizen?

The following list is dedicated to the Twin Peaks owl(s) and Archimedes in The Sword and the Stone (1963) who didn't quite make it but we love them. TFE's five favorite screen owls are after the jump

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