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.)
Since it's Meryl Streep's 68th birthday today, let's gawk at some behind the scenes photos. It's a good way to pay tribute since the Grand Dame of American Cinema has been working pretty much non-stop (except during the 90s when she spent a lot of time with her little children) since the world first fell for her.
Lots more after the jump including Death Becomes Her, Plenty, It's Complicated, Out of Africa, and more...
By now you’ve probably already heard the news. There’s a sequel to Mama Mia! (2008) coming our way in July of next year. The release date will be exactly 10 years after the first one. Yes we are that old! It will be unimaginatively titled Mama Mia: Here We Go Again, taken right from the chorus of the song. They must’ve spent all of 2 seconds coming up with that. The original wasn’t exactly a good movie, but it was a fun summer time at the movies buoyed along by everyone’s familiarity with the ABBA song catalog. More of that is definately not an unappealing prospect.
The studio announced that all cast members are expected to return. However so far only Amanda Seyfried is confirmed. If Meryl Streep does indeed sign on, 2018 will mark her first foray into sequels. And of course she’s going big with not one but two of them. She will also appear in a supporting part in that other musical sequel; Mary Poppins Returns, albeit her character there is a new one. Frankly this is not the character we would’ve liked to see her reprise. We are still waiting for The Further Adventures of Miranda Priestly.
Which ABBA song not in the original would you like to see in the sequel? Our vote goes to Waterloo for reasons totally unrelated to Greek island shenanigans or even the famous 1815 battle. But rather to something that happened in Waterloo, Iowa!
Bonjour!Robert Balkovich here. As the 70th Cannes film festival kicks off let's take a stroll down memory lane and revisit some of the most bold, daring, and 100% correct Best Actress awards the festival has given out.
When you look at the list of names all together it's hard to argue that it isn't one of the best collection of actors ever grouped. The festival's penchant for awarding the best-of-the-best, started early...
Two women talking: a recipe for witchcraft, an unnatural feedback loop, a cursed redundancy. Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 masterpiece Persona is a landmark for many reasons, but its legacy, which has show no signs of age in the 50 years since it was released in the U.S. and the U.K., is how it stared that anxiety in the face and opened up a loopy, meandering conversation that’s still going on to this day...
More Linkage Keyframe 'The Year of Nicole Kidman' don't force her to prove herself all over again Variety Cannes lineup is "high on "awards intrigue, low on safe awards bets" /Film Aquaman is overflowing with villains, 3 already for a first solo film? (not a good sign) and a fourth may have been added Coming Soon Antonio Banderas will headline Lamborghini -The Legend (working title) a biopic about the Italian entrepeneur of automobile fame. Alec Baldwin will play his rival Enzo Ferrari
Boy Culture "STREEPSHOW" a drag comedy about "characters one played by Meryl Streep" living together in the East Village will be playing NYC in June. Sounds hilarious but I have to admit that it took me quite some time to figure out the characters in the photo (and there seem to be two Miranda Priestleys?) which is maybe not a good sign. Shouldn't they be instantly recognizable? Guardian Mixed messages from Cannes as TV premieres from auteurs are happening but they've also banned Netflix from future competition unless they stop skipping theatrical releases Variety Gay gasp! The BBC is producing a series of 15 minute monologues called Queers which is set to star Ben Whishaw, Alan Cumming, and Russell Tovey and others Awards DailyGypsy teaser, a new series starring Naomi Watts Variety Hugh Bonneville will play Roald Dahl in a biopic set in the early to mid 1960s. This means they're going to have to cast someone to play both Dahl's wife Patricia Neal and her most famous co-star Paul Newman (see Hud) and both of those roles will be a Herculean casting task! The Guardian there's a documentary playing Cannes about Cary Grant's experimentation with LSD from 1958 through 196 Tracking Board Kenneth Branagh to direct himself in a movie about the father of Anne Frank The Keeper of the Diary
Not Remakes Though You Might Mistake Them For Such /Film Martin Scorsese starts filming mob drama The Irishman this summer with Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci Gothamist Leonardo DiCaprio will star in The Black Hand about an undercover mob cop... (Ummm, haven't all these people already made these movies? Why not mix it up with a romantic comedy or a sci-fi picture?)
Exit Video Look it's the first clip from Todd Haynes's Wonderstruck. It may be impossible to follow Carol but we're glad that he got back on the horse so quickly after that long time away from us. How does this clip strike you?
Jason from MNPP here for another round of "Beauty vs Beast" - today is the 86th anniversary of the grand opening of the Empire State Building, aka the most famous building in the world. And so in its honor we're finally tackling the movie that not only birthed its legend but also gave this series its name...
"It was beauty killed the beast."
The Empire State Building was opened on May 1st 1931. President Hoover pushed a button in the White House in DC and the lights to the tower in NYC flicked on for the first time. Just under two years later the movie King Kong would be released (director Merian Cooper supposedly came up with the idea of the plane battle at its top), immediately branding the iconic skyscraper and its most famous big monkey occupant - and his little blonde friend (Fay Wray) - onto every human brain, and forever thereafter.
PREVIOUSLY Last week's contest faced down the mother-daughter duo of Postcards From the Edge and once again proved you should never bet against Meryl Streep - she stomped right over birthday gal Shirley MacLaine with 61% of your vote. Although forever1267 really summed up my own thoughts on the question:
Thursday, June 22, 2017 at 5:00PM 
on Kramer vs Kramer with Dustin Hoffman
