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.)
Presented to assuage Nathaniel's guilt from not having properly reviewed them -- all five are now playing in theaters.
Moana(Clements, Hall, Musker & Williams) Story: A chieftain's daughter sails the ocean to right an ancient wrong and save her people Review: The episodic plot is ungainly and repetitive but the rest, from animal sidekick, to magical animation, to the heroine's self awakening and theme song ("How Far I'll Go") sure is dazzling. Disney's most resonant and hypnotic climax in forever and ever. "This is not who you are..." Grade: B/B+ Oscar Chances: A nomination seems certain but Zootopia will be a tough film to dismount from this year's throne. It's worth noting that composer Lin-Manuel Miranda will complete his EGOT if he wins the Oscar.
On this day in history as it relates to the movies...
1859 Billy the Kid, future legendary outlaw, is born. He's been played in movies and TV by actors like Buster Crabbe, Hugh O'Brian, Paul Newman, Clu Galager, Val Kilmer, and perhaps most famously by Kris Kristofferson, BAFTA nominated for Pat Garret and Billy the Kid (1973) 1887 Boris Karloff, villainous movie icon (Frankenstein, The Mask of Fu Manchu, Scarface, etcetera) is born 1888 Harpo Marx is born
The Kinsey Report looks back at the troubled history of early 80s sensation Gene Anthony Ray (aka "Leroy" from Fame) Variety Director Fred Schepisi (Six Degrees of Separation, Roxanne, Plenty) is lining up an all star cast for his new dramatic thriller Andorra: Vanessa Redgrave, Guy Pearce, Toni Collette, Clive Owen and more. Can he regain some of his 80s/90s heat? None of his films have had much impact in the last 20 or so years /Film Lin-Manuel Miranda is working on a secret Disney project with Zootopia's director. Guess he liked that Moana experience
Towleroad an interview with Martha Plimpton on The Real O'Neals and becoming a new gay icon Metro Michael Shannon is not afraid to speak his mind on the current political climate. Also he has a bajillion movies coming out AV Club why Moana will be named Oceania in Italy AV ClubBeauty & The Beast (1991) remains Disney's best modern movie Pajiba Carrie Fisher & Harrison Ford were totally doing it on the set of Star Wars in 1976 Coming Soon Robert Heinlein's classic Stranger in a Strange Land is being adapted to series on the Syfy network LAist Multi-hyphenate talent Rob Reiner, like Michael Shannon, is not holding his tongue about our new US nightmare
Stage Theater Mania Philippa Soo of Hamilton fame takes on Audrey Tatou's famous role in the musicalization of movie favorite Amelie beginning in LA next month before a Broadway transfer. If you're in LA let us know how it is, won't you?! Playbill Molly Ringwald is back on stage, taking on Shirley Maclaine's role in a stage version of Terms of Endearment. It opens tonight. Playbill If you've never seen Sweeney Todd on stage you have another chance early next year at the Barrow Street theater. The British cast of a new production is transferring over but when they leave in early April, Norm Lewis and Carolee Carmello (both of whom have sensational vocal instruments) will replace them. I guess we've got to see it twice!
Today's Watch: A new "Billy on the Street" Would you have a threesome with Billy and Jon Hamm?
The Only Magically Great News in Weeks Hayao Miyazaki wants to come out of retirement for one last film. The 75 year old director has pitched a feature (sprung from a short Boro the Caterpillar) that he wants made by 2020.
[UPDATE: Variety shared a list of 22 a week ago jumping the gun a week ago and we followed suit. Now we've updated on 11/11 with 5 additional titles since the actual list has been revealed]
Twenty-seven films are officially in the mix for Oscar nominations for Best Animated Feature. Since the threshold to trigger a five wide shortlist in the category is only sixteen, we'll get five nominees this year. As per usual in this category the US will dominate but one or two of the nominations will surely be nabbed by formidable and lower profile threats from France and/or Japan. The list and a few notes follow...
We're just 25 days from Moana hitting theaters and more fresh looks have been coming. This past week I had the opportunity to see a few scenes and hear Lin-Manuel Miranda speak about the film afterwards. Curiously the scenes they showed us weren't "song scenes" despite the pairing of those two things.
We mostly saw scenes involving Moana herself, voiced by the joyful Auli'i Cravalho, the teenage discovery Disney chose to voice their latest princess. Baby Moana, before Auli'i Cravalho takes over, is just about the cutest thing ever and there's a long scene of her discovering the ocean that is not unlike the adorability of Pixar's wonderful short from earlier this season, Piper, albeit with less fear because Moana is immediately in love with the ocean.
They also showed us a complicated ocean action sequence that the exuberant Venezuelan animator who hosted the event revealed was inspired by Mad Max Fury Road. Later when Lin-Manuel Miranda spoke we learned that he got the job before Hamilton (!) and when he was composing for Maui the demi-god he used The Rock's wrestling videos, of all things, to get a sense of his vocal range.
I was reminded of that when this new clip emerged very recently featuring The Rock singing in character as the demi-god who accompanies Moana on her journey. (In one of the clips I saw last week we also got a sense of how fun his magical tatoos are, including "Mini-Maui" who you can meet here for yourself.)
Sunday, November 27, 2016 at 12:15PM 
Presented to assuage Nathaniel's guilt from not having properly reviewed them -- all five are now playing in theaters.
