come with me if you want to link

Huffpo The story of the first trans Oscar nominee, Angela Morley in the 1970s
Gothamist This will be such a sad day in Manhattan. The last remaining gala premiere type single screen movie theater in Manhattan is closing in a couple of weeks for good. Goodbye Ziegfeld Theater where I first saw Michelle Pfeiffer in the pflesh, where I first laid eyes on Moulin Rouge!, where so many filmmakers and actors premiered their films.
The Film Stage Taylor Sheridan who wrote Sicario is looking to make his directorial debut with his new screenplay Wind River 

Variety Ettore Scola, the Italian director has died at 84 years of age. Among his best known films were three Foreign Language Film Oscar nominees: A Special Day (1977), The Family (1987) and Le Bal (1983) 
Coming Soon Jennifer Lawrence will star in Marita about Fidel Castro's young lover who became involved in an assassination attempt on his life. (Finally a role she's basically the right age for!)
AV Club Kevin Spacey to play JD Salinger's mentor in a Rebel in the Rye (what a title, eh)
MNPP David Lynch's surreal use of animals in his work - damn my favorite one is missing. The talking bird from Twin Peaks. "Leo, no!" 
BuzzFeed The Hateful Eight as the meanest film in Tarantino's filmography. I haven't actually read this piece -- I'm so tired of this movie -- but people keep tell me it's the best piece on the film. 
/Film The polar bear cartoon Norm of the North is our first 0% of 2016 on Rotten Tomatoes. Everyone hates it!
Guardian Kenya thinks Netflix will lead to 'declining moral values'. (I mean... tif you bingewatch bad tv and movies then, sure, yes)

Franchise Watch
Guardian Terminator Genysis sequels have been cancelled. Be grateful for small miracles. That franchise's first two films were amazements but diminishing returns with all the xeroxing
Decider can Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn save the DC film universe from its self? (That's a lot to place on one ensemble player, even if she does carry a baseball bat) 
/Film Christmas 2017 showdown: Avatar 2 and Star Wars VIII now scheduled to open on the exact same day. But the hilarious thing about this article is they call Avatar 2 an "unmovable force" even though James Cameron never makes his release dates. LOL. Expect that one to movie for sure. 

Today's Watch
The Sky in Sicario. Do we think there's any chance Emmanuel Lubezki doesn't win for The Revenant (which would be his third consecutive win -- which has never happened before -- and if so) 

Sky in "Sicario" from Ordog on Vimeo.

15 Great Moments Inside Movie Theaters in '15

Confession: I am extremely terrible about keeping a calendar, or even a letterboxd list which I update sporadically from time to time before forgetting again. In short the only "diary" of any sort I have is this ode to movies you're visiting now... The Film Experience. Nevertheless in reviewing the film year I realized that I haven't been frequenting NYC's wonderful repertory theaters as much as in past years. Must fix.  And I really have to do a better of keeping track of what I'm seeing in general lest I actually forget I saw something and it's missing from LISTS. *gasp*

But I  ♥ going to the movies. And if you're reading this it's safe to assume that you do too. So it's list time. Please share your favorite moments of moviegoing this year in the comments. 

15 Favorite Moments Inside Movie Theaters in '15
because it's the best place to be!
 

15 The Incredible Hulk (2008) 
April 29th: That moment when my best friend and I suddenly realized that we could leave anytime during the Marvel Movie Marathon (preceding the premiere of The Age of Ultron) and still get the same seat. What a relief. I mean... nobody should have to sit through Iron Man 2 ever again!

14 Clouds of Sils Maria (2014)
April 6th: Sitting down for a special invite-only screening of Clouds of Sils Maria and seeing so many actors I loved in the audience (Diane Lane, Parker Posey, Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin). Turner was surprisingly willing to make conversation afterwards, her voice miraculously even lower than onscreen in person; she kindly ignored my fairly obvious terror at finally meeting one of my all time favorite goddesses.

13 Hateful Eight (2015) - INTERMISSION ONLY!
Dec: Though I've admired Teo Bugbee as a writer for over a year (and she's written for the site on rare occasion) we finally met recently and every time we managed to sync up our schedules (lunch, drinks at a bar, a screening of Hateful Eight) it somehow become an extra imaginary screening of Carol we talked about the movie so much. Basically Teo is the only way I made it through Hateful Eight. 

Carol, Chi-Raq, two older classics and more after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Box Office: Jennifer Lawrence Generates Her Own Light in the Shadow of Star Wars.

Jennifer Lawrence's Joy starpower couldn't match the double-teaming bankability from Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg for the comedy Daddy's Home but she's still got nothing to worry about as Hollywood's current most popular actress pulling in 17.5 million in Joy's opening weekend despite middling reviews, a glut of new wide releases, and two hot button limited bows, all hoping for those same Christmas dollars.

Meanwhile every movie in theaters is trying to stay visible under the galactic-sized shadows of The Force Awakens which has already topped half a billion in the US box office in record time and should leapfrog Jurassic World's once unthinkable $652 domestic gross pretty soon at this rate.  We'll also know fairly soon if the Star Wars saga's sheer cultural size affects the Oscar race. The question is not fully restricted to whether it will be nominated for this or that or a wholla lotta that like the '77 starter-kit, but whether it will drown out conversations about the newer or the more struggling Oscar campaigns and we end up with less movement in the Oscar race from where we were in say, October, because people are thinking of little else than Star Wars right now.

BOX OFFICE WIDE
(Christmas Weekend)
01 Star Wars: The Force Awakens $153.5 (cum. $544.5) Review, parody fun Emo Kyle Ren
02 Daddy's Home $38.8 *new* 
03 Joy $17.5 *new*
04 Sisters $13.8 (cum $37.1) Review 
05 Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip  $12.7 (cum. $39.3)
06 Concussion  $11 *new* Review
07 The Big Short $10.5 (cum. $16) Review & SAG Ensemble 
08 Point Break $10.2 *new* 
09 The Hunger Games Finale $5.3 (cum. $264.6)  Hunger Games & Oscar 
10 Creed $4.6 (cum. $96.3) Review

Christmas proved to be a death wish for many awards hopefuls since behemoths like STAR WARS and talking points like HATEFUL EIGHT & THE REVENANT sucked all the oxygen out of the room for other films

BOX OFFICE LIMITED
Excluding previously wides
01 The Hateful Eight $4.5 100 screens *new* Twitter Review, Worst of Year
02 The Danish Girl $1.5 440 screens (cum. $3.2) Eddie Redmayne
03 Carol $1.0 180 screens (cum $2.8) Reviewish, Podcast, Its Genius
04 The Revenant  $.4 4 screens  *new* parody fun Revenant Bear
05 Youth  $.3 149 screens (cum. $1) Review, Podcast, Jane Fonda
06 Mr Six  $.2 30 screens *new*
07 Trumbo  $.2 30 screens *new* Podcast, SAG Ensemble 
08 Room $.08 100 screens (cum. $4.7) Premiere, FYC Production Design
09 45 Years $.06 3 screens *new* Charlotte Rampling
10 Macbeth $.04 30 screens (cum. $.8) Review, Podcast

WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND?

Link Wars Episode ∞: The Blog Awakens

Guardian has a piece on the 7 best financial films for the release of The Big Short. Confession: I'm always surprised when internet lists remember that films existed before 1990. And this list has 4 of them [gasp]
CHUD Have you heard Radiohead's Spectre theme. The studio went with Sam Smith instead for the latest Bond
Variety Tupac Shakur biopic All Eyez On Me is coming your way (and filming already). Given the massive success of Straight Outta Compton expect more hiphop/rap biopics 

Gothamist Oooh. AMC Village 7 has reopened in Manhattan with spiffy new seats and bathrooms. I haven't been there in years but will have to return now. Now if only Film Forum and Village East would get renovations and they'd burn down the Angelika, Cinema Village, and Lincoln Plaza and build new non-tiny, non-crappy, subwayrumble-free arthouse theaters somewhere else... wouldn't that be swell?! 
MNPP the only recap of the recent Tom Hardy junket journalist dustup that you need is right here. Seriously who cares?! Stars cancel or push back interviews ALL THE TIME. 
Comics Alliance prepare for your heart to melt with these photos of Chris Pratt visiting a children's hospital 

Best of '15
Florida Film Critics went with Mad Max Fury Road as best of the year in 4 categories and gave Daisy Ridley Breakthrough for Star War: The Force Awakens
Movie Scene Kyle Turner's top 15 from Appropriate Behavior (yay!) to Mistress America (say what?)
Playbill 10 biggest social media moments for Broadway this year. Naturally Hamilton made the biggest splash
Theater Mania names the 9 best Off Broadway shows... i dont understand this number 9? It has to be 10 or 15 this year. I mean, MATH. SYMMETRY. LIST RULES. 
The Film Stage names 50 "Overlooked" films... though the criteria for overlooked is sligthly murky. Tangerine and James White, for example, didn't get even a tiny percentile of the box office they deserved but they did win spirit and gotham nods and in Tangerine's case a lot of press... which has to count for something. Very happy to see Appropriate Behavior (which you'll remember I loved nearly two years ago at its festival debut) and Victoria on the list though. Hopefully Mustang's inclusion (Team Experience loves it) will look silly after the fact if the Academy nominates it and it proves a late-bloomer at the box office. But for now with only $100,000 in the bank at only 3 theaters, it deserves this list placement.

More Star Wars... The Force Won't Go Back To Sleep
Digital Spy People will post ANYTHING about Star Wars for traffic. Here we consider the possibility of a gay Star Wars romance between Finn & Poe 
Gizmodo award winning interactive fan animations - Love the Grand Prize winner on Tattooine.
Vulture polls several celebrities about the best order to view the 7 Star Wars films in. The correct answer is obviously 4,5,6,7 (ignoring 1,2,3) but there's a lot of variety in the responses
/Film concept designs for BB-8 
American Leather Jacket for only $209 you can try to look at cool as Finn or Poe from Star Wars with the jacket they trade off onscreen
Academy Conversations the filmmaking team talks about production - I haven't watched it in full yet but it's nice to see Michael Kaplan represented there. He's one of the great costume designers and has had ZERO academy attention. That's probably because his best work comes in stylish contemporary film (Fight Club, Burlesque, Flashdance, Mr & Mrs Smith) or genre films (Blade Runner, Star Trek, The Force Awakens) and we know how Oscar feels about both of those kinds of pictures.

And if you haven't checked out the Emo Kylo Ren twitter page, do so. Laugh, you will. Know that it's more fun than a yub-nubbing Ewok treehouse party. This is my favorite but there were many many choices for that honor...

mom please don't even pretend you know what I'm going through right now also we are out of conditioner

— Emo Kylo Ren (@KyloR3n) December 22, 2015

Podcast: Trainwreck and Tangerine, a raunchy double feature

The gangs all back together to discuss two riotous female comedies: Amy Schumer's mainstream Trainwreck, already a hit and packed with famous faces, and the LGBT festival favorite Tangerine, which features no famous names or faces but abundant ragged laughs. See them both and listen in!

Contents
00:01-23:30 Trainwreck 
We all like it but how much: It's a very good comedy but maybe not a very good movie? The division of duties between Judd Apatow and Amy Schumer and the trouble the movie has navigating its outre sexuality with its traditional romcom trajectory. Also discussed: the great supporting cast including Tilda Swinton, Brie Larson, and James LeBron.
23:30-42:36 Tangerine
We discuss Tangerine's aggressive charms, iPhone lensing, one-day structure, and charismatic actors. But mileage may vary on how people perceive its portrayal of trans women of color as prostitutes again. We were all won over by the movie's specificity of place and character but will people ever stop mistaking it for the Estonian Oscar nominee Tangerines? 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes.  Please continue the conversation in the comments...

Tangerine-Trainwreck