Soundtracking: Southland Tales

by Chris Feil

Recently resurfacing with repertory runs of its original catastrophic Cannes cut, Richard Kelly’s notorious Donnie Darko follow-up Southland Tales plays like the most bizarre time capsule. It captures not only a specific ideological moment in the timeline of post-9/11 anti-Bush anxieties, but it also captures the aura of MTV in its dying days as a culturally dominant force. For the uninitiated: imagine a Nashville porn parody peppered with internet conspiracy theories and set to the Pixies, then edited for television. It doesn’t all work by a long shot but it’s kind of awe-inspiringly out there, and at its best when it realized that it’s really meant to be an opera.

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Great Moments in Kissing: "The Notebook"

Team Experience was asked to share their favourite screen kisses for Valentine's Day. Here's a longtime actress friend of TFE, new contributor Kim Rogers...

When Nathaniel put out the call for favorite movie kisses, my mind immediately went to The Notebook’s iconic kiss in the rain. The movie is full of great kisses, but the entire movie is building towards the scene where Noah and Allie kiss in the rain. There’s a reason it’s on the poster, y’all.

The entire lake adventure is tinged with a bittersweet sense of melancholy as Noah takes a now engaged Allie out to see a flock of swans that have taken up residence on his lake. Allie is every bit the proper woman her mother always wanted her to be with her perfect hair, red lipstick, and string of pearls. Allie and Noah have a loaded conversation about the swans (“They’ll go back to where they came from”) and they observe the differences in each other after seven years apart...

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Showbiz History: Intolerance, Pee Wee, and Nightcrawler

9 random things that happened on this day, September 5th, in showbiz history...

1847 Outlaw Jesse James is born. 160 years later he'll be assassinated by Oscar nominated "supporting" actor Casey Affleck on the big screen.

← 1914 Stellar makeup artist Stuart Freeborn born in Leystone, London. You can thank him for the iconic looks of the original Star Wars trilogy (hello Chewbacca and Yoda) and the original Superman quadrilogy, and Peter Sellers transformations in Dr. Strangelove. He also worked on classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Murder on the Orient Express. He was never Oscar nominated so how did he not even get an Honorary Oscar?

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Link like the world isn't on fire

Variety - helpfully lists 10 standout moments from the MTV Movie Awards so we dont have to worry abotu missing it. Black Panther took the bulk of the prizes with Tiffany Haddish hosting
Towleroad - Interview with the director of McKellen: Playing the Part
IndieWire - 64 established and emerging film critics reflect on their favorite piece they've written -- our very own Chris Feil is in the mix! 
MNPP -Tyler Hoechlin seven times

Variety - Jennifer Lee (Frozen) and Pete Docter (Inside Out) are replacing John Lassetter at Disney and Pixar respectively
Guardian - Fun interview with Christopher Plummer on acting, replacing persona non gratas, and making peace with The Sound of Music.  
Coming Soon - this week in news absolutely no one needs: Robert Zemeckis to remake Roald Dahl's The Witches. There is literally no way to top Anjelica Huston's Grand High Witch so why?
/Film -AMC's A-List is going to compete directly with Movie Pass for those frequent moviegoer subscription dollars 
Variety - LGBTQ actors haven't had much luck securing Emmy nominations outside of the comedy fields. Will this change soon? 
New Yorker - funny piece on confessing that you met your partner in real life and not online! 

You guys. It's getting harder and harder to concentrate on movies and you know that's a nightmare for us when movies are our great love. But every day that goes by as America slides towards concentration camps, complete inhumanity, and fascism, Amy Poehler's questionnaire from last week at THR becomes ever more needed and brilliant. Here's the Q&A since the article is long and not about this:

MTV Movie & TV Award Nominees

by Nathaniel R

We lost interest in the MTV Movie Awards during the looooong stretch of them turning into the (which year is this?) blur of franchise awards with Harry's Twilight Hunger Games. But let's check back in since nominees were announced a few days ago and voting is now open.

And Oops! spoke to soon in the previous post on the GLAAD Awards. The GLAAD honor wasn't the last hurrah for Call Me By Your Name. Timothée Chalamet, the internet's current boyfriend, is up for an MTV Movie Award for his performance. That he's up against Rey in Star Wars and T'Challa in Black Panther indicates that he'll lose given that the public votes on these awards and that movie earned basically a ha'penny when compared to its competition. But hey, we're part of the public. We can vote now! Because the MTV Awards have a school year schedule, Avengers Infinity War (April 2018) is competing with Wonder Woman (June 2017) for best movie though we all know Black Panther will win. More after the jump...

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