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.)
With La La Land, isn't it great to have a musical out in front again this Oscar race, especially one that brings such joy (sideyeing you specifically, Les Miz)? And as Nathaniel pointed out, that shouldn't be taken for granted.
Ten years ago, Dreamgirls was a more traditional genre high, and ulitmately taught us not to get too comfortable with a musical's Oscar chances after it landed that year's highest nomination tally but missed Best Picture and Director. But maybe that miss resulted from voters tiring of a campaign that started a full year before release, and not from the quality of the film.
Anne Marie has been chronicling Judy Garland's career chronologically through musical numbers...
On January 22, 1964, CBS announced the inevitable: The Judy Garland Show would be cancelled after just one season. Though the network stated that the cancellation was so that Judy could spend more time with her family, the subpar ratings and tumultuous backstage difficulties had made the show untenable for the studio. In fact, less than a month after the announcement - after Episode 22 was shot - Judy ended the longest artistic partnership she'd had on the show when she fired Mel Torme. Musical director replaced and show revamped for the fifth time, Judy still ended the series looking and singing like a million bucks.
The Show: The Judy GarlandShow Episode 22 The Songwriters: Charlie Chaplin (original score), John Turner & Geoffrey Parsons The Cast: Judy Garland, directed by Dean Whitmore
The Story: The style the show settled on was one with which Judy was familiar, and which had inspired the series to begin with: the concert. Guests were winnowed down to one or two (or none) per episode, sketches were cut, and instead the series focused on producing mini-concerts beamed directly to American living rooms. No longer needing to memorize lines or force interactions, Judy instead used the format to let her talent and the emotion of the songs carry her away, as she did in this bittersweet version of "Smile." Though the show would not go off the air until late March, it left a lasting impression on fans. A fan-led write-in protest was even started to try to resurrect it. The series had an effect on Judy, as well. With her third marriage and her television career over, Judy turned back to tours to spend time on the two things she loved most: her children, and her fans.
Cheadle, Dern, and Kendrick started this morning off with a bang reading the Golden Globe nominations which gave us lots of surprises connected to Nocturnal Animals, Supporting Actor, and the Comedy/Musical categories in general.
What did you see this weekend? I've had the neverending winter cold so I've been totally out of it. Hope you've been enjoying more films than I! This weekend contained a spectacular debut for La La Land which grossed nearly a million in only five theaters. To put it in context that's about twice what Moonlight and Cafe Society were able to accomplish in their similar sized opening weekends which were considered quite strong at the time. It's about four-to-six times what other art house darlings of the year (like The Lobster, Jackie, Love & Friendship, A Bigger Splash) were able to manage in similar sized openings. Most of those films proved to have a ceiling around $9-12 million at the US box office but La La Land seems sure to cross over to mainstream success.
Also worth noting: A great weekend for the musical form in general since Moana stayed up top.
TOP TWENTY 01 Moana$18.8 (cum. $145)Review 02 Office Christmas Party$17.5 NEW 03 Fantastic Beasts$10.7 (cum. $199.3) 04 Arrival$5.6 (cum. $81.4) Review andPodcast 05 Doctor Strange $4.6 (cum. $222.3) Review 06 Allied$4 (cum. $35.6)Review 07 Nocturnal Animals$3.1 (cum. $6.2) Review and Podcast 08 Manchester by the Sea$3.1 (cum. $8.3) Review, Second Take 09 Trolls$3.1 (cum. $145.4) NEW 10 Hacksaw Ridge $2.3 (cum. $60.8) Review & Podcast
11 Miss Sloane$1.9 (cum. $2) Review 12 Almost Christmas$1.4 (cum. $40.2) 13 Bad Santa 2$1.2 (cum. $16.8) 14 Incarnate$1 (cum. $4.2) 15 La La Land$855K NEW Reviewish & How Rare Is It? 16 Loving$623K (cum. $6.5) Review and Podcast 17 Edge of Seventeen$620K (cum. $13.8) Review 18 Moonlight$589K (cum. $10.8) Review and Podcast 19 Jackie$495K (cum. $869K) Review 20 The Accountant$460K (cum. $85)
This Monday morning very bright and early Don Cheadle, Laura Dern, and Anna Kendrick will announce the 74th annual Golden Globe Predictions. Though the media likes to take easy shots at the Globes each year, if you look through their history of awardage their ratios of great decisions to bad ones is about the same as any organizations. What's more they definitely afford themselves the opportunity to be more daring than Oscar does with their doubled categories. The Comedy/Musical categories are sometimes wasted on star-f***ing it's true (The Tourist anyone?) but more often than not it allows for "lighter" fare which, let's face it, can age better than biopics or message movies to have its day in the sun.
Don Cheadle (Miles Ahead), Laura Dern (The Founder), and Anna Kendrick (Mike & Dave...) will announce. Only Cheadle might show up as a nominee...
What might be nominated this year? We've never claimed to be good at predicting the Globes but let's all ponder the possibilities together after the jump...
Thursday, December 15, 2016 at 11:00AM 
