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.)
Today's Must Read BuzzFeed good piece by Allison Willmore on the maddening response to absolutely nothing moments proclaimed to be LGBT "firsts!" in movies. Two parts of the problems she doesn't mention though are 1) the internet demands for constant content incentivize journalists to blow everything out of proportion including super stupid things like "LeFou is gay!" and 2) too many pop culture journalists are operating from a place of zero knowledge about pop culture before they were, like, 12.
more links after the jump including insightful pieces on Feud and an investigation of Logan's family jewels...
Is today your birthday? If so you share it with multiple Oscar nominees and winners, the great John Cleese, the US President with the cutest name, Macy's Department Store and the NYC subway system.
That's quite good company which we'll explore after the jump (warning: one NSFW photo ahead) on this day in showbiz history...
Nathaniel R reporting from TIFF. The festival ends today (I expect La La Land to win the coveted People's Choice in this non-juried festival) so I'm about to hit the airport. I'll be scrambling to finish telling you about the cinematic adventures screened from all over the world in the next couple of days -- and yes update the Oscar charts with all this new information -- so we can wrap up. And then NYFF begins!
Here are three films that go completely off the rails and one film that stays perfectly on track though the protagonist goes off it. Each have as many cons as pros so they're mixed experiences, presented in preference order. So click on for Argentinian nudist comedies (NSFW), Anne Heche and Sandra Oh fist-fighting, Greek paraonia, and the latest from A Girl Walks Home At Night's director who has graduated to bigger budgets and famous actors.
The Matinee on the trouble with "classics" and drawing timelines in the sand Kenneth in the (212) the Mommie Dearest mansion is on the market The Stake on why blockbuster franchises are all boring now. Even the good ones National Post pop culture power rankings best and worst in method acting from Daniel Day Lewis to Jared Leto Uproxx movies have sucked this summer - well, the big ones have. Lots of goodies in limited release
MNPP * NSFW* Orlando Bloom made the internet all sweaty with his nude paddleboarding adventure MNPP I love the "Siri Says" series Jason does. She picks a number, he delivers his favorite films from that year. Variety Maya Rudolph to co-star in Melissa McCarthy's Life of the Party (2018) The Tracking Board Hollywood is planning to remake Mexico's Miss Bala (sigh). Good luck finding a lead to match Stephanie Sigman in the 2011 original Coming Soon Angelina Jolie has opted not to take the lead role in Murder on the Orient Express. Charlize Theron is the new possibility. And ICYMI... TFE... we held a Cast This about the other roles in that remake recently. Film Stage new Antonio Banderas movie is coming called Finding Altamira. I hadn't heard of this but it's directed by Hugh Hudson who I've suddenly realized is still alive. He hasn't made a movie in 16 years. I was just watching his Greystoke movie the other day AV Club Antonio Sabato Jr hilarious thinks his career is over because of his support of Trump. Oh babe, it's been over for a long time. That's like blaming Obama for the death of Captain Khan who died four years before he was in offic-- oh wait. Esquire In case you had forgotten that Clint Eastwood is an old guard conservative/misogynist, they have a new interview he does in tandem with his son Scott in which he uses "pussy" as a pejorative, disses Hillary and Obama, and tries that old chestnust "both sides" argument about Trump's behavior. Nope. Sorry Clint. Only one party tries to motivate voters with bigotry. (He also talks movies and at least he loves Sunset Blvd so he's not 100% a terrible person.) Women and Hollywood Ava Duvernay to become the first black woman to helm a $100 million budgeted film with A Wrinkle in Time - this is news because she's quite successful already and men with a lot less success have been handed blockbuster budgets often. Crossing our fingers that it's a financial and artistic success!
Dunkirk Teaser Here's the very quick new tease for Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk which seems certain to net him that Best Director nomination that's eluded him so long if it's any good at all, it being a WW II movie and him being "overdue" and such. And he knows how to direct spectacle films after all.
Off Cinema Buzz Feed "every time President Obama lost his chill around kids" if you need something adorable to look at The Guardian Leonardo DiCaprio is "with her". He's hosting a $33,400 a plate fundraiser The Daily Good Yes the media does play favorites in politics, but as this study shows, it isn't the people complaining about it who are getting the unfavorable treatment
As we approach the release of The Legend of Tarzan (2016) we're ogling past screen incarnations of the ape man...
While there's plentiful competition for "Worst" Tarzan movie in the first 90 years of ape-man cinema, there's no competition whatsoever in the annals of Official Tarzan movies for "Least Tarzany" of all Tarzan Movies. That dubious honor belongs to the infamous 1981 Bo Derek film. Despite sharing a name with the original Weismuller film, Tarzan is, for the first time in history, a 100% bonafide Supporting Character. That's reflected in the credits where Miles O'Keeffe is third-billed and has not a single line of dialogue and in the poster, in which he doesn't appear at all!
For younger readers explanation is definitely necessary this time. Some stars maintain name recognition after their heyday even if younger generations aren't exactly sure why they're so famous. Other names provoke blank stares.Bo Derek, still very much alive at 59, was once very famous but is surely the latter kind of star. Who?