Rest In Peace Master

Amir here. It's a Sunday and you're pobably expecting my box office column, but I feel too devastated to focus on anything but the tragic news about Philip Seymour Hoffman. A true giant of screen acting has left us today. There is speculation aplenty about why and how this happened, all of which amounts to very little of significance. All that really matters is that the man was too young to go and had many great perfomances ahead of him. And he leaves behind a rich body of work that speaks for itself.

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Sundance: It's a Town Full of Losers in God's Pocket

Our Sundance Film Festival coverage continues with Michael Cusumano on John Slattery's "God's Pocket". 

Have you, like me, been waiting impatiently for years for a filmmaker to figure out how to transfer Christina Hendricks’ incredible star wattage to the big screen? When I saw that none other than John Slattery directed and co-wrote her latest film, I was optimistic. Who better to give her the vehicle she deserves than someone who has had a front row seat to her abilities these past six seasons on Mad Men? 

No such luck. Slattery’s God’s Pocket criminally wastes Christina Hendricks in an underwritten role that limits her to sobbing through the film’s first half and being a passive sounding board for the male stars in the second. Which is not to say anyone else in the cast fares much better. [more...]

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The Year Was 1998

JA from MNPP here - I know it's 2003 Month here at The Film Experience but Vulture has been doing a 15 year anniversary retrospective of all things 1998 this week, which has me reminiscing about that year too. I was in college working at the local art-house cinema - that'd be the lovely Little Theatre in Rochester New York, which everyone should visit if you ever happen to find yourselves in that neck of the woods. I loved working there - I was studying film at school and living film at work. I saw everything released during that period of time, and got to mingle with the Rochester rich and famous - I handed Phillip Seymour Hoffman a napkin once! This was when Happiness was out so, you know, it really meant something.

Anyway I was looking through the list of movies released in the Fall of 1998 and was wowed by a double-header that came out fifteen years ago on November 6th - Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine and Bill Condon's Gods and Monsters. Talk about grabbing my brain and yanking it back through time, so vivid is my recollection of what a one-two punch of queer cinema that week was. Brendan Fraser in nothing but a towel and a gas-mask, fumbling on the floor with Ian McKellen; glam-rocked Ewan McGregor and Jonathan Rhys Meyers splayed out for all the world, and Toni Collette, to see - I wish I'd known at the time what a good time it was for gay movies, but who could for-see the yawning chasm of the 2000s quick approaching?

Oh and another movie came out that week - Elizabeth. Yes that means it's been fifteen years since Cate Blanchett's first Oscar nomination for Best Actress, just as she's about to stampede the competition for her first win in that category. I think just by mentioning this I can still flare up people's anger about her losing to Gwyneth, right? Harvey Weinstein rawr! All that jazz. Anyway I personally probably would've given the statue to Holly Hunter for Living Out Loud that year so what do I know?

What are some of your favorite 1998 movies?

Visual Index ~ The Talented Mr Ripley's Best Shot(s)

For this week's edition of Hit Me With Your Best Shot, we stayed another summer in Italy. We didn't follow an American spinster this time but a young shapeshifter known as The Talented Mr Ripley. He was sent to Italy to fetch trustfund baby Dickie Greenleaf but he likes Dickie's life so much he fetches it for himself instead. 

Outside the film's actual narrative, based on the famous novel by Patricia Highsmith (whose work is oft-adapted - The Two Faces of January is next) things were just as dramatic. The movie was a Prestige Event since it was Anthony Minghella's (RIP) follow-up to his Best Picture winner The English Patient (1996). It wasn't quite a slam dunk with Oscar, despite the pedigree and the quality (I prefer it to Patient, myself), though it sure was a thing of beauty. The Talented Mr Ripley featured one of the most impressive collections of young stars at seemingly simultaneous points in their careers ever assembled; the world had just fallen for Gwyneth Paltrow (hot off Shakespeare), Jude Law (hot off stealing Gattaca), Matt Damon (still glowing from Good Will Hunting), and Cate Blanchett (hot off Elizabeth) and writer/director Anthony Minghella (RIP) managed to corral them all for the same movie.

Here are the 15 images that the 17 wide Best Shot club went a little mad for. Click on the link for the corresponding article and refresh your screens since more articles are bound to come in (including my own). Next week's film is Disney's grand 40s experiment Fantasia (special instructions here) and you should join us.

BEST SHOT(S)

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The Masters of My Eyeballs

I like getting lost at the movies. I live for the moments when you dive into the blue box. Ever since Mulholland Drive, that's what I've called that delirius feeling. That's when a movie with a tractor beam size pull just sucks you in until you're fully immersed in its world. Sometimes it's only for a moment. Sometimes it happens in fits and starts. With masterpieces it can last for the whole running time once you've stopped resisting. In these moments we've left the movie theater behind; the projectionist isn't the only one projecting.

Paul Thomas Anderson movies usually give me just this blue box sensation. I ate at the diner in Hard Eight. I hung out on porn sets and called Julianne mommy while high on coke in Boogie Nights. In There Will Be Blood I fell right in the oil well with Daniel Day-Lewis but only one of us emerged again after that prologue. I even lost myself a time or two in Punch-Drunk Love flights of rage and whimsy. 

 THE MASTER and HOLY MOTORS after the jump

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