Oscar Volley: Can anyone beat Jane Campion? Or, rather, who is in second place?

Team Experience is discussing the various Oscar categories. Here's Mark Brinkerhoff and Timothy Lyons to discuss Best Director

MARK BRINKERHOFF: There's only a few days left of Oscar voting. So, in the spirit of balloting, let’s settle something when in comes to one of this year’s presumably more predictable categories: Best Director. And the 2021 nominees are...

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Yes No Maybe So: P.T. Anderson's "Licorice Pizza"

by Nathaniel R

Paul Thomas Anderson's ninth feature film is almost upon us. As one of America's most singular auteurs that's reason to celebrate whether or not this turns out to be top tier Anderson or his nadir. Licorice Pizza (which went by the equally odd title Soggy Bottom previously) is due to open on November 26th in select cities followed by a nationwide bow around Christmas. The trailer uses "Life on Mars" by David Bowie from 1971 as its primary soundtrack. The presence of hairdresser turned movie producer Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper) in his Barbra Streisand phase places us even more specifically in the mid 1970s during the peak of Bab's movie stardom when practically every film was a smash hit (Peters and Streisand started dating in '73 and he helped produce A Star is Born in 1976) so on the timeline we're sandwiched directly inbetween Anderson's Inherent Vice and Boogie Nights if you want to rewatch his movies chronologically as they take place for kicks. 

Let's break down the trailer with our Yes No Maybe So system after the jump...

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Bradley Cooper entering PT Anderson's world

by Nathaniel R

We were wondering when we'd get casting news for Paul Thomas Anderson's next film and it's finally starting to trickle in. Though the untitled movie revoles around a famous teenage actor attending high school in the San Fernando Valley in the 1970s (yes, we're thrilled that PTA is returning to Boogie Nights time and locale) the buzz is that it's actually an ensemble piece. And there are supposedly at least three prominent adult roles. Bradley Cooper is in talks for one of them but we don't know which. The juiciest adult roles are rumored to be a film director, an agressive agent, and a closeted politician.

Cooper is one of the best actors of his generation so we can't wait to see what Anderson can pull from him since the auteur is just amazing with  actors...

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Familiar Faces: The P.T. Anderson Players

We're celebrating PTA this week for his 50th birthday!

by Nathaniel R

Famed auteur Paul Thomas Anderson is not, perhaps, the creature of habit we expected him to be after his first three films made him a legend-to-be and suggested a steady stable of actors shifting guises with each film like a Scorsese or an Altman or an Allen. Since that magnum ensemble opus Magnolia (1999) his films have shifted closer to the traditional one or two man focal point employed by most auteurs even as they've gotten more experimental in other ways. It's as if he was purposefully shaking off the Altman-progeny tag.

That's a wee bit disappointing since auteurs who are particularly genius at assembling a whole mess of actors and watching the idiosyncratic group dymanic spark are few and far between. With PTA's next project set to be a drama about a famous child actor in high school, it's unlikely we'll see many repeats from his troupe, though there's always a possibility one or two of them show up as a teacher or parent or co-star on set.  Let's look at the actors he's used the most in his filmography thus far...

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Links+ Hot, Lukewarm, Cold

Oooh look at this beautiful actress roundtable cover for The Hollywood Reporter. Can't wait to see the full video.

Okay on to the link roundup since we haven't done this in some time the news is a mix of brand new to 'oops, already shoulda shared that!'

 Piping Hot 

/Film early numbers on the success of Disney+ though you'll have to take it with a grain of salt as the numbers are provided solely by Disney (just like Netflix who is free to brag on the rare occassions when they do share numbers but there's no way to know if the numbers are accurate)

Coming Soon Juliette Lewis and Mia Goth are co-starring in a female action flick called Mayday

After the jump The Little Mermaid, new projects for Paul Thomas Anderson and Damien Chazelle, Kristen Bell singing, and much much more... 

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