Breaking Link

Troublemakers why you couldn't remake The Breakfast Club. Sad but true!
Press Play Ali Arikan's "end of message" on corresponding with Roger Ebert over the years 
David Poland the second part of his goodbye to Roger Ebert
Guardian the films that defined the Thatcher Era in Britain from Chariots of Fire (1981) to My Beautiful Laundrette (1986)

Dreamweaver queer artists recently paid tribute to Sigourney Weaver here at a special gallery exhibit in NYC. Why I wasn't warned of this and could therefore help spead the word, I do not know. Love my Sigweavie.
The Advocate... Sigourney Weaver responded to the tribute.

It means so much to me that my work has been relevant and encouraging to the LGBT community. I support each and every one of you to be exactly and gloriously who you are and all you can be. The planet needs your individuality and talent and power to make it a more humane and respectful and fantastic place, where everyone is valued and celebrated equally.

Cinematic Corner sees visual parallels between Pulp Fiction and Breaking Bad 
LA Times Architectural renderings for the Academy's massive forthcoming museum and theater. I just got a boner in advance for 2017.
Twitter if you wanna see what Timothy Olymphant looked like on his college swim team
Empire Oscar Isaac, currently quite in demand, might join the cast of Ex-Machina from writer/producer turned director Alex Garland (The Beach, Dredd)
In Contention keeps us abreast of what's happening with the MTV Movie Awards. I always forget about those but they were so fun ages and ages ago before they got completely coopted by the mainstream. I mean Jesus, in one of their first years they gave a prize to Wes Anderson before anyone knew who he was. 

Top Ten 1990s

I promised longtime TFE super fan Ryan that I would one day write up a big top ten of the 90s piece although THIS IS NOT IT. This is like those tossed back "shots" of past decades wherein we tell each other our favorites. I'll tell you my ten favorites which are wildly unstable and could be replaced by anything in the "with apologies to" list if I'd ranked on another day. Well, not the top three. I mean... let's not get crazy.

1. The Piano (Jane Campion)
2. Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson)
3. Thelma & Louise (Ridley Scott)
4. Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson)
5. Beauty & The Beast (Trousdale & Wise)
6. All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar)
7. Trois Coleurs Trilogy (Krystof Kzielowski)
8. T2: Judgment Day (James Cameron)
9. Fargo (The Coen Bros)
10. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino)

Most of them weren't even nominated for Best Picture. (Sigh). Oscar is so...

With apologies to 15 more. Let's call it a top 25: 
Being John Malkovich, Titanic, [safe], Howards End, The Thin Red Line, Se7en, The Truman Show, Schindler's List, The Silence of the Lambs, Postcards from the Edge, Edward Scissorhands, The Grifters, Waiting for Guffman, Husbands and Wives, and Election.

other "favs" if not all of them as 'respectable':
Death Becomes Her, Babe, Ed Wood, Dead Man Walking, Strictly Ballroom, Tie Me Up Tie Me Down, A League of Their Own, Addams Family Values, Bullets Over Broadway, Reality Bites, Queen Margot, Clueless, Romeo + Juliet, My Best Friend's Wedding, Wings of the Dove, Celebration, The Idiots, High Art, Velvet Goldmine, Run Lola Run, My Own Private Idaho, Priest, The Fisher King, Leaving Las Vegas and The Last of the Mohicans.

P.S. After Jurassic Park (best shot tomorrow night!), I promise we'll leave the 90s behind and come back to the now. So get it all out of your system in the comments!

Previous Top Ten Quickies
1930s | 1950s | 1970s | 1980s

Tues Top Ten: Tarantino's Toes

A dark Cinderella moment in "Inglourious Basterds"Denny, back again after dancing to Chicago this weekend. When Nathaniel was looking for suggestions to kick off Tarantino Week, I immediately suggested a piece (or pieces) called "Tarantino’s Toes," in honor of his position as the world’s foremost foot fetishist. I was half-joking, but the alliteration was simply too much to walk away from. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. How does one even begin to rank the many, many feet Tarantino has filmed? Does one go by the height of the arch? The length? The width?

… Sorry. I just had to run to the sink. I’m better now.

Actually, on re-watch, I found that, while they aren’t always plot devices, Tarantino does actually use feet to illuminate his themes and charact… Sorry. I just can’t take this seriously. We’re talking about FEET for frak’s sake! To wit, being as non-pervy as I possibly can, my completely arbitrary list of...

Tarantino’s Top Ten Toes

Honorable Mention: Mia’s foot massage in Pulp Fiction
We don’t actually see it onscreen, so I didn’t consider it eligible, but Jules’s monologue about the ultimately deadly foot massage that “Tony Rocky Horror” gave to Mia Wallace is pretty killer. That, according to Mia, the foot massage never even happened makes it even more intriguing.

10 O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill, Vol. 1
They’re only glimpsed for a split second, but the sight of Lucy Liu’s O-Ren running down a table just before slicing off the head of the one member of the crime council who dissents to her new leadership in one swift, clean cut, is one of the film’s best surprises. And on repeat views, it only gets funnier.

more little piggies after the jump

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Curio: The Exiled Elite

Alexa here. After posting the gorgeous pencil drawings of Marie Harnett, the work of another artist out of the UK who takes pencil to paper was brought to my attention. Matthew Warren has a passion for film that was nurtured when he worked on film sets during art school.  After a viewing of Drive inspired Matthew to seek out alternative poster designs for the film, he discovered the rich online world of fan art, discussed here at The Film Experience (he's a reader) and elsewhere on the web. Soon his project, under the name The Exiled Elite, was born. 

Matthew mixes his pencil sketches with marker-drawn text to create his wholly handmade designs; I love how you can see each marker stroke.

I've posted more of his posters after the jump.  You can see all his designs on his website, and you can buy prints at his shop.

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Curio: Happy Birthday Quentin

Alexa here. Today Quentin Tarantino turns 49; somehow I thought he was older, if only because he has been in our consciousness for so long. It feels like forever ago that we heard Mr. Brown give his thesis on "Like a Virgin." His Madonna connection got some further milage this week with word that Madge wants him to direct the video for her new single "Gang Bang." ("All he has to do is show up with a camera.") Considering that he lent Gaga his Pussy Wagon, it just might happen.  

Here are a few creations celebrating the prince of palaver.

Quentin's bloody ear, by Gregg Gordon of Gigart.Tribute posters by Ibraheem Youssef

Click for more posters including Django Unchained. Plus: Vincent and Jules as mice...

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