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.)
Manuel here with an extra episode of HBO LGBT to celebrate the release of Looking: The Movie. I get the title format but would it have hurt Andrew Haigh to give it a less generic title. I mean, “Looking for Closure” would have been a bit on the nose but it’d have fit nicely with the show’s episodic titles (which included “Looking for a Plot” and “Looking for Home” after all).
I have gone on the record before saying how much I treasured Looking—recapping its second season right here was wonderful and a chance to really flesh out why I think Haigh and Michael Lannan’s show was such a striking meditation on gay male intimacy...
Guardian Daisy Ridley won't apologize for how thin she is! (Great. First she stole Keira Knightley's voice and face and now she's stealing her "too skinny!" controversies) /Film interviews Anthony Mackie about playing the Falcon and finding out he was going to be an Avenger Pajiba gets excited about the new true story movie Hidden Figures (due January 2017) starring Janelle Monae, Taraji P Henson, and Octavia Spencer. i09 swears that Elektra (2005) is worse than you remember. That would be difficult to be! Film School Rejects on the fascism that Rotten Tomatoes breeds Facebook Russell Tovey wants to know which pic of him you like best A Fistful of Films has a great piece on seeing your own private moments in Carol Interview talks to Mary Elizabeth Winstead about Mercy Street, Scott Pilgrim, and 10 Cloverfield Lane
Our Friend Teo Teo Bugbee is one of our favorite friends and people and she contributed to The Film Experience a few times in the past. But alas, MTV snatched her up for their rebooted blogging and such and they don't share! But check out two of her latest beauties.
"Thirty, Flirty and Thriving" - on Daniel Day-Lewis's 30 years of movie fame: the man, the myth, the legend. "15 Movies to Freak Ya Boy Out" So funny and true from The Exorcist (1973) through Fatal Attraction (1987) and on to The Diary of a Teenage Girl and Carol (2015)
Off Cinema Towleroad a heartwarming story about a penguin and the man who saved his life. Awwww Facebook Russell Tovey wants to know which pic of him you like best Tracking Board Anna Paquin starring in a new series called Broken. Another legal drama show ARGHHHHH the genre that just won't die or even take a wee break.
I was going to end with a few words on RuPaul's Drag Race but it deserves its own post, henny.
Variety Keira Knightley in talks to star in the biopic about the French writer Colette. Crossing my fingers about this one. Colette is fascinating (she wrote Cheri!) Comics Alliance on Marvel, politics, and why corporations are not your friend Towleroad TitanMen has offered disgraced Congressman Aaron Schock (the one with abs and a Downton Abbey fetish) $1 million to star in a porn film. LOL Variety Clive Owen, Alba Rohrwacher, and more join Meryl Streep's competition jury at Berlinale
Kenneth in the (212) Shirtless Russell Tovey reportedly causes a Broadway audience member to faint. Ha! Pajiba checks in w/ the Trainspotting cast, 20 years on i09 Naomi Watts reunites with Lynch for Twin Peaks S3 i09 Noomi Rapace not returning for the Prometheus sequel IndieWire thinks "The Chickening," a short film remix of The Shining is insane and genius. Definitely the first part. As for the second... Towleroad a first for ESPN, actor Matthew Wilkas (Gayby, You're Killing Me) labelled "Gus Kenworthy's Boyfriend" during the X Games Coming Soon Tony winner Annaleigh Ashford (we ♥ her) has joined the cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show the next TV musical (though this one won't be "live") Salon "Where are all the women in American Film?" a SAG-AFTRA member reviews her screeners
I had seen four films, 75 percent of which completely leave women out of the story. But maybe women really don’t feature in West African war zones. Or in the history of NWA. Or in finance.
But of course we feature. It just depends what story you want to tell.
TODAY'S WATCH Lady Gaga performering her and Diane Warren's Best Original Song nominee "Til It Happens To You" at the PGA Awards
LEFTOVER SUNDANCE BUZZ Variety 19 breakthrough performances from the festival Film School Rejects talks to the cast and filmmaker of the LGBT Korean-American drama Spa Night The Guardian Oscar buzz from the fest including Manchester by the Sea, Ira Sach's Little Men and Rebecca Hall as Christine
TODAY'S MUST (LONG) READ "Winona Forever" by Soraya Roberts for Hazlitt. It's a great history of the star's youth and her sudden generational iconhood. And how we've trapped her adolescence ever since.
Winona Ryder arrived at the perfect time. Film scholar Timothy Shary characterizes the teen genre as “cyclical.” Ryder’s first film, Lucas, was released at the end of the hyper-hormonal Porky’s era (AIDS and teen pregnancy ruined it for everyone), five years before the release of Boyz N the Hood. In the period between 1986 and 1990, during her teen career, there were about 250 American films about adolescents, the most memorable being nostalgic thefts of innocence such as Dirty Dancing (1987), Hairspray (1988) and Dead Poets Society (1989). Three of Ryder’s films—Great Balls of Fire, 1969, Mermaids—adhered to this theme. She was in a sweet spot: post sex-crazed, pre-violence crazed—the ideal landing pad for a wide-eyed alien.
“You’d be hard pressed to say who was an average girl in teen movies after the mid-80s,” says Shary. The Brats had moved on, and so had John Hughes (his last teen film, Some Kind of Wonderful, came out in 1987), though no one forgot about them. “[Hughes] showed that you could make sensitive teen films that didn’t have nudity that didn’t pander to the supposed teen sex urge,” Shary says. He thinks this was “a contributing factor in helping set up an actress like Winona Ryder who could come along in the later ‘80s and be taken seriously as a teen actress.” While Hughes muse Molly Ringwald pined for the rich guy, Ryder merely pined for herself...
It's a delicious read and for those of you who didn't live through the Depp/Winona years, a fine encapsulation of the generational fascination with their relationship.
Manuel here, back from a week away to chat up last night’s season’s (series?) finale. Thank you Nathaniel for filling in, though I’m sorry you had the unlucky job of recapping my least favorite episode so far! We’re clearly of one mind of the way the show hit a low-point mostly by telegraphing rather than embodying its own story beats. Thankfully, the season finale worked wonderfully as an introspective examination of the fraught ride to successful gay intimacy.
By the second episode of what turned out to be a self-assured and all-out fantastic second season, when the illicit domesticity of Kevin and Patrick took center stage, I noted that the HBO show was great at asking the following question:
“What does intimacy look like within a community that is still encumbered by secrets and closets, even as it prides itself on openness and honesty?”
That question could just as easily work as preface for this episode...
In the blog explosion that is Oscar night (both build up to and come down from) we end up missing LOTS of stories. Like saying goodbye to Leonard Nimoy (1931-2015) better known as Mr Spock. So let's kick off today's collection of news, casting notices, and randomness with the Vulcan
RIP NY Times on Leonard Nimoy's career which extended well beyond Spock. Space astronauts say goodbye from space R Michelson Galleries several collections of Nimoy's photography, he favored black and white nudes, are featured here
News & Miscellania Guardian thinks the blockbuster genre is in trouble in 3...2...1... Blackbook Oscar Isaac breaks out some dance moves in Ex Machina -- which makes me so sad that he has no interest whatsoever in musicals TFE ...which he told me in our interview here. Vanity Fair Bobby Finger synopsis future installments of the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. This franchise will live forever! Playbill Bruce Willis and Elizabeth Marvel taking the James Caan and Kathy Bates roles for Misery on the Broadway stage. Good luck with that In Contention Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Snowden EW Diablo Cody to pen a live action Barbie movie. I could see that working as a comedy. But did Toy Story 3 say all there was to say? Coming Soon Ridley Scott's company developing a franchise for Flashman based on a novel about a Victorian soldier. Scott is 77 and his list of upcoming projects is insane - how long is he planning to live exactly? Deadline shares a list of the top "actors" on social media. This is why we can't have nice things i09 will Battle Cat in the He-Man movie look like this? I forgot there was a He-Man movie coming. Can "Dom" from Looking star in it? He was modelling those looks already.
More Miscellania Film Otaku now that two of the self-proclaimed 'Three Amigos!' have won Best Director will the third, Guillermo del Toro, be next? Awards Daily will we see Sir Ian McKellen get a best actor shot with Mr. Holmes? Queerty oops. Russell Tovey (Being Human, Looking) is putting his foot in his mouth about "masculinity" HuffPost Gay Voices Noah Michelson writes a passionate personal response. A Must Read. The Buckley Bulletin goes deep on A Place in the Sun. This is an old essay but if you love that movie it's a must-read. I had a really fun conversation about that George Stevens classic yesterday on Twitter
Ahhhh ♥ Hugh Jackman from Instagram this morning. Which begs the question of how often he gets one.
Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 5:00PM 
Manuel here with an extra episode of HBO LGBT to celebrate the release of Looking: The Movie. I get the title format but would it have hurt Andrew Haigh to give it a less generic title. I mean, “Looking for Closure” would have been a bit on the nose but it’d have fit nicely with the show’s episodic titles (which included “Looking for a Plot” and “Looking for Home” after all).
