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.)
When you’re trying to be seen as a short film, it can be difficult to step outside the feature-length shadow. If you’re Oscar-nominated, you’ll eventually be packaged into a multi-film program and play a handful of theaters across the country. Perhaps you’ll be purchased by HBO and find yourself showcased for a premium cable audience – like last year’s Academy Award winner A Girl in the River. Or you may screen at an infinite variety of regional festivals, submitted and curated for a different niche audience. Bottom line: unless you’re being actively scouted, many beautiful short films go unnoticed by moviegoers who would likely be eager to absorb the material if they knew it existed.
So, without further ado, here is the Academy’s ten-wide, recently released shortlist for Best Documentary, Short Subject. You can even watch half of the titles online now. While only half of this list will compete for the gold once nominations are announced in January, here’s hoping the whole group finds a lasting reception that goes beyond the jokes of its category’s presenters at the Oscars.
Boo! It's time for "Oscar Horrors". Each night at 7 through Halloween we look back on a horror film or horror-adjacent film's Oscar nomination until Halloween. Here's Nathaniel R...
Here's an odd statistic to consider. Did you know that Tom & Jerry was Oscar's favorite character-based cartoon franchise? The MGM cat and mouse team won seven Oscars in the Best Animated Short category, more than any other series but for Disney's "Silly Symphonies" which also won seven times. Tom & Jerry's very first short was nominated and they won for four consecutive years from 1943-1946 at the peak of their fame.
Brangelina No More Vox looks at the parallels between Liz & Dick and Brangelina EW Madame Tussaud's already separated Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's wax counterparts. Nathaniel wept. (Seriously, I'm not doing okay with this. I don't care if anyone thinks its silly. Double star wattage couples of this magnitude happen only a few times a century.) Slate ranks the remaining A list power couples
Brangelina, smack dab in the middle of their storied romance
Liz and Dick were only divorced for 16 months before they got back together so if I may put in an early request for 2018 Wishes. Lots more (and not just Brad & Angie) after the jump.
It's link time which also doubles as news catch up! (Yes, Oscar Chart updates are currently in progress. So more on that and the foreign submissions very soon)
Think Pieces, List Mania, Celebrity • Movie City News launches another "Gurus of Gold" season where all of us have named our current top 20 "general field" predictions. Yes, I'm updating my charts over the next three days! Manchester by the Sea and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk are expected leaders • Gawker Rich Juzwiack says goodbye to one identity through a George Michael lens. It's wonderful • MNPP Paul Bettany is vacationing in Ibiza • NYT talks to Kirsten Dunst about life after Fargo and her Emmy nomination • Mind of a Suspicious Kind Martin Scorsese's Silence is supposedly his longest ever (over 3 hours) but is it actually coming out this year?
• Cinema Enthusiast polled film twitter on their favorite films of 1982. The results are interesting but weird. The Thing at #1? Erm, okay. Star Trek II above Victor/Victoria? NO. I have to admit that I'm quite spotty on early 80s cinema though because I couldn't drive myself to the cinema back then. • Forbes on the easy-to-predict failure of the new Ben-Hur and how it's a fitting end to this particular summer • Little White Lies wonders if there still a place for eroticism in cinema while watching shorts in Montreal • i09 what went wrong with this summer's blockbusters • AV Club talks to Clea DuVall about past roles on the eve of her directorial debut with The Intervention • MNPP Dagmara Dominczyck's Patrick Wilson appreciation social media game • ...TFE we interviewed her once and she is stunningly gorgeous herself • Slate that nude Trump statue hitting various cities is not amusing to everyone • ...EW including actress/author Amber Tamblyn
News & Miscellania • The Guardian more trouble for Birth of a Nation. AFI cancelled screenings and Q&A • ... icymi TFE previous handwringing about this scandal and film • Forbes Jennnifer Lawrence & Melissa McCarthy top the annual highest paid actresses list this year. Two actresses outside of Hollywood made the list this year: Deepika Padukone (India) and Fan Bingbing (China). Figures include not just films but endorsement deals and such. The Zeéeeee apparently banked a lot for returning to her signature role in Bridget Jones's Baby since she almost made the list.
• /FilmBlade Runner 2 adds Jared Leto to the cast and Jóhan Jóhannsson as composer • Theater Mania Jennifer Holliday joining the cast of the Broadway revival of Color Purple. I guess they've decided to make Shug Avery the short-term award-winning star draw (they've already been through Jennifer Hudson and Heather Hedley) • Screen Daily undervalued British actor Andrew Scott has a lead role. He'll star in the thriller Steel Country • KotakuGhost in the Shell supporting cast photos leaked • Towleroad on Frank Oceans new video Nikes • Coming Soon Amazon developing a TV series based on The Departed. Hmmm. Isn't that an odd fit for long term storytelling. It would imply we can never move past the double crossing discovered stage • Playbill Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher documentary will premiere at the NYFF • Film Stage the first image from Euphoria with Alicia Vikander & Eva Green
Madonna Mania - It's Around This Summer For Some Reason (not complaning) • Boy Culture on a star studded Truth or Dare screening in NYC... • People ...Madonna even showed up super briefly! • Village Voice Michael Musto recalls his up and down relationship to the material girl through their very long contemporaneous careers
And I'll leave you with the new La La Land trailer. (If you missed our discussion of the first trailer, that's here.) This movie can't open soon enough!
Tim here. To celebrate the upcoming Supporting Actress Smackdown, 1977 is the year of the month here at the Film Experience. I'd like to take you back to a different Oscar competition from that year, the four-way race for Best Animated Short Film. It was one of the more interesting slates that category has ever seen, which I hasten to clarify isn't the same as calling it one of the best. But it makes for a pretty unique cross-section of the kind of animation being made in North America, with two nominees from the United States and two from Canada, ranging from a purely abstract experiment with the medium to a literal TV show.
We'll start off with the shortest of the nominees, an offbeat little gag called Jimmy the C (on YouTube – that unpleasant little watermark in the center goes away after a minute). In it, recently-inaugurated President Jimmy Carter waxes rhapsodic over his beloved home state by lip-singing to Ray Charles's "Georgia on My Mind", all through the magic of clay animation. I confess myself stumped: what the hell?...
Thursday, October 27, 2016 at 12:00PM 
When you’re trying to be seen as a short film, it can be difficult to step outside the feature-length shadow. If you’re Oscar-nominated, you’ll eventually be packaged into a multi-film program and play a handful of theaters across the country. Perhaps you’ll be purchased by HBO and find yourself showcased for a premium cable audience – like last year’s Academy Award winner A Girl in the River. Or you may screen at an infinite variety of regional festivals, submitted and curated for a different niche audience. Bottom line: unless you’re being actively scouted, many beautiful short films go unnoticed by moviegoers who would likely be eager to absorb the material if they knew it existed.
