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.)
A slightly abridged version of this review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad
For a franchise sprung from the fantastic realm of comic books, Marvel movies have not been particularly exciting on a broad visual level.
Sure, they’ve consistently managed iconic little visual beats within setpieces and that's no small thing. But they’re never suffused their films with eye-popping aesthetics as a matter of atmosphere. (The two exceptions to this rule are Guardians of the Galaxy‘s garish cosmic cartooonishness and Thor‘s brassy mythological kitsch). The Marvel film is more likely to stage its action setpieces and earnest conversations in vast empty spaces like sterile corporate buildings, parking garages, airport tarmacs, or mountain ranges. Given this predilection, the second half of Doctor Strange is absolutely jarring in a welcome way, never failing to give you plenty to gawk at...
Comics AllianceThe Flash movie, starring Ezra Miller, loses its Dope director MNPP Matthias Schoenaerts and Jane Fonda on set together! The New York on The Handmaiden and lesbian historical fiction EW will give us an extensive first look at Beauty and the Beast in the new issue
The Film Doctor on Woody Allen's Cafe Society - have you caught up with this on dvd? i09 because once you are all about being on-brand, like Johnny Depp, you can't ever leave franchise-verse, he'll be joining the Potterverse for a Fantastic Beasts sequel /Film speaking of Ezra Miller is giving a history of the Potterverse to promote Fantastic Beasts Time Out Two time Tony winner Tammy Grimes (mother of Amanda Plummer) dies at 92 D List after a brief internet freakout Idris Elba denies that he's dating Madonna Superhero Hype set photos from The Defenders (Netflix's answer to The Avengers) though for now its mostly just Jessica Jones in her trademark leather jacket, blue jeans, and perma-scowl
NY Times "Warren Beatty wants six hours of your time" a profile Jezebel ,,,Rich Juzwiak on the write-around of that piece I Like Things That Look Like Mistakes Kyle Turner on the camp value of Lady Gaga's "Joanne" IndieWire you can now stream Michael Giacchino's Dr Strange's score in its entirety Reel Talk time for reunion TV to go?
You know the drill. Thoughts uncensored in no particular order as they came whilst gazing at the first picture of Amber Heard as Mera in Aquaman (2018) or is this from Justice League (2017). Don't know. Doesn't matter...
Y'all remember that I wasn't too excited about Netflix's new Marvel show Luke Cage. As previously noted, I had the same trouble getting into it that I have always had getting into Superman movies -- invulnerability is antithetical to conflict and therefore dull in action franchises. But, that obstacle aside, I gradually finished the season -- the arrival of Claire Temple helped. Rosario Dawson was wonderful as always... and with Sonia Braga in tow this time, though the show didn't give the latter much to do. The increasingly complicated and cross-purpose agendas of the characters and plot helped, too. Well, that and the the fact that the show sparked interesting online discourse. That's always a plus.
After the jump five favorite things about Season 1 (spoilers obviously) and a response to the articles on "racial empathy gaps"...
Vanity Fair interviews reclusive legend Warren Beatty. He talks Annette, his trans son Stephen and i09 Forest Whitaker is joining the ever-expanding cast of Marvel's Black Panther movie Vulture Daniel Craig, newly platinum blonde, is warming up to returning to the 007 gig. Money money money. Money money money. ♫Money money money. If you happen to be rich - .......Ooooh -- and you feel like a Night's entertainment, you can pay for a gay escapade.
Antagony & Ecstacy catches up with The Neon Demon and loves it more than he knows he should MNPP it looks like Nicolas Hoult will be playing Nikola Tesla in the costume drama Current War about the fight over monetizing electricity co-starring those actors of endless ubiquity: Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon. The Playlist Guy Ritchie will direct Disney's live action Aladdin. Weird. /Film Boyd Holbrook will play the cyborg villain Donald Pierce in the third Wolverine movie, now titled Logan AV Club Ron Perlman has finally given up his dream of Hellboy 3
Power Man and Iron Fist I don't know how many people who are into Marvel's modern universe of TV and movies knows this but Luke Cage was always paired with Iron Fist in the comicbooks. That's hard to imagine now because Luke Cage has been portrayed as such a loner in both Jessica Jones and on his own show.
I know this because I was kind of addicted to that duo as a kid. When I heard they were adapting it for television I wanted Marvel to quit whitewashing the Iron Fist character. Yes Danny was always white but since he grew up in Tibet and is a master of martial arts it would make sense that he were Asian. What's more the common narrative of the white man being better than all the Asians at the super powerful stuff they picked up over in Asia (see also Dr Strange's sorcery) is inherently a racist trope. We were not alone in this thinking. Apparently the handsome actor Lewis Tan, who will play one of the villains in the show, actually wanted to play Iron Fist but Marvel was adamant that he be white (sigh). So we get Finn Jones in the lead role who is most famous for playing Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers in Game of Thrones.
Saturday, November 5, 2016 at 9:19PM 
For a franchise sprung from the fantastic realm of comic books, Marvel movies have not been particularly exciting on a broad visual level.
