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.)
Betty Buckley in her Tony-winning role as "Grizabella, the glamour cat"By now you've heard the comic news (oh no wait, they're serious!) that "Cats" is being turned into a movie. The news took me so off guard that I was silent for five days. Cats got my tongue. (I'm sorry). The Andrew Lloyd Webber megahit from the 1980s was based on T.S. Elliott poems and as such it has no real story to speak of. It's basically a very successful song cycle (albeit with only one famous song "Memory") elevated by utter nonrealism in the form of humans pretending to be cats in campy makeup, tights, and acrobatic dancing. It's so hard to imagine as a movie that they made the potential of the making of one into a running joke in the play turned movie Six Degrees of Separation (1993).
Grizabella the glamour cat is the marquee role but, in fact, it's a "featured" role since it's truly an ensemble show...
New York Social Diary RIP gossip columnist Liz Smith. I grew up reading her syndicated column *sniffle* This link is a remembrance of her by Denis Ferrara who was a very close friend and collaborator on her column Esquire the ten best comedies of the year including Ingrid Goes West, Thor Ragnarok, Girls Trip, and Lady Bird Independent Firing Kevin Spacey from House of Cards might be more difficult than Netflix thought, legally speaking Awards Daily the case for Michelle Pfeiffer. Give her her damn Oscar already Variety Zendaya is doing a film about the first African-American woman to graduate from Vassar (who passed as white to do so). It's called A White Lie
DeadlineWonder Woman 2 has moved to a November 1st 2019 release and Gal Gadot, contrary to reports over the weekend, is already locked in to star. Patty Jenkins will direct again. We hope there's no sophomore slump because the first one was so damn enjoyable/inspiring Variety keeps us updated with what's going on with Martin Scorsese's The Irishman which Netflix will stream. Variety, perhaps for click-bait purposes, acts like the theatrical release is in doubt but it is surely not; Scorsese would never sign a contract that doesn't give him at least some theatrical distribution so expect the usual limited release that no one goes to in theaters because its' also streaming for free on Netflix situation (upcoming with Mudbound) IndieWire Denis Villeneuve might direct Bond 25 but right now a relaunch of Dune is still his priority YouTube new trailer for The Greatest Showman. It's basically the old trailer with a couple more dialogue clips thrown in and some less tuneful than "This Is Me" song that Jackman is talk/singing. I'm still dying to see it because musicals for life, don'cha know /Film Quentin Tarantino's next movie is about the year of 1969 rather than the Charles Manson murders as previously reported. Let's hope it's better than that 1988 film 1969 which starred Winona Ryder and Robert Downey Jr
Off Screen Damn Joan a Barbie doll funeral Vulture every Taylor Swift song ever, ranked. Fun read even though i think it's silly and click-baity to claim "Look What You Made Me Do" is the worst song she ever wrote Theater Mania 11 Asian-American shows on stages this season across the country Playbill Lin-Manuel Miranda's ongoing effort to help Puerto Rico recover from Hurrican Maria
Exit Videos If only more directors could find a way to harness Kate Beckinsale's natural wit in movies. This video made me LOL so much. Watch every second of it, please. Below that is a Justice League if it were made in the 80s "opening credits" sequence. Cute and weirdly plausible which I'm not sure is a compliment to the movie which is about to open.
For today's link roundup ONLY articles that made me smile over these past few holiday-smeared days even if a few of them have that melancholy undertow.
Jezebel Rooney Mara refuses Taylor Swift's pleas to hang out Decider Joe Reid's top 16 of everything 2016 Idolator Deee-Lite's classic "World Clique" LP getting a deluxe reissue. I really cannot express how much I love that record
Adequate Man things that got stuck in people's orifices this year, via emergency room databases. LOL New York Times fascinating article about Judy Garland and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" from Meet Me In St Louis which is incidentally one of my favorite movies of all time. Like ALL time. The Establishment "General Leia Organa is the Hero We Need Right Now" Playbill Adorable. Gifted Broadway darling Laura Benanti will be doing a cabaret show with her mother Linda "The Story Goes On" this summer. Want tickets. Now! Interview talks to Lucas Jade Zumann about his 20th Century Women breakthrough and auditions as a teenage actor. Ah the endearing often beautiful precociousness of goodhearted showbiz kids. Consider...
It's not that I don't plan on pursuing acting forever, it's just that my ultimate goal is to be a meditation guide and spiritual healer, along with studying plant medicine and stuff like that. I want to be able to do that without profit. I want to be able to provide medicine for people without them having to pay for it, since I think that's something that reduces the value of the medicine. I think that having an acting career and a different source of income would allow me to help people without having to charge them.
Despite whichever exotic beach you may find yourself on, it’s simply impossible for anything remotely I Saw The Light-adjacentto win the crown for hottest celeb couple snapshot this week. Compare yourself to Rose Byrne – studio comedy’s reigning queen of deadpan and broad gesture alike – and her hammy man Bobby Cannavale, exuding effortless shimmer at Sunday’s Tony Awards, and you can’t help but look like someone’s demented aunts on vacation – no matter who you are. Behold.
We'll begin our daily year in review partying with some music.
The best music videos are like short films. Or, rather, all music videos are short films. The best of them can give cinematic thrills, though. Not that you'd want two full hours of most of them. Still and all, here are 15 favorites of the year. Apologies to two tremendous auteurs who dabbled in music video this year (P.T. Anderson with Joanna Newsom and Xavier Dolan for Adele) but if you're a legit auteur with great films under your belt, expectations run too high to excited when the video is only "good".
Disclaimer: Endorsement of videos is not neccessarily endorsement of songs though it helps, sure.
Suggestions for what we missed are welcome in the comments since it's easy to miss great ones if a less than spectacularly popular artist makes them...
Wednesday, July 25, 2018 at 10:25PM 
Betty Buckley in her Tony-winning role as "Grizabella, the glamour cat"By now you've heard the comic news (oh no wait, they're serious!) that "Cats" is being turned into a movie. The news took me so off guard that I was silent for five days. Cats got my tongue. (I'm sorry). The Andrew Lloyd Webber megahit from the 1980s was based on T.S. Elliott poems and as such it has no real story to speak of. It's basically a very successful song cycle (albeit with only one famous song "Memory") elevated by utter nonrealism in the form of humans pretending to be cats in campy makeup, tights, and acrobatic dancing. It's so hard to imagine as a movie that they made the potential of the making of one into a running joke in the play turned movie Six Degrees of Separation (1993). 
