Thelma & Louise, Pt 2: The Venetian Blindside

25th Anniversary Five-Part Mini Series Event 

When we left our heroines in Pt 1 of our 25th anniversary lookback at Thelma & Louise, they were fleeing the scene of their (first) crime but Louise needed a cup of coffee and to collect herself. Anne Marie & Margaret, our own superheroine duo in Los Angeles were grappling with the surprise killing of a would be rapist. Was it rage and pride that motivated Louise to shoot after she had already saved Thelma? It certainly provoked audiences but was there any other way to play the film's themes?

Louise is trying to plot their next move when we return to them, just before they jump back in their '66 Thunderbird - Editor

Pt 2 by Nick Davis

Now's not the time to panic. If we panic now, we're done for."

24:50 You could say this is the moment where Thelma and Louise shifts from a movie about two women fleeing some problems, at least temporarily, to two women solving a problem, probably permanently. Sure, I'll run to any movie where two women let their hair down, but I will fucking jet-propel myself to any movie where two or more women join forces to think their way out of a fix.  Well, not Mad Money.  And not The Boss.  Okay, there are exceptions.  But Thelma & Louise is the glorious rule, and this is where the drama of deduction, cognition, mutual examination, and deep self-reflection really kicks into fifth gear.

I should mention that I saw this film in the theater at 14.  Sheltered and naive about sex and violence, I didn't completely understand what rape was--which is to say, I think I learned it here.  I had never had a drink, much less been drunk, or even seen a margarita.  Ironically, the post-shooting moment when Thelma and Louise start spiraling into unknown territory was  when I started to connect with their world and feel common ground with the heroines.  I didn't know from waitressing jobs, fishing trips, honky tonks, convertibles, freeways, mesas, relationship troubles, shitty husbands, hitchhikers, horny moods, pistols, or structural misogyny, but I absolutely related to relying on wits to think your way out of a problem, and disclosing aspects of yourself in how you did so, and concealing parts of yourself at the same time.

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Team Experience - Favorite Presenter Moments from the Oscar Show

The Academy has announced the names of many presenters for the big night on February 28th. The list includes the best actress nominee who gave us this often used gifable funny moment, reacting to the makeup in The Wolfman (2010).

A few writers from The Film Experience share 7 more favorite moments from the presenters after the jump, including Meryl, Jim Carrey and Emma Stone...

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"To enter the mind of a killer she must challenge the mind of a madman."

Oh...um... If this door should fall down or, ha ha, anything else, this is the number for our Baltimore field office. 

I love Clarice Starling's little 'I mean... what could happen?' nervous chuckle just before she slides under that fateful "Your Self Storage" facility door, don't you?

Remember when we tag-teamed Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca? We're doing the same for Jonathan Demme's thriller classic Silence of the Lambs (1991) for its 25th anniversary next week. Be here Monday through Friday at 12:30 PM EST next week for each continuing chapter of the retrospective!

For maximum pleasure, if we may use such a word for this macabre event, rewatch 1991's Best Picture with us and join the conversation!

Farewell My Lovely: Team Experience Says (Figurative) Goodbyes to Oscar's Unsung

If you dwell too much on the negatives on Oscar Nomination Morning it can be so deflating that the rest of the season (just one month to go) can feel agonizing. Nevertheless we owe the movies and actors that enrich our lives a proper send off here now that Oscar has closed this particular chapter on them. But never fear. The Academy Awards are a fun time from a anecdotal calendar perspective and important in a history chapter kind of way but they're never ever ever the full book on the movies.

Here are achievements in film from Carol, Creed, Inside Out, and more that we here at TFE have no intention of saying goodbye to in reality, though we'll have to set them aside in a particular kind of way this month... 

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Benicio del Toro in Sicario
While Sicario received some recognition in the technical categories, it didn’t end up making the cut for any of the majors, including the acting awards.  That’s a particular shame in the case of Benicio del Toro, who quietly managed to steal the movie from his excellent co-stars but couldn’t quite nab a supporting actor nod from Oscar.  His character starts out as a taciturn, enigmatic presence, content to keep a low profile and deflect questions about why he’s there.  But as the movie unfolds, he starts to assume increasing authority and gradually morphs into an ominous, even terrifying figure of retribution.  It’s arguably somewhat lazy writing that he’s driven by personal revenge, yet del Toro, to his credit, doesn’t use this tried-and-true motivation as an excuse to chew scenery.  Instead, he delivers a remarkably controlled and powerful portrayal of a formerly moral man who’s corrupted by his single-minded pursuit—and knows it. -Lynn Lee

Inside Out
When the Academy decided to open up the Best Picture category, it was thought that more diversity would be represented. While there have been a few interesting choices since the decision, it is usually just more middle of the road prestige pics. That a genre film like Mad Max Fury Road was able to make it in today should be celebrated....

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Team Experience: Personal Favorite Oscar Nods

While I update the charts I asked the team to share their single favorite Oscar nomination of the day. And I hope you'll pick a single nomination to praise in the comments to. What most delighted you?

And now the favorite things hoopla begins... 

Mad Max: Fury Road - Best Picture
Back in May, critics and cinephiles, myself included, fell in love with Mad Max: Fury Road. It wasn’t just lust or infatuation. It was the kind of love that breeds doubt that others could see in the movie what we saw. Perhaps for that reason, a chorus of moans immediately went up about how not only is the Academy so often forgetful of Spring films, but that Mad Max was probably too fun, too action-y, too daring, hell, too feminist, for the academy to acknowledge it come Oscar season. Then, over the course of the summer, it didn’t even become the blockbuster many expected it would. Domestically speaking, it barely recouped its $150 million budget. (That may sound like a lot, but in the summer of “gigantosauri,” as Mark Harris called it, it was runtish.) How wonderful then today, to see a movie as exciting as it is smart get its due. - Kyle Stevens

Lenny Abrahamson, Room - Best Director
Every moment is so carefully considered. His touch is so gentle that he earns every tear he's coaxed out of us by patiently setting up character and context. He makes Room feel so big and the real world so oppressively small. You can feel that the film was constructed by someone with a deep well of compassion and a profound understanding of what presentation the story demands to impact us. I had hoped that he could make it in, but so rarely does the director's branch award solid quiet observation. - Chris Feil  

more after the jump... 

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