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.)
Oscar season is upon the horizon, dear readers. And the (un)official starting siren for the race ahead is the fall festivals. Venice kicks off tomorrow, overlapping with Telluride and Toronto in September, the comes New York and Chicago before the AFI Fest in November.
Our host Nathaniel will be heading out to Toronto in a few short days, so expect to see his responses during those days. While we can't all take in the glut of a major film festival, the fun of watching from home is hearing how the films on your radar are being received. So to let you know what we'll be waiting for, Team Experience has rallied our:
Top 15 Most Anticipated Films of the Fall Festivals
Films narrowly missing the list included Una, Voyage of Time, Loving, American Pastoral, and The Salesman. On our list you'll find five films directed by women and nine from non-US directors. We weren't at Cannes or Sundance, so not everything on our list is a world premiere (and we know you're still looking forward to those as well). Let's just say our #1 made like Katie Ledecky at the Olympics or Mo'Nique at the Oscars, but the list is still bursting with enticements. You can see previous posts on the festival lineups here and here. Chicago is just beginning to announce and Telluride doesn't announce their lineup until the start of the festival.
See what made our list and the festivals they will play after the jump...
DListed - Ralph Fiennes breaks out the dance moves at the Venice premiere of A Bigger Splash NYT Aretha Franklin suing to block festival showings of Amazing Grace, a recently finished documentary about the making of her album filmed in 1972. Variety looks at the swift progress of new distributor Broad Green Pictures which surprised everyone with its acquisition of and good numbers for A Walk in the Woods. They also have Learning to Drive in theaters The Globe and Mail an evening with Udo Kier (!)
AV Club in his continuing bid to not ever be remotely as cool / likeable as he once was Johnny Depp is joking about eating his dogs WSJ Magazine "A day in the life of Danny Strong" a profile of the diminutive Emmy-winning ever busy actor/screenwriter of Buffy and Girls fame behind the scenes of Empire's second season Yahoo Judy Carne (Laugh-In) dies at 76 MNPP Who Wore it Best: Luke Evans speedo edition PlaybillMagic Mike ....the Musical may start its stage run in Las Vegas rather than on Broadway Boy Culture Jean Darling of Our Gang silent serials has died at 93 Comic Alliance on the "very serious" "no-jokes" "grimace" of Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Good conclusion Variety Will Smith has replaced Hugh Jackman in Collateral Beauty and Rooney Mara has exited the project, too The Broadway Blog looks back at The Pajama Gang which got a movie version in 1957 MNPP Jake Gyllenhaal gifs from Demolition. Sweet medicine. I'm seeing this Thursday night. woooo
Oscar Season Cometh Awards Daily on emergent Telluride Oscar contenders from Black Mass and a lot of praise for Spotlight The Hollywood Reporter from Telluride: a lukewarm reaction to Carol (?), Black Mass's hilarious and haunting moments, great performances in Room, and not loving Suffragette
Image of the Day How perfect is this photograph of Chiwetel Ejiofor from Interview by Sølve Sundsbø? Director Cary Fukunaga interviews him so it's double-handsomness).
FUKUNAGA: You have how many movies coming out this year?
EJIOFOR: Well, there's Secret and The Martian, and, next year, Triple 9. And then I'll be shooting the Doctor Strange movie.
FUKUNAGA: It's exciting. And I've done one thing that whole time. [Ejiofor laughs]
Variety Dean Jones, Disney star of the 60s and 70s, dies at 84. RIP Variety National Medal of Arts recipients this week at the White House include Larry McMurtry, Stephen King and Sally Field! This is Not Porn Peter O'Toole playing cricket during The Lion in Winter Boston Globe Sienna Miller cut from Black Mass - oh the indignities of how many miniscule roles she gets Many Rantings of John thinks Game of Thrones will beat Mad Men to the Drama Emmy. Agree? I think I do. I've managed to keep my Mad Men expectations tamped down (but for Jon Hamm who is deserving times a thousand) and four Best Drama trophies for an 8 year series (F*** you F***ing two-part finale TV/movie trend) is nothing to complain about, you know? Variety raves Tom McCarthy's Spotlight with the "heftiest roles" belonging to Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo. Move it up your Oscar charts
AV Club Anne Hathaway on losing roles to early 20somethings-- hey she isn't talking about Silver Linings Playbook is she? Comics Alliance looks at those unboxed Star Wars: The Force Awakens toys. If you're into that sort of thing Pajiba tries to recast Galaxy Quest which is going to become a TV series now. Honestly, in some cases why recast? Missi Pyle needs to be a regular! MNPP more new pics from A Bigger Splash with Tilda Swinton. It looks more and more scrumptuous the more we see MNPP also believes that Jake Gyllenhaal nudity has been removed from Everest. Boo! Kenneth in the (212) Henry Cavill apologizes for his boner Towleroad Candis Cayne's Curb Your Enthusiasm experience. (I've never told you this but I love Candis Cayne -- since Wigstock in 1995 -- and am so glad she's getting more press via "I Am Cait".) Empire I somehow missed the news that Neighbors is getting a sequel (already filming) but maybe I blocked it out since Selena Gomez and Chloe Moretz are the antagonists this time for our hapless marrieds played by Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne? Variety on a new biography "Can I Go Now?" on outrageous superagent Sue Mengers agent to Barbra Streisand who is having quite a posthumous revival of late Time Out London Joaquin Phoenix on Irrational Man and why he turned down Doctor Strange
When I was younger I was probably a bit of a snob about [taking on blockbuster roles]. But they’ve gotten better. I’ve flirted with several of those films, having meetings and getting close, but ultimately it never felt like they’d really be fulfilling. There were too many requirements that went against my instincts for character. I’ve been spoiled. I’ve never had to make those compromises. I’ve not met a director yet with one of those films where we go through the script, they say: ‘You know what, fuck this set-piece, let’s focus on the character!’ I understand, but it’s best I don’t do it.
Video of the Day Check out this incredible mashup of movie characters in "Hell's Club" starring Al Pacino, Tom Cruise, and John Travolta. I especially like the Collateral on Cocktail staredown and unobtrusive Boogie Nights appearances
Telluride Lineup The high altitude festival kicks off today with the following 27 film lineup. TFE never attends Telluride because it is against our "deeply held religious beliefs" to pay for the privilege of giving a festival free publicity (unlike most A list festivals you have to pay for a press pass). Titles in red are also playing at TIFF some of which have already played Cannes or Berlinale and some of which will also play NYFF. Titles in blue are playing NYFF but not TIFF which is a roundabout way of saying we'll be seeing most of them within a month, just not this very weekend! They'll also be giving awards/holding tributes to director Danny Boyle (Steve Jobs), Rooney Mara (Carol) -- Nick made a funny -- and documentarian Adam Curtis (Bitter Lake) so Oscar Campaign Season has officially begun. Speaking of Rooney, here's the new poster for Carol. Unimaginative but pretty!
CAROL (d. Todd Haynes, U.S., 2015)
AMAZING GRACE (d. Sydney Pollack, U.S., 1972/2015)
ANOMALISA (d. Charlie Kaufman, U.S., 2015)
BEAST OF NO NATION (d. Cary Fukunaga, U.S., 2015)
HE NAMED ME MALALA (d. Davis Guggenheim, U.S., 2015)
STEVE JOBS (d. Danny Boyle, U.S., 2015)
IXCANUL(d. Jayro Bustamante, Guatemala, 2015)
BITTER LAKE (d. Adam Curtis, U.K., 2015)
ROOM (d. Lenny Abrahamson, England, 2015)
BLACK MASS (d. Scott Cooper, U.S., 2015) Why anyone would be seeing Black Mass at either fest when it opens on 09/18, I cannot say!
SUFFRAGETTE (d. Sarah Gavron, U.K., 2015)
SPOTLIGHT (d. Tom McCarthy, U.S., 2015)
RAMS (d. Grímur Hákonarson, Iceland, 2015)
MOM AND ME (d. Ken Wardrop, Ireland, 2015)
VIVA (d. Paddy Breathnach, Ireland, 2015)
TAJ MAJAL (d. Nicolas Saada, France-India, 2015)
SITI (d. Eddie Cahyono, Indonesia, 2015)
HEART OF THE DOG (d. Laurie Anderson, U.S. 2014)
45 YEARS (d. Andrew Haigh, England, 2015)
SON OF SAUL (d. Lázló Nemes, Hungary, 2015)
ONLY THE DEAD (d. Michael Ware, Bill Guttentag, U.S.- Australia, 2015)
TAXI (d. Jafar Panahi, Iran, 2015)
HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT (d. Kent Jones, U.S., 2015)
TIME TO CHOOSE (d. Charles Ferguson, U.S., 2015)
MARGUERITE (d. Xavier Giannoli, France, 2015)
TIKKUN (d. Avishai Sivan, Israel, 2015)
WINTER ON FIRE: UKRAINE’S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM (d. Evgeny Afineevsky, Russia-Ukraine, 2015)
Off Screen Vulture smart negative review of Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz. I like the album quite a lot more than this but salient points made Broadway Buzz Kathleen Turner to costar in "Would You Still Love Me..." Off Broadway. It's about gender reassignment surgery. But not her characters (sorry, Friends fans). Her child is considering it in the play. NYT a profile of a "fit-model". I include this because I had never heard of this job until I became friends some years ago with a girl who is one! (Hi, Jenn!) People get this job not from magazine-beauty but from having ideal/average proporations/measurements for clothes-sizes. It's always neat to realize that each industry has jobs you've never imagined that people can actually earn livings from. Gothamist on the best non Broadway theater companies in NYC i09 novelist Don DeLillo to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the National Book Awards this fall
I don't remember one thing about this article (other than an underlying 'screw Toronto!' praise Telluride' tone) due to these ten words. TERRIFYING. I've already tweeted this out but for those of you without twitter, it was important that you share the nightmare. Forgive me for destroying your peaceful slumber tonight.
Fall Film Season is upon us. And with it the 0 to 60 Oscar buzz. Even if you're blessed enough to have the means to jetset from Telluride to Venice to Toronto to New York, chances are you can't keep up with it all. I know I haven't been able to while juggling other demands. Before I fly up to Toronto on Wednesday for the last heady days of TIFF, I should do my best to catch up on the buzz and update those dusty Oscar charts. They're not yet a month old but.... 0 to 60, you know. The movies are upon us!
BUT FIRST LET ME VENT... So, they announced the winners of the honorary Oscars this week and as per usual, they've demonstrated their complete lack of respect for Actresses. There are so many fine actresses who never won Oscars who are still alive and yet year after year they ignore all of them to honor various men. I don't mean to take anything away from this year's talented recipients who all deserve a congratulatory round of applause (mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, stuntman Hal Needham, documentarian D. A. Pennebaker, arts advocate George Stevens, Jr.) it's just that the pattern is obvious and concerning.
Worse yet, when AMPAS does honor a woman, it's someone without a rich acting background (Hi, Oprah Winfrey). By the time this year's Oscars have wrapped, for a twenty year stretch from 1993 through 2012, thirty-eight people will have been given honorary Oscars or Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Awards and there are only three women among them (Deborah Kerr, Lauren Bacall, Oprah Winfrey). Oscar has a very real problem with women so if living screen giants like Maureen O'Hara, Doris Day, Catherine Deneuve, Mia Farrow, Eleanor Parker, Angela Lansbury, Gena Rowlands and other classic actresses ever want an Honorary prize, they might want to look into sex change operations or at least a tuxedo rental. Exasperating!
Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 8:30AM 
Oscar season is upon the horizon, dear readers. And the (un)official starting siren for the race ahead is the fall festivals. Venice kicks off tomorrow, overlapping with Telluride and Toronto in September, the comes New York and Chicago before the AFI Fest in November.
