Murtada Gives Thanks

Hello it's me. Murtada. Adele and Aidy Bryant doing Adele are two things I'm thankful for this year. There is more

I'm thankful for...

...Nathaniel and The Film Experience. For the readers and those who engage in the comments. For this lovely oasis of a community.

...all the feelings Carey Mulligan made me feel this year. On stage in Skylight. On screen in Far From the Madding Crowd and Suffragette.

...the emotional high Meryl Streep gave me with the last few minutes of Ricki and the Flash.

...Dee Rees finally making another movie after Pariah.

...for the girls of Girlhood singing and dancing to Rihanna's Diamonds.

there's more...

Click to read more ...

Chris Gives Thanks

Greetings from Chris! As the newest member of Team Experience, I'm so grateful to be able to share my point of view with you loyal readers in a space for our collective obsessions, unique observations, and global perspectives. Thank you all!

So, I am thankful for

...all of the vibrant and fully-realized women in minor roles that populate Brooklyn. Any one of them could have their own film, and I want Jessica Pare's sales manager to be my bestfriend/life coach.

..."This makes me wish they had been able to find my father's remains" in Trainwreck.

...Jason Robert Brown. We got The Last Five Years on big (but mostly VOD) screens this year, but if his masterpiece "Parade" was getting the big screen treatment, this list would be entirely comprised of that news.

more...

Click to read more ...

Jason Gives Thanks

Howdy folks it's Jason here - with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" we gave some thanks for two classic Christina Ricci performances (have you voted yet?) but it's a rich world with lots of good to great stuff in it so here are a few more things that have brought a big dumb smile to my big dumb face this year.

- For Getting On and the spectacular showcase it's given three crazy talented actresses (not to mention all the smaller roles they fill in with even more under-used gems), letting each of them be both hysterically funny and heartbreaking within the matter of milliseconds (and for introducing the phrase "anal horn" into my vocabulary - that one's a keeper!)

- For the venom that dripped off of Rose Byrne's every ace line reading in Spy (this scene in particular)

- For whoever is tailoring Chad Radwell's khakis on Scream Queens so they're more obscene than if Glen Powell was wearing nothing at all (don't get me wrong, he looks good that way too)

- For the way that Donald Sutherland says the word "PLUCKED" at Julianne Moore in Mockingjay Part 2, which will become my ringtone the minute the clip is available

- For the way that the camera made sweet love to every golden angle of Matthias Schoenaerts in Far From the Madding Crowd (runner-up: Alexander Skarsgard in Diary of a Teenage Girl)

- For the Film Society of Lincoln Center here in NYC, which has spent the last several months spinning from the New York Film Festival (Carol and The Lobster holla) to their annually wonderful "Scary Movies" program to the currently running Todd Haynes retrospective to the upcoming David Lynch & Douglas Sirk series that will swallow whole my holidays -- it's like they're programming one of my favorite screens in the city (at Walter Reade) just for me and me alone, and I like that

- Related to the previous, I am beyond thankful for having gotten to see Bernard Rose's 1988 gem Paperhouse on a big screen, something I've been waiting to do for 25 years

- For Greta Gerwig in Mistress America, who gave yet another stellar comic performance that we'll be grooving on decades from now, long after whatever wins the Best Actress trophy is remembered as much more than a statistic #justiceforcomicbrilliance

- For Catherine Keener's wig on Show Me a Hero

- For Golden Girls repeats (a perennial blessing but Keener's wig made me think of it)

- For Guillermo Del Toro's infatuation with oozing wounds and puffy sleeves and incest, maybe not in that specific order

- For Furiosa!

- For Nathaniel who generously opened up the doors to The Film Experience and let this lunatic in. And of course for all you wonderful people out there in the dark, indulging my whims week after week and offering up some of the funniest randomest and smartest retorts on the web - as a wise old woman in little girl ringlets once said you are all the wind beneath my wings. Fly away, you let me fly so high, oh you, you, you.

While Jason Adams wishes his parents had named him after the killer in the Friday the 13th movies, he takes comfort in the fact that on their first date they went to see The Exorcist. He writes lots of daily nonsense at My New Plaid Pants, mostly about movies and dudes in movies, not necessarily in that order.  [Follow Jason on Twitter]. All of Jason postings here.

More "About" Team Experience.

Manuel Gives Thanks

Manuel here. Has it really been a year since the last time I gave thanks (not coincidentally with another pic of Ms Blanchett)? I feel as though I should be giving thanks in front of some sort of food, so imagine I’ve come with a full dozen donuts from Donut Time.

I’m thankful…

- For unabashedly queer Christmas flicks featuring fab ladies.
- For having had the chance to see over twenty-four films at the New York Film Festival (and having been in the same room as Kate Winslet!!)
- For Wiig, in all and every incarnation. 
- For Joy and Joy (and consequently, Amy Poehler and Brie Larson).

- For all the delicious food on Please Like Me, a show you should all be watching!
- For Mad Men’s beautiful and perfect ending.
- For Twelve Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer, one of the greatest TV episodes this year.
- For Ben Whishaw, in all and every incarnation. (What a year he's had: Spectre, Suffragette, The Lobster, etcetera)
- For Sutton Foster, National Treasure, who was luminous in The Wild Party.
- For Adele’s laughter (and music).
- For Anna Kendrick, whose “Still Hurting” is still making me ache.

- For TV’s funny ladies. And really, that image doesn't do justice to the amazing talent on display this year (Gina! Constance! Tracee! Ellie! Amy! Ilana! Abbi! The entire Orange is the New Black cast!)

And lastly...

 - For all of you who comment and indulge me as I gab about gay things on HBO. Can you believe it's been a full six months since I started this cultural history? It definitely wouldn't be the same without the engaging and generous TFE community, so thank you all for following along!

Manuel Betancourt (News / HBO LGBT) 
An avid moviegoer, this academically minded Colombian wrote an entire dissertation on queer film fandom as, perhaps, a way of reconciling his inner critic and inner fan. Both thankfully, are given plenty of room to play here at TFE & at Manuel's own blog where he puts his queer theory training to work. His favorite film genre is "soul-crushingly depressing if beautifully lensed relationship dramas with juicy parts for actresses." Follow him on Twitter!

Beauty vs Beast: Give Thanks For Christina Ricci

Gobble gobble folks, Jason from MNPP here starting off Thanksgiving week wishing you and yours a happy holiday if Turkey (or Tofurkey) Day is your jam. Whenever I think of this holiday I feel a warm feeling in my belly, and it ain't from phantom mashed potato memories - it's because this holiday makes me think of Christina Ricci, and thinking of Christina Ricci always makes me feel warm and happy inside. I'm not the only one who associates the day with her - Nathaniel himself has done a post about her twin Turkey Day speeches in The Ice Storm and Addams Family Values before. It's a tradition, and it should become an annual association as far as I'm concerned. So pass that stuffing and let's spread the Ricci love...

PREVIOUSLY We're getting over our Hunger pains this week in more ways than one - the Hunger Games franchise is finito and as far as last week's Beauty vs Beast is concerned hand Effie the Victor Crown. She sashayed right over top of President Snow with over 80% of your votes. Said denny:

"As much as I think Sutherland is aces as President Snow, Banks was a downright revelation as Effie, completely disappearing into the role in a way that was so unexpected. So she gets my vote. Plus: "THAT. is MAHOGANY."