Offline Travels, Michigan.

Just a heads up that I'm officially on vacation and maybe in an airplane as you read this. It's the mellow kind of vacay as I have no pennies to my name, which is good timing because i think my internet/cable is about to be shut off. Oopsie! (hey it was that or the air conditioning and I was melting!) I'll be (mostly) off line reconnecting with old friends and my siblings who I haven't seen in way way too long. Years.

Incidentally, though I will be in Michigan just as it's happening, it's mere coincidence that this is also the week of the Traverse City Film Festival. (I've never been but maybe they'll invite me as a special guest some year. winkwink.)

The festival was founded by Michael Moore and this year it's having its biggest year ever as it received a $20,000 grant from AMPAS which the board used to fly in various actors and filmmakers for a more robust festival experience. The wonderful French actress Sandrine Bonnaire (Rememeber Est-Ouest or Vagabond?) will be an honored guest, Matthew Modine is coming, and there's also going to be a centennial celebration for western stars Roy Rogers & Dale Evans with grandchildren speaking.

"Scout" will speakAnd get this, little "Scout" Academy Award nominee Mary Badham from To Kill a Mockingbird will speak to the festivalgoers after a special tribute screening of To Kill a Mockingbird. Damn, I wish I had known ahead of time. Have any of you midwestern readers ever been to this festival?

If you're in driving distance, why not check it out this week?

But back at home base...

It might be a quiet week at the blog / It might be a noisy one. I've left the TFE team in charge and a few new guests but I've opted out of the control freak position I normally take when I'm (mostly) offline. Whether there'll be 0 posts a day or 5 I could not say... it'll be a surprise to everyone! You like surprises, right?

I'll be back just as July ends and then we'll start gearing up for prestige film season in September. Whoooooo. We have so many plans. If we don't die of heat exhaustion first, we'll try and make them happen this fall.

xoxo, Nathaniel

Introducing Nick McCarthy

Hey everyone. I'm leaving for Michigan tomorrow but before I go and I wanted to introduce you to a new member of the team, Nick McCarthy who we see here to the left, obviously royally excited to start contributing. 

Just so you get a feel for him, here is how it goes with Nick. He gets most annoyed when themes are overexplicitly stated in film or literature. He vastly prefers motif and character to plot, and is prone to adore intimate, chatty, and plotless films that frequently elicit the reaction, "Nothing happened." [We know this feeling, too!] In addition to cinema, Nick enjoys pinball, exploring cities, food, and dive bars --which he claims is one of the only places, other than at the cinema, to learn as much about life.

In other Guest Blogger news, I've invited two past Readers of the Day (that series will return soon. I miss it) to fill in since I'm on vacation next week. You've heard from Ester Bloom before who wrote that fun piece on Mia Wasikowska vs. Saoirse Ronan and you'll also hear from Paolo.

Say hello to the newbies! (We're bulking up as we move into the best Oscar season yet. At least we hope so. The movies better deliver.)

"Hit Me..." Last Three Episodes!

Hit Me With Your Best Shot, the series in which we look at pre-selected features and choose the best (okay our favorite) shot has gotten a bit wobbly this past month (queue problems, off-blog deadlines) for which you have our hearty apologies. Here is a revised Season 2 finale schedule. We promise to stick to this one since the holiday craziness (Gay Pride / 4th of July) will have passed. Just three more episodes...

• Wed July 6th: Luchino Visconti's ROCCO & BROTHERS (1960)
• Wed July 13th: ALIENS (1986)  25th anniversary spectacular theme week!
• Wed July 20th: REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955) for Natalie Wood's bday

Please considering joining us. Spread the word to fans of Lt. Ellen Ripley or red jackets. Those weeks we did Beauty & The Beast and Moulin Rouge! were so fun. The more blogs, tumblrs and sites the merrier.

P.S. And a round of applause for all the previous participants this season. Please check out these blogs and add them to your reading queues if you like them: Movies Kick Ass, Awww the Movies, Film Actually, Antagony & Ecstasy, Stale Popcorn, Pussy Goes Grrr, Cinephilia & Sass, The Entertainment Junkie, Ahora, Victim of the Time, Film Misery, Amiresque, Encore Entertainment, His Eyes Were Watching Movies, Against the Hype, Serious Film, Tom Clift, Movies and Other Things, Okinawa Assault, Cheap Seat Reviews, Kyle Unscripted, Dial P For Popcorn, Intafada, Being Norma Jeane, Mosaical Musings, Derrek's Tumblr, Moved by a Screen Dream, Sketchy Details, Sorta That Guy, A Blog Next Door, Animation Revelation, Awards Nazi, The Red Headed Invasion, musicinephile, Melanie Lynskey, The Owls Are Not What They Seem and Missemmamm.

Movies are meant to be a communal experience. Thanks for getting that. If you've always meant to join in the screen-cap discussing fun, why not finish out the season with us battling acidic aliens or teen angst 1950s style? 

Are You New?

Professor (Nathaniel) R.My psychic powers tell me that some of you are new.

You know how some television series make it nearly impossible for newbies what with their complex mythologies, beloved idiosyncracies and verbal/visual shorthand for long running threads? I sometimes worry about new readers here at The Film Experience. Do they slip away in confusion? A friend once told me that TFE is way too complex with its hiearchies of heroines and love-to-hate-them "villains" that you'd need a user guide, or perhaps a castle map to navigate the throne rooms and dungeons of the cinephilia.

I don't know about all that but IF you're new, please say so in the comments and welcome!

The easiest way to get acquainted would be to check out the Best of... posts, top ten lists, Oscar coverage, or click around to regular programming like Hit Me..., "First and Last" quizzes, Unsung Heroes, or Curio. In the sidebar to your right you can find links to the most recent reviews. We've been on a bit of an animation kick lately. Oh and mutants.

Nathaniel -- sorry to refer to myself in the third person (it happens) -- also really likes to draw which is not something you get much of on other movie sites.

Welcome and stick around. Try us out on your preferred reader feed.

Thank You From The Birthday Boy.

How old is The Film Experience?

The Film Experience is so old that when we started  Angelina Jolie was more famous for bloody antics (necklace vials, t-shirt scrawls) than for her humanitarian efforts. She had not yet collected or birthed any of those adorable children!

TFE is a dinosaur of the internet, yes, but it's a cute plant-eating one that never did anyone but Hilary Swank any harm! This dinosaur would like to live to see the next stage of human, animal, actress, mutant and movie evolution. You can prevent the meteor of webxtinction by donating just a couple dollars a month. It's like universal health care (TALKING ABOUT MOVIES SAVES LIVES!). If everyone reading pitched in a teensy bit nobody would notice the money and everyone would be healthier and happier and this service they need (heh) would always be available to them.

I promise to shut up about this real soon and thank you if you've already donated. You are the few, the proud, the sexy, the patron saints of The Film Experience community. (Some international readers are having trouble donating and some are not. I'll look into this.)

a cup of coffee : $2.50USD - monthly I'll get the popcorn : $5.00USD - monthly movie ticket on me! : $10.00USD - monthly

I ♥ The Film Experience

If you can spare the price of a cup of coffee (or more if things are good for you financially) once a month, please to consider it. If you're not comfortable with a recurring cup of coffee or tub of popcorn, why not a one time donation. It is Nathaniel's birthday after all... (Yes, I'm shameless. It's 2011) and I have boring needs like: computer maintenance. Example: I have to take both my desktop and my laptop in for maintenance / memory boosting next week.

Those spinny wheels on both Macs are just killing me and the Tek Serve people think my hard drive is going wobbly. Slowing me down soooo much.

BUT WHY DOES TFE NEED MONEY? All websites are free.

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