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.)
It's October, so Manuel is here trying to get into theHalloweenChristmas spirit. Wait, isn’t it a little early? Perhaps, but these three films are hoping to get you excited about the jolly holidays.
Hope away, holiday movies, but it's hard to be remotely excited about any of these. Still, we're glad Lizzy Caplan & Mindy Kaling (The Night Before), and Toni Collette & Alilson Tolman (Krampus) are getting work. Though, as actressexuals go, Love the Coopers is where it’s at: Diane Keaton, Amanda Seyfried, June Squibb, Olivia Wilde, and Marisa Tomei.
You can check the trailer below...
Bring your own Yes No Maybe So (BYOYNMS) in the comments. And yes, those comments can mostly be about how three time Oscar player Marisa Tomei deserves better films.
Did you hear that the now 18 year old True Grit and Pitch Perfect 2 star has released a single? With "Love Myself" she becomes the first Oscar nominee to launch a music career since... um... wait, wait, it'll come to me.
Bruce Willis, Brie Larson, and Linday Lohan tried it years ago but they weren't Oscar nominees. Eddie Murphy and Kim Basinger did it briefly in the 80s but that was long before Oscar paid them any mind. Russell Crowe did it before becoming a movie star and kept on doing it. Jamie Foxx started recording years before the musical biopic Oscar win in Ray. Jared Leto abandoned the movies for quite a long time to be a rock star but that was also before Oscar love. Most recently Scarlett Johansson started a recording career but Oscar has yet to notice her. (sigh). Post Oscar Examples will come to me after we get back to our topic.
Anyway... Hailee has gone for an "I Touch Myself"/"She Bop" style single what with that Self-Service tank in the video for "Love Myself"
Hey, you'd turn yourself on, too, if you were Oscar-nominated for your debut film. Do tell us what you think of the video in the comments, won't you? (You may also recall that Hailee was the star of my choice for "best shot" from Taylor Swift's Bad Blood video)
Previous Actors To Launch Music Careers After Their Oscar Nominations I'd love this to be a comprehensive list but I'm sure I missed someone. Help if you can...
2000s
Minnie Driver's latest album "Ask Me To Dance" Toni Collette. Oscar nominated for The Sixth Sense (1999). Released one album "Beautiful Awkward Pictures" in 2006. You can also hear her great pipes on the Original Broadway Cast Album of Michael John Lachiusa's "Wild Party" Minnie Driver. Oscar nominated for Good Will Hunting (1997). Released her debut album "Everything I've Got in My Pocket" in 2004. Beautiful voice. She's since released two more albums. Juliette Lewis. Oscar nominated for Cape Fear (1991). Juliette and the Licks released their debut album in 2004 with their first hit "You're Speaking My Language" - damn that track was goood. She's since released three more albums. I miss her music. I listened to "Uh Huh" so much in 2010!
1980s
Isabelle Adjani. First Oscar nominated for The Story of Adele H. (1975). After a Cannes win for 2 roles and two Cesars for best actress in the early 80s she released her only album "Pull Marine" in 1983. Supposedly Luc Besson directed the only music video but it doesn't seem to exist on YouTube. *sniffle*
1970s
Bette Davis. Oscared twice over in the 1930s, she continued to rack up nominations through 1962's Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. She's a bit of a black sheep in this list though because she wasn't trying to start a recording career with her only album. She was nearing 70 years of age when producers asked her and she cut the album "Miss Bette Davis" which includes a few movie songs she's already sung onscreen.
1960s
Patty Duke. She won the supporting actress Oscar at 16 for her co-lead role in The Miracle Worker (1962). Afterwords she got her own television show, recorded albums and had two top forty hits.
1950s
Sal Mineo. First Oscar nominated for Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Released one pop album in 1957 at the heighth of his teen idol fame, from which he even had a top ten single. After that it was all acting again and another nomination for Exodus (1960).
Manuel here. It’s been a great couple of weeks for female-led films. We talked about Kate Winslet's The Dressmaker, Brie Larson’s upcoming Room, Judy Greer and Natasha Lyonne’s Addicted to Fresno, Julianne Moore and Ellen Page’sFreeheld, and now Miss You Already. I had to dive into TFE’s archives because I knew we’d discussed this Drew Barrymore/Toni Collette film before. Turns out I talked about Catherine Hardwicke’s film when a pic of a fully bald Toni went around last fall (she plays a woman who gets diagnosed with cancer). The trailer pretty much plays like a clip-reel of the entire film, but that shouldn't deter us from putting it through our patented Yes No Maybe So trailer evaluation after the jump...
Breaking News: Someone finally gave Toni Collette something to act onscreen again. She has lines and emotions and everything. (Tammy and Hitchcock -- never forget!). But I'm jumping too far ahead since Glassland takes some time to come around to her story. When we finally get to it she all but dares you to listen with hostile self-pity in an amazing and amazingly lengthy monologue. [More...]
Manuel here catching up on a female-helmed, female-centered film coming our way in 2015 (one hopes!).
Have you guys heard about Miss You Already? The pic starting shooting in London just this past month and it stars none other than Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette. The film is directed by Catherine Hardwicke, whose filmography seems endlessly baffling to me: Thirteen (2003), Lords of Dogtown (2005), Nativity Story (2006), Twilight (2008), Red Riding Hood (2011), and something called Plush (2013; anyone seen it? IMDB tells me it stars Cam “Amos cookies” Gigandet). I mean, I know female directors have a hard time getting passion (or any other kind of) projects made, but can someone explain to me this set of films? I guess one could make a thorough-line about Hardwicke’s interest in young women’s lives, which makes Miss You Already an interesting departure.
The film centers on Milly and Jess “who have been best friends since childhood. Their friendship is put to the test as Jess struggles to have a much longed-for baby and Milly finds out she has breast cancer.” Barrymore gets the struggling mom-to-be role while Collette gets the cancer-stricken role. Maybe it’s the combination of these two endlessly watchable stars (and the semi-serious plot description), but I can’t be the only one who’s getting a Beaches vibe from this, or am I? Maybe it’s the dearth of two-female led films to choose from as a comparison (we usually see them in packs of three), though of course both Drew and Toni have great entries on that mini-genre what with Grey Gardens and In Her Shoes.
Then again, we also need to talk about that supporting cast: on top of Dominic Cooper (!) and Paddy Considine (currently in Pride), they’ve just announced the addition of Tyson Ritter (he of “The All American Rejects” fame). So many pretty boys for our leading ladies! Plus Jacqueline Bisset is playing Collette’s mother. Okay, so this cast may just be as eclectic as Hardwicke’s filmography.
Oh, and did I mention Toni shaved her head for it? She proudly showed it off earlier this week on People's Style watch:
Is a Barrymore/Collette film one of your fan-fic ideas come alive? What do you think of Toni's new look (especially given how beautiful her locks look in that earlier pic)?
Monday, October 5, 2015 at 11:04AM 
