Happy Christmas. How's Your December Going?

May you get the gift you want the most tomorrow or today (depending on when you're reading this)! Or in the next week. Don't rush Santa. Since the next two months we'll be jampacked with awards festivities televised and otherwise -- and the Film Bitch Awards comin' up real soon and daily -- there will be precious little time to recap. So herewith an ICYMI roundup so that Team Experience can take a 24 hour break for gifting and egg-noggy boozing before we're back to the holiday-movie-Oscar-buzzing-year- in-review madness. If you've only recently been tuning in for awardage and are catching up with the year's movies frantically and wanting to read about them, catch up!

Don't Miss These Dozen Baked December Goodies
• Jessica Chastain - an interview with Miss Sloane herself
• Golden Globe Gaiety - imaginary parties with the nominees
• La La Land Fact - It's an absolute rarity 
• Where is Kyra? - and how should we celebrate La Pfeiffer's return?
• The Wolf Man (1941) - all movie werewolves are in its debt
• The Ladies Who Lush - cheers to these wine-loving ladies
• Rogue One - reviewed
• Edward Scissorhands (1990) - a Christmas classic
• Yes No Maybe So - Spider-Man: Homecoming AGAIN?!?
• Asghar Farhadi Returns - an Oscar finalist again for The Salesman 
• Avocado's Hate-F***ing Other Avocados - aka the Makeup Oscar finalists 
• Florence Foster's Aesthetic -from ersatz Valhallas to potato salad bathtubs

Happy Holidays from Ava Gardner and The Film Experience!

Newish or Brand New in theaters but some we wrote about long ago in case you're like "what about..." Jackie, La La Land, Fences, 20th Century Women, Lion, Julieta, Neruda, Toni Erdmann, and Live by Night. 

Highlights from Previous Months
Jan | 88th Oscars | March | April | May | June | July | Aug | Sept | Oct | November

Most Coveted Things from 2016 Films

Year in Review. Every afternoon, a new wrap-up. Today Murtada with a wish list...

What did you covet the most on the big or small screen this year? Was it a costume, a prop, or even a place or living thing? Here is my personal list in case you haven't yet completed your Christmas shopping.

Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard’s white linen costumes in Allied
Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard play a Canadian and a French spy respectively, who meet in Casablanca. They take an excursion to the desert outside the city right before completing their very dangerous assignment. They practise shooting with firearms, they bond, they fall in lust. All the while wearing gorgeous white linen on khakis. It must be the gorgeous desert. Or maybe the longing. Or could be just how breezy and stylish these linen costumes are.

Lunchboxes, records, and living things after the jump...

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On Loss and Letting Go in 2016

Year in Review. Every afternoon, a new wrap-up. Today Steven Fenton on grief at the movies... 

The loss of a parent is one of life’s great tragedies. As long as humans have been telling stories, they have reflected on the trauma of this loss. It’s one of few facets of life that almost every person will experience. So it’s no surprise that we, as a society, have explored this grief across generations and media, from ancient epics to pop songs. We’ve turned the subject over in our hearts and minds, examining it from every angle. The threat of losing a parent is a concept and anxiety we’re actually raised with --children are introduced to countless stories featuring orphaned heroes who find strength in their loss, and transform their pain into triumph.

2016 was a tumultuous year for many of us, and our on screen avatars suffered as well. My mother passed away in January, and shortly after that, I watched as House of Cards’ Claire Underwood and Veep’s Selena Meyer lost their mothers in remarkably similar ways (played to very different effect)...

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Subtitles Fading But These Soldiers March On...

Year in Review. Every afternoon, a new wrap-up. Today an exhaustive list of how foreign films performed at the US box office...  

Perhaps no film is a more perfect encapsulation of the 2016 reality for foreign films in the US marketplace than Netflix's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon sequel. The first was an international theatrical phenomenon and a true blockbuster delivering over $100 million in the United States alone. The sequel sixteen years later was in English and went straight to streaming. 

Despite the inhospitable 21st century climate nowadays, specialty distributors fight on to deliver some variety to the US marketplace. Here's how they fared this year. These numbers were pulled from Box Office Mojo and we tried to be as thorough as possible (though we did skip documentaries and animated features which are sometimes screened in both dubbed and subtitled versions in the same marketplace)

TOP 100 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS FOR 2016
By US Box Office Gross - final numbers. Title links go to reviews. 

01 Dangal $12.3 (India)

02 No Manches Frida $11.5 (USA) available to stream on IMDb

03 Sultan $6.2 (India)
Bollywood films account for a big portion of each year's foreign film grosses in the US. Up until the release of Dangal at Christmas, none were mightier for most of 2016 than the sports drama starring Salman Khan (pictured above).

Oscar Finalists, Isabelle Huppert, and buzzy Korean hits after the jump...

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AFI & AARP - which films are showing up on every top ten list?

Another couple of days, another couple of lists. After the jump the AFI and the AARP lists and a couple notes about which films are coasting through precursor season without a care in the world. Consensus: a powerful tool if you can grab it...

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