Back to the Movie Theaters: Lynn Sees "Gunda"

By Lynn Lee

a sad strip mall interior for happy experiences

Until yesterday, the last movie I saw in a theater was Emma – on March 7, 2020, just before the reality of COVID-19 descended on me and most people I knew.  If you’d told me that the next time I’d be in a movie theater would be nearly 14 months later, in a tiny, crappy arthouse joint in a suburban Virginia strip mall, and that the movie would be an idiosyncratic black-and-white documentary about a brood sow, I probably wouldn’t have believed you.  And yet that is exactly where I found myself Sunday afternoon.  

It wasn’t the return to moviegoing I’d envisioned since my husband and I got our second Pfizer dose in early April...

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Crowe and Koala

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Top Ten: Greatest Onscreen Pigs

Did you know that it's National Pig Day? Now you do! The day was created back in 1972. To celebrate we thought we'd list the ten best screen pigs of all time with apologies to Pua from Moana and more. If we've forgotten an essential pig, we trust you'll let us know in the comments.

TEN BEST SCREEN PIGS

Let's start with a beauty from a doomed production...

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Interview: Makeup artist Denise Kum on working with Gong Li and Mulan's epic battles

by Nathaniel R

Gong Li and Denise Kum on the set of Mulan

Mulan may have been released in September but some of its most memorable looks -- battle scarred villains, matchmaking painted faces, Gong Li's masked face and taloned hands, and Mulan's hair flowing in battle -- are still remarkably easy to conjure up with great clarity months later. We were thrilled to speak with its gifted makeup artist Denise Kum about her career and work on the Disney epic.

We spoke over Zoom while she was in Prague completing work on a World War II drama called Operation Mincemeat before diving into full fantasy with Amazon's forthcoming series The Wheel of Time based on Robert Jordan's bestsellers. Kum's work stretches from lush period pieces, through grounded dramas, to high fantasy and superhero franchises. She likes to genre hop. One consistent throughline in her work, though, is her frequent collaborators. "I've worked with Niki since I was very young," she says with obvious love for Mulan's director Niki Caro. Mulan was also a reunion with the costume designer Bina Daigeler who she's known for years and production Designer Grant Major "I've know him since I was, god, 18 or 19. He's actually the godfather of one of my daughters." This tight-knit filmmaking family's shorthand was helpful on Mulan though she's quick to add that "That's an unnatural situation for a film of this scale."

[this interview has been edited for length and clarity]

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Year in Review: Ten Most Memorable 2020 Screen Animals

by Nathaniel R

Over the Moon

We have a few big 2020 Year in Review pieces left to go but how about something fluffy and little tonight like "Bungee" in Over the Moon (pictured above).. or if not always that then slippery but cuddly, or dangerous and otherwordly. We polled Team Experience for their favourite critters of the year onscreen and here were the results (sort of). We'd intended to do the usual countdown thing but the results were truly all over the place with 20+ animals cited and not much in the way of consensus. So rather than attempting little blurbs and a ranking we'll let these dozen animals speak for themselves. Not that they can speak. Which was your favourite screen creature in 2020?

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