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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Emmys Review: Animated Program

by Christopher James

It’s the old guard versus the “new” wave of Netflix animation. I use “new” in quotes because there’s nothing “new” about Bojack Horseman or Big Mouth, except that the Emmys finally noticed them just last year. Can they win on their second try at the Emmys?

All three of their challengers have won before. Rick and Morty won its sole bid for Outstanding Animated Program in 2018. Meanwhile, Bob’s Burgers has consistently earned nominations for every year since its second season, winning in 2014 and 2017. And never count out the most senior show in a lineup. The Simpsons won this category last year, its first win since 2008. In total, the legendary comedy has been nominated twenty-seven times in this category, winning twelve of those competitions.

Since this is a tight race, it may come down to episode submission. Let’s take a look at the field:

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Let's give "Brave" its due.

alternate poster by Greg Ruthby Eurocheese

Pixar managed to sneak a film about motherhood into their canon by disguising it as their princess movie, and I have always wondered if that’s part of the reason it doesn’t get its due when we are discussing Pixar’s best films. Merida, our frizzy-haired princess, is nothing like her Disney counterparts. She takes after her father, a fun-loving, loud mouthed ruffian who loves his exaggerated stories. Merida wants a world of adventure, and she despises being held back from it because of her gender.

This leads to inevitable conflict with her mother Elinor, a queen saddled with a boisterous husband, a rebellious daughter and triplets that spend the entire film causing havoc. Let’s be honest – this could easily have been the stock mother character, side-eyeing all the shenanigans and cleaning up everyone’s messes. Elinor is smarter than that, though...

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National Pet Week: "Maggie" from The River Wild

Team Experience has been celebrating pets at the movies (and in our homes) all week. We'll wrap up Sunday. Here's Ginny O'Keefe... 

The best kind of pet in any movie is a loyal one. And it doesn’t hurt if the pet is cute. Also, a sprinkle of badassery is always welcome. All that is nicely packaged in a yellow Labrador retriever named Maggie in 1994’s rafting/crime adventure film The River Wild. For those who haven’t seen this Streep vs. Bacon gem, Meryl plays rafting expert Gail who is forced to take two criminals (John C. Reilly and Kevin Bacon) down a dangerous river all the while trying to protect her son, Rourke (Joseph Mazzello), and husband Tom (David Straithairn). Along for the trip is Maggie. From the get-go, Maggie is sweet, bubbly and you can tell she loves her humans deeply. She’s also good at digging up dead bodies in the woods (spoiler). Overall, she’s a good girl. But when s**t hits the fan, then we see how great of a girl she is...

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