Oscar History
Film Bitch History
Welcome

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.)

Follow TFE on Substackd

Powered by Squarespace
DON'T MISS THIS
COMMENTS

 

Keep TFE Strong

We're looking for 500... no 390 SubscribersIf you read us daily, please be one.  

I ♥ The Film Experience

THANKS IN ADVANCE

What'cha Looking For?
Subscribe
Monday
Sep192016

Say What? Justin Timberlake Filming New Woody Allen Film

Manuel here. Between Emmy night last night and TIFF's wrap, and the onslaught of New York Film Festival press screenings, let's start the week with some eye candy.  This is an image from the set of Woody Allen's latest film (as of yet, as usual, untitled) which stars Kate Winslet, Juno Temple, Jim Belushi, and JT himself. We don't know much about, but we can definitely begin answering Eric's question as to whether the "Can't Stop This Feeling" singer will bring the sexy back to Woody's films. Here he is in full mid-century lifeguard regalia:

Amuse us with dialogue or a caption in the comments. (And see more of the Trolls star in that 1950s romper here).

Oh, and while we're on the topic of Allen and pop stars, the trailer for his Amazon series, Crisis in Six Scenes, which stars Miley Cyrus and, more importantly for us actressexuals, Elaine May:

Sunday
Sep182016

Emmy Winners Open Thread

Veep and Game of Thrones defended their wins in the Comedy and Drama Series categories against first time competitors Black-ish and The Americans as well as the usual suspects in those categories (we can never have more than one fresh player, don'cha know) but the acting wins had some delicious surprises. Here are the winners.

And please also share your takeaways...

SERIES WINNERS

Outstanding Drama Series
Game of Thrones (2nd consecutive win)

Outstanding Comedy Series
Veep (2nd consecutive win)

Outstanding Reality Competition Series
The Voice (3rd win, 2nd consecutive)

Outstanding Limited Series
The People vs OJ Simpson: American Crime Story

Click to read more ...

Sunday
Sep182016

TIFF 2016: Winners & Review Index

TIFF just ended crowning La La Land with the coveted People's Choice Award (runners up: Lion & Queen of Katwe) and Jackie with their new juried prize. We haven't totally closed up shop - we've left the door ajar because there are a few articles left to come. It takes time processing all of this art that's rushing over us! Films give us so many feelings! The Toronto International Film Festival is my personal favorite film festival in the world:  easy to attend, friendly, well organized, less prohibitively expensive than other festivals. I saw and enjoyed 27 movies and would have seen a few more but for getting sick in the rain and rush. But the festival experience is such that even mediocre or bad movies can be remembered with positive associations.

Here are all the reviews and articles (thus far) in one place in case you missed any or would like a handy index.

my ten favorites from TIFF '16 (in no particular order)

Reviews from TIFF 16
The Apprentice - Singapore's Oscar submission
Arrival - Denis Villeneuve's gripping superbly crafted sci-fi journey
The Bad Batch - Ana Lily Armipour's cannibal wasteland satire
Blind Sun - Visual paranoia in Greece
Catfight - Anne Heche vs. Sandra Oh three times
Colossal - Anne Hathaway is a Kaiju in this cult oddity
The Commune -Thomas Vinterberg's wonderful 70s drama
Death in Sarajevo -Bosnia's politically fired up Oscar submission
A Decent Woman - Argentinian whatsit about a nudist maid
Elle - Paul Verhoeven & Isabelle Huppert serve up twisted cerebral comedy
Frantz - François Ozon's black & white drama of grief & guilt

Handsome Devil - coming of age at a rugby-mad boarding school
A Monster Calls - a visual fantasy about a young boy losing his mother
My Life as a Courgette - Switzerland's animated/foreign Oscar submission
Nocturnal Animals - Tom Ford's lurid meta movie
• Pyromaniac - a Norwegian thriller
(re) Assignment - Walter Hill's ill advised gender surgery noir
The Red Turtle - a mute magical beauty, sure to be Oscar-nominated
Sand Storm - an Israeli drama about female oppression and marriage
Santa & Andres -a Cuban political drama about LGBT oppression
Strange Weather - Holly Hunter returns!
The Wedding Ring - a Nigerian romantic fable 

Non Review Articles
A Cocktail with Sigourney - tall, beautiful, funny
Michael Fassbender Tribute - He has some regrets 
Moonlight's Oscar buzz - a note of caution 
Jackie Bought by Searchlight - watch out Oscar race 
• Hidden Figures Brunch Pt 1 - Glen Powell 

Still to Come
There are a few more articles coming, as stated and Oscar charts will be updated shortly to reflect all this new knowledge. We'll also have plenty of chances to discuss Moonlight, The HandmaidenLa La Land, and Jackie, (opening in that order October through December) since they'll all be up for either Oscars or our own prizes at TFE. I didn't review them properly (yet) because it's always hardest to write about films you love. You want to do them justice and festival schedules are rushed. But know this for now: they are all excellent and it's going to be an amazing Fall Film Season if any of the as yet unseen titles like Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk or Fences or Silence (if that even opens) deliver on this level, too. That's got to be reassuring after that truly terrible movie summer we all endured. I purposefully skipped Toronto titles that will also be playing at New York Film Festival (which begins September 30th) or are opening during it but soon we discuss these films, too: Julieta, Aquarius, Birth of a Nation, Neruda, Queen of Katwe, Magnificent Seven, Manchester by the Sea, Certain Women, My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea, Sieranevada, The Ornithologist, Toni Erdmann, Edge of Seventeen and Personal Shopper

Sunday
Sep182016

Box Office: John, Paul, Ringo, George... and Sully

What did you see at the movies this weekend? Or were you too busy bingewatching Emmy nominees before the ceremony tonight? Here's what was hottest at the box office. Other than Sully and the new Beatles Documentary Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years (which won the highest per screen average of the weekend on its 85 screens), "lukewarm" might be a better description for the new releases, none of which cracked 8 figures. Sorry Bridget! You've been gone too long.

TOP TEN
01 Sully $22 (cum. $70.5) Review
02 Blair Witch $9.6 NEW Review & Remembering Blair Witch (1999)
03 Bridget Jones's Baby $8.2 NEW Review
04 Snowden $8 NEW 
05 Don't Breathe $5.6 (cum. $75.3)
06 When the Bough Breaks $5.5 (cum $22.6)
07 Suicide Squad $4.7 (cum. $313.7) Review & Worst of Year
08 The Wild Life $2.6 (cum. $6.6)
09 Kubo and the Two Strings $2.5 (cum. $44.2) Review
10 Pete's Dragon $2 (cum $72.8)  Review

Next week Sully will surely be overthrown when Denzel and six other magnificents arrive in that shoot-em-up western.

Sunday
Sep182016

What the hell did I just watch? A festival quartet

Nathaniel R reporting from TIFF. The festival ends today (I expect La La Land to win the coveted People's Choice in this non-juried festival) so I'm about to hit the airport. I'll be scrambling to finish telling you about the cinematic adventures screened from all over the world in the next couple of days -- and yes update the Oscar charts with all this new information -- so we can wrap up. And then NYFF begins!

Here are three films that go completely off the rails and one film that stays perfectly on track though the protagonist goes off it. Each have as many cons as pros so they're mixed experiences, presented in preference order. So click on for Argentinian nudist comedies (NSFW), Anne Heche and Sandra Oh fist-fighting, Greek paraonia, and the latest from A Girl Walks Home At Night's director who has graduated to bigger budgets and famous actors.

Click to read more ...