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.)
Jose here. In the ancient Albanian tradition of “burrnesha”, a woman takes a vow of chastity in exchange for having all the freedom of a man. Once she swears eternal virginity in front of a group of elders - all men of course - she is allowed to live in the community under a new male name that also brings benefits that will allow her to carry guns, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, work, play music and be in the company of other men. By the time we meet Mark (Alba Rohrwacher) in Sworn Virgin, he has pretty much forgotten who Hana, her former identity, was. Feeling incomplete, he decides to leave his isolated village to visit his sister (Flonja Kodheli) in Italy, where he discovers he is living within a prison of his own making. Sworn Virgin is director Laura Bispuri’s debut film, but one wouldn’t guess that from the boldness with which she tells her story and especially because of the performances she gets from her actors. Rohrwacher, who is on a roll, having premiered Virgin at the Berlin Film Festival in 2015 after winning the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for Hungry Hearts, a few months before, gives her finest performance to date. I had the opportunity to talk to her about her recent films (both Virgin and Matteo Garrone’s Tale of Tales open this week in New York), working with Bispuri and some of her favorite actresses.
Baby Tatum and dad RyanToday is the 75th birthday of early 70s cinema's golden boy Ryan O'Neal. Happy Birthday Father o' Tatum. The picture to the left is just the cutest thing ever, don't you think? If not you don't cherish and worship and love to revisit Paper Moon (1973) in which the real life father & daughter stars played a fictional father and daughter, and played it to perfection in one of the greatest movies of that enormously fine cinematic decade.
But today, perhaps, younger readers don't really know Ryan O'Neal. In today's celebrity parlance I would suggest that he's something like a cross between Ryan Phillipe (all-american golden boy, super young dad as celebrity parenting goes, who remains more famous for his personal life than his career) and Leonardo DiCaprio (I shall explain). After coming to fame on television's Peyton Place (1964-1969) O'Neal was Oscar nominated for the #1 box office behemoth Love Story (1970) which we presume was something like the Titanic of its day. A bold statement you say? Perhaps not so bold...
Team Experience is at the Tribeca Film Festival. Here's Jason on Detour.
You know what will make me feel like it's the late 1990s again real quick? (If you answered "There's a Clinton in the White House" you're a little ahead of yourself, but just by a few months.) What will make me feel like it's the late 1990s again real quick is watching a movie about verbose criminals getting themselves into hyper-violent timeline-warping shenanigans - Things To Do In Denver When You're 8 Heads In A Duffel Bag; that ol' Pulp Fiction addiction.
Do you guys remember that time Oliver Stone tried to out-Tarantino Tarantino (even though Tarantino was always really trying to out-Stone Stone) and made U Turn? That's the Tarantino-ish that Detour reminded me the most of. And U Turn's not a bad thing to be reminded of! U Turn is nuts, in a never not entertaining way! And there are chunks of Detour - which tells the story of a law student (Tye Sheridan) enlisting the aid of some do-badders (Emory Cohen and Bel Powley) in a plot against his step-father - that feel vibrant with that same sort of something-borrowed storytelling flair. Director Christopher Smith (already responsible for the tremendously under-valued thrillers Severance and Triangle) employs real visual wit, and busts out all the toys from the toy-box (De Palma lover that I am I cannot resist a split-screen) to pop and pizazz us.
But the film ultimately doesn't have the conviction of a Stone working his own mirrored riff (much less First Tier Tarantino) and it's more the fault of Smiths' script than it is of direction - the characters are never Characters, Capital C for Characters, like they need to be for something this stylized to take. These are all good performers (even in a role this underwritten you can't take your eyes off of Bel Powley; she is the real deal) but Detour never quite stops feeling like kids play-acting at big people parts. (And kids play-acting Tarantino can work; I have seen Go. We have all seen Go!)
Kieran, here. Politics, even at their most abstract are ultimately personal. At its best moments, HBO's Confirmation directed by Rick Famuyiwa’s (Dope) and written by Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich) understands this. Anita Hill’s (Kerry Washington) 1991 allegations of sexual harassment against Justice Clarence Thomas (Wendell Pierce) on the eve of his confirmation to the US Supreme court is a subject about which few who can remember are indifferent. Who was lying and about what? What did the Anita Hill’s testimony say about the positions of gender, race and political alignment in this country? These are the kinds of questions that evoke vociferous, often angry opinions and the film doesn’t offer up easy answers.
The truth of whether Clarence Thomas sexually harassed Anita Hill is secondary. Thomas, as rendered by Pierce in what is actually a small role with few spoken lines, is a beleaguered public figure, forced to defend himself and deal with the consequences these allegations had on his personal and professional life. I say this not to imply that Thomas is innocent (I’ve always thought he was guilty). But, as is often the disgusting and sad truth about men who commit these crimes, they’re not always technically lying when they maintain their innocence under oath. In order for it to truly be a lie, these men would have to believe that they did anything wrong in the first place. Whatever mental gymnastics Clarence Thomas had to go through in order to get to this place, his own words and Pierce’s subtle but precise performance clearly illustrate that Thomas does not believe he was guilty of any wrongdoing. When the film is examining the implications of a culture that allows men to make these leaps and how it turns victims into villains, it shines and Pierce is a key component of what makes this element works. He opts not to turn Thomas into a monster for it’s not the “monsters” who violate women and irrevocably damage lives. They are simply people, a much truer and scarier fact to fathom.
Nathaniel, back from the Nashville Film Festival where I juried on the "New Directors" competition. More on that once our awards are announced. Until then, I'm under hush order. But let's catch up on all sorts of movie & entertainment news that happened over the past handful of days that we didn't cover here.
• Lin-Manuel Miranda won the Pulitzer for his Broadway smash Hamilton and, giddy squeal, The New Yorker's television goddess Emily Nussbaum won the Pulitzer for criticism. If you haven't read her, you must. She's just wonderful. • The Golden Globes have clarified their rules for what drama and comedy mean in a probably futile attempt to get campaigns to stop trying to game the system. • I forgot to mention that teen superhero duo Cloak and Dagger are getting their own TV show (yay! always loved them in the comic books) but Kate Beaton has two words for you "tit windows" • Elizabeth Banks plans to direct a revival of the Charlie's Angels franchise and she's also playing the villain in the new Power Rangers movie resulting in a horrifying photo. • Beloved bossy TV mom Doris Roberts has died. The supporting actress won 4 Emmys for her role on Everybody Loves Raymond and also had memorable roles on St. Elsewhere (another Emmy win), Remington Steele, and Angie. She was not only well loved by audiences but co-stars too. • Carrie Fisher has officially blamed George Lucas for inspiring her writing career because his Star Wars dialogue was so terrible • Johnny Depp and Amber Heard made some sort of weird apology video for that dog business in Australia • Adapting animated features into Broadway musicals isn't just for Disney anymore. Anastasia (1997) becomes a stage musical this summer in London and is eyeing the 2016/2017 Broadway season • There are some who are suspicious that this news is not really official but Nicole Kidman is supposedly returning to Broadway this fall with Photograph 51, after its London run • Industry people got really excited about 3D high frame rate footage from Ang Lee's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walkat a Future of Cinema Conference • The Academy is STILL trying to explain their new voting rules. So do we get it now?
RANDOM CASTING & DATE SHIFTS No links just news ICYMI: Daisy Ridley will headline a new film from Marielle Heller, director of Diary of a Teenage Girl called Kolma, a 'mystical' romance; Willem Dafoe joined Justice League (role unknown); Walton Goggins has replaced Joe Manganiello (they're so alike. um...) in History Channel's forthcoming Navy SEALs series Six; Naomi Watts will headline the Netflix psychological thriller series Gypsy (not the musical!) in which she plays a therapist who gets mixed up in her client's lives; Kurt Russell & Kate Hudson will star in the TV series Barbary Coast, a period drama about the gold rush in the 19th century; Kate McKinnon may star in the new back-to-school comedy Senior Year; Nicole Beharie, who was so amazing in Shame (2011) and then starred in TV's Sleepy Hollow, will play the lead female role in the remake of 90s thriller Jacob's Ladder; The Golden Globes will take place on January 8th, 2017 this coming awards season.
THIS JUST IN Slightly fresher news before we go
Two of Broadway's Funniest Ladies: Laura Benanti & Jane Krakowski, in "She Loves Me"
• Doug Kraner, a production designer on TV's "Gotham" and several movie hits including Uncle Buck, Sleeping with the Enemy and Enough, has passed away. • A24 is on board a new James Ponsoldt (Spectacular Now) project a true story drama based on the book "I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution" • The Tonys are coming. The Tonys are coming. That means precursor madness. Yes, as with the Oscars there are many precursors to the Tony Awards. The Outer Critic Circle Nominees and Drama League have already announced their nominees (with Drama Desk to come next week). Since all the groups have slightly different rules for eligibility Hamilton is out of the way for some of the precursors (though obviously not for Tony) since it was eligible while it was Off Broadway last season. With the 800 lb gorilla caged (for the moment) that means good news for other musicals: She Loves Me, American Psycho, Bright Star and The Color Purple all appear strong going into the Tony nominations. The schedule is as follows:
P.S. Meryl Streep also recently spoke at the "Women in the World" summit and at the end of her speech she sings a snippet from Hamilton making this an even better week for Lin-Manuel Miranda and the upcoming Tony Awards.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016 at 6:00PM 
