Ava DuVernay, the Year's Best Christmas Gift

One of TFE's cinematic heroes Ava DuVernay -- she made our top ten list with both of her recent films in 2012 & 2014 respectively -- had a tremendous year in 2015. She kicked it off with a Golden Globe Best Director nomination, a hit film in theaters (Selma) and she ended it immortalized in collector Barbie doll form via Mattel. The Mattel doll sold out in less than an hour earlier this month. And when Amazon briefly offered more of them they sold out just as quickly. 

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Podcast Pt 2: Carol, 45 Years, Christmas Gifts, Etc...

For the second half of the holiday podcast Katey, Joe, Nathaniel, and Nick, name our favorite Christmas movies, hand out lumps of coals and Christmas gifts to our least and most favorite movie achievements. Let's jump right in! 

37 minutes 
00:01 Previously On...
01:00 Foreign & Docs & Shorts + Heart of a Dog and World of Tomorrow
06:50 Our ongoing Carol obsession
11:00 Favorite X-Mas movies: Home Alone, It's a Wonderful Life, etc
19:01 Lumps of Coal & Beautiful Gifts. Plus a long tangent for Tom Courtenay & Charlotte Rampling in 45 Years
30:25 Random Silliness & Goodbyes
34:00 "Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas"

Further Reading for Context:
Oscar Charts & Doc Finalists & Foreign Finalists 
Richard Lawson's Top 10
Nathaniel's 15 Worst
Decider's 'best movies that are only tangentially about Christmas'

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. 

Holiday Podcast Pt 2

A Favorite Scene From Brooklyn

Murtada here with a favorite 2015 scene and a warning. Please note this post divulges plot points for Brooklyn.

The setup: Irish immigrant Eilis (Saoirse Ronan) has been seeing her Brooklyn Italian beau Tony (Emory Cohen) for a few weeks when he surprises her with a declaration of love. Not knowing if she loves him back or how to respond, she looks for an answer from one of her house mates at Miss Kehoe's, Sheila (Nora Jane Noone).

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THR's Screenwriter Roundtable

Chris here. I hope you're having a relaxing and safe holiday weekend!

Earlier this week, hiding among the constant updates on the reams of money The Force Awakens is floating in, we got this year's Screenwriters Roundtable! You'll remember from November that we had some feelings about this year's Actress Roundtable and I'll confess that I found this year's Actor Roundtable underwhelming in lineup and discussion. However, the Screenwriters edition is often the loosest and freshest each year - with its selected participants typically on point.

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Women's Pictures - Celine Sciamma's Tomboy

A young boy moves to a new town with his family. He's a goofball, a caring older sibling, and a shy kid. On his first day on the block, he runs into a girl and introduces himself as Mikael. She introduces herself as Lisa, and invites him to play a game of tag with her friends. Later, as he's taking a bath with his younger sister, his mother calls him Laure. She laughs and tells them: "Girls, get out of the bath!" It's almost 20 minutes into the movie before Celine Sciamma upends the expectations of her audience. In Tomboy, Sciamma examines how identity is constructed through performance in childhood, specifically in regards to gender.

The main character of Sciamma's 2011 film is still in that period before hormones kick in when all kids are basically agender in appearance. What separates genders from each other is how they move and how they present themselves.

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