Nathaniel Gives Thanks
Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 8:00AM While it's not quite time for end of the year list-making shenanigans, it is EXACTLY the time to give thanks. As you all prepare to stuff your faces with family and friends (or friends who are family which are the very best kind of people) we know as Film Experiences readers that you'll also be thinking about the movies. In fact, you're probably catching up on movies this long holiday weekend. I'm hoping to revisit A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood myself and I'll probably squeeze in a screener or two. But this morning I thought I'd share a very random list of ten things I'm grateful for and I hope you'll spread more love in the comments.
This thanksgiving I am particularly grateful for...
- movie theaters which can (and should) be visited weekly. The year would have been so much duller without the bonkers earnestness of Serenity in January, the visual spectacle of Alita Battle Angel in February, the creepy twinning of Us in March, Rocketman's jubilant musical bravado in May, Emma being so boss in Late Night in June, and so on. Will these movies make anyone's top ten lists? Who cares! There's more to the movies than awards season...
- that Michelle Pfeiffer came back and didn't leave this time!
- indie distributors that passionately and creatively get behind their movies. Neon sold the hell out of Parasite, A24 nurtured The Farewell just beautifully. Tiny distributors like Kino Lorber and Magnolia don't have those kinds of budgets but you still have to admire the hard work they do to get challenging and cool movies like Synonyms and Woman at War seen.
- the physicality of actors -- no, not like that -- and how much they can do with their bodies despite their faces always getting the credit. Think of Keke Palmer's unexpected comic expressiveness in Hustlers, George MacKay's heroic zombie propulsiveness in 1917, Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever's hilariously goofy comfort in each other's presence in Booksmart, or the mini-trend of great actors in their own solitary world while dancing (Julianne Moore as Gloria Bell, Mary Kay Place as Diane, and Joaquin Phoenix as Joker.)
- a wonderfully robust year of unexpected film festival jaunts (San Luis Obispo, Bentonville, Austin) and the umpteenth year at our most beloved (TIFF)... as well as the opportunity to actually panel at one of our favourite regular stops (Middleburg) with Jazz from Awards Daily and Clayton from Awards Circuit. We'll be doing it again next year!
- the Criterion Channel to the rescue. They arrived just when the streaming landscape was exploding with every option BUT international classics and movies made before the year 2000.
- great TV that occassionally lures us away from the cinema but particularly: Succession, Big Mouth, and Unbelievable recently.
- That it was such a fine fine year for female auteurs, capitalizing on the momentum of the last few years of discussions about gender imbalance behind the camera. This year brought us fresh exciting voices like Mati Diop (Atlantics), Lorene Scafaria (Hustlers), Olivia Wilde (Booksmart), Lulu Wang (The Farewell) and Alma Ha'rel (Honey Boy). All that plus new work from already established directors like Celine Sciamma, Marielle Heller, Claire Denis, Kasi Lemmons, and Greta Gerwig. And that's barely scratching the surface once you take international cinema into account.
Murtada and Nathaniel with Lulu Wang at a party for The Farewell this summer
- all of the contributors here at TFE who gift us with their own movie passions when they can and who we love enough to wish we could hear from weekly, and especially Chris, Glenn, Murtada, and Jason who we do here from weekly in informed, fun, serious, silly, and sometimes provocative ways.
- And all of the readers (THAT'S YOU!) here at TFE but especially those who share pieces online at facebook or twitter or elsewhere and those who subscribe $ (we're a no-budget indie!) and those who engage us and their fellow readers with passion, respect, and movie-love in the comments.
Reader Comments (27)
I wanna thank the Academy... OH SHIT!
Thank you for mentioning Serenity in this write up. Sometimes a movie doesn’t necessarily have to be “good” for it be memorable. My friends and I had a blast seeing this in all its WTF-ness glory. Haha
OMG!! Gillian Armstrong juz stan Greta Gerwig n Little Women!!
https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2019/11/8908329/little-women-remake-gillian-armstrong-reaction
#gretaforoscar!!
I tink Little Women is gonna go far this xmas!! 😀
As I said earlier: Hazbin Hotel, Hazbin Hotel, Hazbin Hotel. SO thankful for every piece of Western adult animation that DOESN'T look like crap. Other than Hazbin, what's the list, exactly? Venture Bros., Primal and Archer? (No, Big Mouth doesn't count.)
I wanna thank my imposters for making me that much more important here.
I wanna thank Clint Eastwood for getting the best out of Kathy Bates for Richard Jewell.
I wanna thank The Last Black Man in San Francisco for being the best movie of 2019.
Emma Thompson needs the Oscar nomination.
Why don't you write reviews anymore?
Thank you to TFE for creating a must-read blog about the Oscars, actresses and all things movies!
No one said you are important.
Sweetie, you're one rung above Volvagia. Basically video game/animated unimportant versus Black and Bates unimportant. You win that battle, but you are still just two buzzing mosquitoes scared of creating their own space for idiosyncratic content, so leeching onto this comment section will feed the parasites.
LOL Nathaniel - I am still waiting for Michelle’s comeback. I am grateful for you, Pain and Glory, Parasite and The Irishman. Happy Thanksgiving.
Hi Nathaniel, Happy Thanksgiving! I don't celebrate it, as I'm in the UK, but I hope all who do celebrate it have a great holiday.
And thank you and the whole team - and fellow commentators (the real ones, not the weird fake stuff that's being going on lately and that I hope stops) for being such a great place to come to every day to read about films, Oscars, actresses and and the world!
Happy Thanksgiving! Thank you Nathaniel and TFE contributors for all that you do!
I am grateful for Michelle Pfeiffer's return and hope she gets to do a lot more in the next Ant-Man film.
I really dislike you /3rtful, but I tolerate you nonetheless. Every movie needs its villain I suppose.
@Peggy Sue
Are you the really Peggy Sue because I haven't bashed Streep nor been ugly with any of the commenters nor members. I have fakers who post dumb stuff I wouldn't think to say as sloppily as they do. But what is it that's so unlikable after all this time of cooling off?
Serenity remains one of my most memorable theatergoing experiences of 2019 due to the movie and the person I watched it with. It's not going to make my top 10, for sure, but you can tell a lot of care went into that bonkers little film. And I expect it's a film I'll be revisiting long after the year's Oscar bait fades from memory.
Nathaniel, I am grateful for you and your team, and your wonderful little corner book of the Internet. Thank you for all you do.
That's not me.
(I particularly enjoy the much needed Meryl bashing)
It’s nice to see that I’m not the only one getting impersonated on here.
^ That's not me. But happy Thanksgiving, imposter, and thanks for properly punctuating this time!
I'm thankful we still have a comment section here at TFE. With all the bots, who knows how long it will last?
Agreed. Bots have taken over this site
And I wanne thank thefilmexperience for just being thefilmexperience ! The best blog around
I’m thankful for this site (with all its imposters and villains.) As I work my memory to know how long I’ve been a reader, I can remember in detail an article of celebrating 60 things about Meryl Streep in her 60th birthday. That was 10 years ago! And I was probably a reader of the site for a couple of years then already.
Life changes. Certainly my life has changed so much through all this time. I’m just happy Nathaniel and his site has remained a constant, even though I don’t comment as often anymore.
Thank you.
You do not even know how much this site means to me. Have been an avid reader for about 6 years now and I always check it everyday. I am thankful for you, Nat. With love from Indonesia.
Far and away the best and most intimate movie site on the web.
Happy Thanksgiving Nathaniel and keep up the great work you do here
"the physicality of actors" I wasn't expecting that but Is very true. I remember the mid 90's When Jim Carrey was the king of comedy and was thanks to his physicall hability.
Is refreshing when actors play with their entire bodies.