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.)
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Wednesday, December 4, 2019 at 7:14PM Another day, another prize for The Irishman. Following its NBR win, the Martin Scorsese epic takes the much more prestigious top prize from the New York Film Critics Circle. This is Scorsese’s second movie to win the NYFCC. The first was Goodfellas (1990).
Here are the winners and a few comments...
NYFCC, film critics Wednesday, December 4, 2019 at 4:00PM By Glenn Dunks
It has become somewhat unkind to describe a documentary as old fashioned or traditional. It seems to be that talking heads intercutting a single, linear story is somehow considered by some to be stodgy and boring. If you watch enough of them, you see recreations and animations and all sorts of gimmicky tricks to, I suppose, dazzle the viewer into thinking they are watching something that is more ‘cinematic’ than it is (whatever such a term may mean to you). They don’t always work, and in those time that they do in fact not work it can often harm a film, distracting from what could have been a, yes, simple, but usually better film. You could call it old fashioned or traditional.
Thanks heavens then that director Erin Lee Carr didn’t try any of that nonsense in the HBO documentary At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastic Scandal.
Even its title is so meat and potatoes that those who expect works of non-fiction to have evolved beyond the classical form will probably zone out just hearing the name. But Carr’s movie is one of such harrowing despair that anything other than clear, direct, unfussy filmmaking would have been all wrong.
Wednesday, December 4, 2019 at 11:30AM by Chris Feil
“You and me, you and me. Nobody baby but you and me...”
Ryan Gosling’s Dean breaks a makeout session and produces the romantic gesture lost to our time: a playlist burnt to a cd. It’s the ultimate young love gesture and met in kind with wide-eyed affection by the young woman its meant for, Michelle Williams’ Cindy. He’s chosen a song for them, in the tradition of all romances, one that will belong just to them. Before the soulful murmur of “You and Me” by Penny and the Quarters, Dean acknowledges the cliche of it as quickly as he shrugs it off. They will be different from all those other couples going honoring the ritual, he promises her. They will be special.
Blue Valentine charts the degradation of such romantic fantasies, showing us how painfully average their broken love will become, with music the embodiment of that fading vision of romance...
Wednesday, December 4, 2019 at 9:10AM
My favorite thing about Daniel Craig’s reign as James Bond that started with Casino Royale (2006) are his tight tight suits. They are just tight enough to allow movement yet showcase his trim buff body as the slinky spy from the British Isles. Behold
And let’s see him in action...
Tuesday, December 3, 2019 at 11:31PM by Cláudio Alves
This year’s been full of filmmakers commenting on other’s movies, auteurs criticizing blockbuster franchises and Hollywood stars lashing back. The Scorsese-Marvel wars are still active on social media and each day that goes by, another film professional adds their own two cents on the kerfuffle. To be honest, I don’t care about Chris Evans’ views on Scorsese or Michael Haneke’s opinion on Iron Man. However, it’d be lovely to read a certain Marvel-star’s reaction to the most delicious murder comedy of the holiday season.
Wouldn’t everyone love to know what Gwyneth Paltrow thinks of Rian Johnson’s Knives Out? I certainly would…
