NYFF: "The Booksellers"

by Jason Adams

Once upon a time in a land only as far away as blasted impossible time travel forces it to be there were blocks upon blocks of bookshops in New York City -- old dusty cavernous things, with stalactites and stalagmites of leather bound little readers piled up and down from the floors and ceilings. You'd need a miner's cap to traverse the places to dig up all of the glittering gold preciousness held within, but buried treasures abounded. Once upon a time, anyway.

D. W. Young's captivating new nerd-out of a documentary The Booksellers excavates that magical place, those treasured memories...

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Downton Abbey: Style Ranking

By Cláudio Alves

Since its first season, Downton Abbey has been the delight of every costume drama fan. Starting in 1912 and ending in 1926, the show featured an astounding portrayal of changing styles. We all watched the characters go from Edwardian finery to the glamour of the 20s.

Every actor in the Downton Abbey movie is perfectly dressed by costume designer Anna Robbins. Sometimes the perfection is even a bit too emphatic  --no one ever looks even slightly rumpled! At the end of the day, though, this isn't a realistic view of the past but a romantic dream of a bygone era. For such nostalgic reveries, a bit of fairytale immaculateness isn't out of place. To celebrate such beauty, let's rank the Downton Abbey ladies, from worst to best dressed. For the sake of brevity and fairness, we're only looking at the upstairs crowd. It would be cruel to compare Mrs. Patmore's humble clothes to the literal crown jewels...

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Oscar's International Race Pt 3a - Movie Trailers (A-K)

The Academy has announced the official submission list for the 92nd Academy Awards in the Best International Feature Film category (renamed from Best Foreign-Language Film). This year we have 93 films competing.

As is our practice, we're sharing all the trailers (that could be found) having already shared stats and introduced you to the growing ranks of female directors. We'll be tweaking the Oscar charts periodically but they're mostly complete now. Cinema is a global artform and that's why we invest so much time in this. This is only the first 40+ trailers (L through Z countries still to come) but it should keep your eyes busy for awhile...

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How had I never seen... "Cabaret"?

In this new series, members of Team Film Experience watch and share their reactions to classic films they’ve never seen. 

By Ben Miller

Cabaret is Bob Fosse’s “musical” into the world of bohemian performer Sally Bowles and uptight Brit Brian Roberts.  Both try to navigate the world of love along with the struggle to reach a level of extravagance, all the while experiencing the adapting political climate of 1930’s Berlin.

Shamefully, I had never seen it.

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Oscar's International Race - Pt 2: Random Stats and Key Trivia

Now that we have the whole list of 93 films vying for the Oscar for Best International Feature Film, it's time for a collection of trivia regarding this particular vintage...

LONGEST FILM
The Painted Bird (Czech Republic) is just 11 minutes shy of three hours. Lots of films are that long but given that this movie has been referred to as 'the child rape Holocaust movie' three hours sounds utterly punishing. Naturally then, it's split audiences between 'masterpiece' and 'unwatchable' camps. Runners up: Domain (Portugal) and Truth or Justice (Estonia) are just a little bit shorter, both about two hours and 45 minutes long.

SHORTEST FILM
Poisonous Roses (Egypt) is just 70 minutes long. It's reportedly a mood piece about life in lower-class Cairo that primarily focuses on the relationship of a sister and brother. Runners up: The light documentary When Tomatoes Met Wagner (Greece) is just two minutes longer than that one. Belgium's Our Mothers, Belarus's Debut, Lithuania's Bridges of Time, Albania's The Delegation, and Montenegro's Neverending Past are the other really short titles, all clocking in at 80 minutes or less.

Movie stars, languages, and gayness are after the jump...

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