First & Last 026

Can you guess the movie from its first and last shot?

The answer is after the jump...

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Two Shorts = One Feature, sí?

by Nathaniel R

You may have heard that Sony Pictures Classics has decided on a release strategy for Pedro Almodóvar's short Strange Way of Life (which Elisa reviewed at Cannes). It will debut in NY & LA theaters on Wednesday October 4th and expand that Friday Oct 6th to other cities. Since the western starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal as lovers is only 31 minutes long it will be paired in release with the auteur's only previous English language effort, The Human Voice (reviewed here in 2020) which starred Tilda Swinton and is 30 minutes long.

Together that's just one hour and a single minute of cinema but it's Almodóvar so it stands to reason it's worth the ticket price. Do you think people will shell out for a double-short bill? 

TV Review – ‘Breeders’ Returns for a Great Final Season

By Abe Friedtanzer

It’s rare to find a truly endearing comedy that deals well with the nuances of parenting and deftly handles dramatic moments in a compelling way. I’d argue there are two vastly underappreciated such shows, Trying from Apple TV+ and Breeders from FX. The former was renewed for a fourth season almost a year ago, and the fourth and final season of the latter is officially here. If you haven’t seen either, now is the time to check them out, and I would highly recommend starting with the lovely Breeders, which you can find on Hulu.

Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard star as parents who are struggling to stay afloat. Their disciplinary strategies aren’t always the same...

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The 2023 Gold Digger Mid-Year Awards: Nominations Announced!

by Cláudio Alves

With 17 different citations, Wes Anderson's ASTEROID CITY is the nomination leader.Since 2018, Patrick Gratton has been organizing the Gold Digger Awards, welcoming fellow critics and cinephiles to vote on the year's best achievements in film. Though no such voting was done in 2021 or 2022, the Gold Diggers are back with a new group of over forty folks who write about the cinematic arts, including some members of Team Experience, like Nick Taylor, Ben Miller and myself. Diversity of identity and thought is prized above all else, a plurality of opinions coming together in idiosyncratic fashion, widely different ballots all around, even if just the first half of 2023 was considered. Specifically, US release dates were judged, despite the voting body including numerous nationalities. Whether they opened in theaters or streaming, these films reach nearly 800 eligible titles – a fantastic bounty of cinema.

Without further ado, I leave you with the 2023 Gold Digger Mid-Year Awards nominations in 24 categories. Enjoy the ride...

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Doc Corner: 'Barbie Nation' and 'Black Barbie'

By Glenn Charlie Dunks

If the box office is anything to go by, there is a very solid chance that most of The Film Experience’s readers have seen Greta Gerwig’s Barbie by now. You probably haven’t seen Barbie Nation: An Unauthorized Tour, a documentary from the time of VHS in 1998 that made comparatively far less noise but which is returning for its 25^th anniversary with a new so called “director’s cut” (I’ve never seen the original so can’t vouch for how different it is) and a digital release. It bares all of the hallmarks of an independent work of documentary from the ‘90s, from its video aesthetics to its barely-an-hour-long runtime. But that’s partly why it is so entertaining.

The other part is because it takes a remarkably similar tone to Gerwig’s film. Reverent, but critical and with interesting narrative avenues that are there because they, presumably, tickled its directors fancy.

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