Split Decision: "TÁR"

No two people feels the exact same way about any film. Thus, Team Experience is pairing up to debate the merits of each of the awards movies this year. Here’s Chris James and Cláudio Alves on TÁR.

CHRIS: It’s no mistake that people mistook Lydia Tár for being a real person. There’s something authentic and substantiated about TÁR, Todd Field’s third film which centers around a complicated famed conductor. Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) doesn’t necessarily have delusions of grandeur, she simply has an inability to see anything below her ivory pedestal. As much as Field and Blanchett have a laser focused idea of this character, the movie never spoon feeds us the narrative. We enter her journey in media res, trying to piece together her home life, her work life and whether the visions in her head are delusions or real threats. It’s a refreshing and engrossing way of telling this woman’s story the way she would want it told, while leaving ample room for interpretation and opinion.

I could go on and on about my favorite movie of the year, as one often does. However, tell me Cláudio, why don't you love TÁR? What elements give you pause?

Click to read more ...

Interview: Composer Michael Abels on "Nope" and "Chevalier"

by Nathaniel R

MIchael Abels photographed for the LA OperaOne of the most exciting film composers to gain prominence in the past decade is Michael Abels. He's received multiple nominations for his work and prizes, too like the Jerry Goldsmith Award and the World Soundtrack Award. We wait impatiently for an Oscar nomination to follow, given his memorable inventive scores that have played such a huge part in the mass appeal of the films of Jordan Peele. We were honored to sit down with him to talk about his diverse interests in musical genres, his history with piano and voice, his Nope score, and what's next.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity...

Click to read more ...

Interview: Stephanie Hsu. The year's breakout star on her insane year, stage history, and working with legends.

by Nathaniel R

Stephanie Hsu as "Jobu Tupaki" in Everything Everywhere All At Once2022's wildest film was also it's most unlikely mainstream success. For sheer invention it Everything Everywhere All At Once, outdid the animated Spider-Verse and the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the suddenly flourishing subgenre of multi-verse hopping. At the center of its chaotic maelstorm, is Jobu Tupaki (Stephanie Hsu), the nihilistic variant of depressed Joy Wang, a young queer woman with a tense relationship to her overly critical mother Evelyn(Michelle Yeoh). Stephanie Hsu, 32, is not an overnight sensation but she is a sensation. 2022 essentially served as a mainstream coming out party for the gifted actress after years treading the boards in experimental theater and musical comedy, as well as season-long or guest episode TV gigs.

Back in October I had the change to moderate a Q&A for Everything Everywhere All At Once at which Hsu received a "Rising Star Award". Over the course of the day we met three times and talked Broadway theater, being dramaturgy nerds, forgetting your lines, wild costumes, and various movies that are competing with hers at awards shows (off the record of course!). What follows is the conversation we had as we met, shortly before we went on stage [edited for length and clarity]...

Click to read more ...

Drag Race RuCap: "All Queens go to Heaven"

Is this heaven...or hell?

CLÁUDIO ALVES: This week, the talk of the town within Drag Race fandom is length. It's not inches we're talking about, sadly, but minutes. After that supersized premiere, episode 3 of season 15 brings us down to reality and the format the show is taking for its new home of MTV – 40-minute episodes. Last time RuPaul's Drag Race had such limited runtimes was Season 9, but they had less competing queens. Even after Irene DuBois' elimination last episode, we're still at 15 bitches, making this episode a frantic amuse-bouche that tastes unbalanced, unstable, unhinged...

Click to read more ...

Critics Choice Award Winners, Blanchett's Speech, and More

by Nathaniel R

Last night the Critics Choice Awards were held and broadcast on the CW. They copied and pasted many of the winners from the Golden Globes, though not quite all. To their credit, though, the repeat acting winners mostly seemed to understand this (a stark change from years past where you'd hear the same speech at every show) and didn't copy and paste their own speeches. There were also a few differences in attendance that varied things up (most noticeably Cate Blanchett who didn't attend the Globes; she won at both). But it was a dull night, overall, if you weren't in the room. We've gone before of course but it's been a few years and it does feel different if you're inside the room. Especially if you manage to get a seat at a fun table. 

For the low energy, maybe we should blame the absence of awesome cheerleader Jamie Lee Curtis whose enthusiasm was very much missed since Everything Everywhere All At Once kept winning awards (it took five in total, the most prizes for anything)  The winners and a few more comments after the jump...

Click to read more ...