Almost There: Hong Chau in "Downsizing"

by Cláudio Alves

With The Whale in theaters and The Menu currently streaming on HBO Max, it's a good time to be a Hong Chau fan. For many of us, she's the best part of both productions, finding the humanity within the former's misery, acing the stylized line readings and deliberate oddness of the gastronomic-inclined latter. Thanks to those achievements, the Asian-American actress is back in the Oscar discussion, working through her second bid for a Best Supporting Actress nomination. The first time this happened was in 2017, when  Chau also proved herself the standout element of a movie with mixed reviews. Even those who hated Alexander Payne's Downsizing generally concede that her performance rises above the movie, shining brightly from within its failings.

Indeed, as Ngoc Lan Tran, Hong Chau is the best reason to watch the sci-fi satirical misadventure cum environmentalist existentialist crisis…

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Doc Corner: A to Z of the Longlist (Part 2)

By Glenn Dunks

The Academy may have released their shortlist for the Best Documentary Feature category, but we’re going to continue our A to Z skim through the 144-wide longlist as a means of playing catch-up before I do my annual best of documentary list for the year. Last time we looked at Shaunak Sen’s sorta-frontrunner All That Breathes, Paweł Łoziński’s EFA nominee The Balcony Movie, and Hà Lệ Diễm’s dark horse contender Children of the Mist.

DESCENDANT

This week, themes of racism, authoritarianism and war are a heady and heavy mix. All of them come with some sort of Oscar pedigree, although only one has made it to the next round of the Academy’s race to a nomination...

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Split Decision: "Babylon"

No two people feel the same exact way about any film. Thus, Team Experience is pairing up to debate the merits of each of the big awards season movies this year. Here’s Chris James, Ben Miller and Glenn Dunks duking it out over Babylon.

CHRIS: Hey Glenn and Ben, happy to chat with you on the most talked about/least seen movie of the holiday season. Oscar winner Damien Chazelle's big budget tale, Babylon, opened with $3.6 million over the holiday weekend. I hate to be the person to kick a movie when it's down. It benefits no one for an original auteur project to flop. However, I found Babylon to be an all-out disaster. Its grand scale debauchery grows stale with each passing scene, with nothing ever exuding sexiness or splendor. 

Much could be saved if Chazelle had a clear thesis with the movie, or engaging characters to follow. Unfortunately, Chazelle never quite knows whether to vilify or exalt Hollywood; instead, we just get a confused portrait of the silent era that feels neither real nor heightened. Despite a game performance from Margot Robbie, none of the central three characters jump off the screen because they don't have a strong, propulsive want. They do wild and crazy things, but the movie never bothers giving any of their actions a strong enough motivation. Maybe I'm just being the Grinch of Babylon. What are both of your thoughts on Babylon? Were there any elements that really worked - or didn't - for either of you?

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Weekend Box Office: New Year, New Highs

By Ben Miller

In a refreshing change of pace, the long holiday weekend box office was full of good news!  Pretty much every film was up following that storm-stifling Christmas weekend.  Nothing new debuted in wide release, so Avatar: The Way of Water was able to actually increase from the week before.  James Cameron's movies typically have remarkable legs.  Its $67.4 million haul was good enough to place it as the third best third weekend of all-time, behind the film's predecessor and The Force Awakens.  Very good company to be in, box office-wise.  But it wasn't just Avatar.  Of the top 16 films at the box office, 13 increased from the week before!

Weekend Box Office (actuals) Dec 30th-January 2nd 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended
WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER	THE WHALE
1 ★ AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER $67.4 (cum. $425.5) 4202 screens	1  🔺 THE WHALE $1.3 (cum. $5.8) 623 screens

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Review: Say hello to 'M3GAN' our new favorite Horror Princess

by Jason Adams

If you look at the episodes of Shudder’s documentary series “Behind the Monsters” – each of which was devoted to its own Horror Icon – one thing became painfully clear right up front: Where the hell are our female horror icons? I don’t mean the survivors – we all know our Final Girls, they are legion. I mean the villains. Where is our Jasine Voorhees? Our Frederica Krueger? Why does nothing happen if I say “Candygal” five times in the mirror??? 

Well the past couple of years have finally begun to right that gendered wrong, bringing us the return of Isabella Fuhrman’s Esther in her Orphan franchise (hopefully TBC, as the second film was a total hoot) as well as Mia Goth’s ax-welding and Oscar-worthy turn in Pearl (in both the titular prequel as well as X). Finally some iconic Halloween costumes for the Lizzie Borden lovers among us! And now this weekend makes for three with M3GAN, director Gerard Johnstone’s riotously entertaining new slasher, which merges Chucky with Mean Girls to gift us with an insta-icon for the horror ages.

M3GAN stands for “Model 3 Generative Android”... 

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