Apologies for the Momentary Lull.

Dear readers, We apologize for the lack of the normal volume of writing/updates. There have been significant unavoidable struggles off site. Because life is life, these are naturally paired with other time-consuming things that are entirely unrelated like moving apartments in a couple of weeks plus festivals (NYFF screenings begin today and then Middleburg). While we collect ourselves check out the updated Oscar charts for Picture, Director,  Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, International Film, Screenplays, Visuals, Sound if you haven't yet. More soon.

Also please consider following on Instagram and subscribing to the new substack which I'll be using to experiment a bit or in case we go dark or decide to switch hosting platforms or whatnot. 

10th Anniversary Middleburg Film Festival tickets now on sale!

by Nathaniel R

the Opening Night, Centerpiece, and Spotlight films

Has it really been ten years? We've been going to Middleburg for years now for this intimate weekend festival in scenic Virginia. Three years ago your host here (that's me) launched an ongoing early morning Oscar panel "Coffee & Contenders" with Clayton Davis and Jazz Tangcay (who have both since joined Variety). It's a treat to see famiiar faces from the Washington DC area each year and if any readers come to the festival make sure to say hello. Festivals start to feel like reunion parties if you go enough times!

The year they'll have films like White Noise, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Somewhere in Queens, and The Whale (and more to be announced). Receiving tributes and awards this year are actors Stephanie Hsu and Brendan Fraser, writer/director Noah Baumbach, editor Bob Ducsay, and composer Michael Abels.  Passes and ticket passages are now on sale. Full press release after the jump...

Click to read more ...

"Holy Spider" and other interesting updates to Best International Feature Film

by Nathaniel R

"Holy Spider" will be released in the US, dates TBA

Lots to tell you about today in the Best International Feature Film race. We are just six days away from the deadline for countries to submit their representative film for consideration at the upcoming Oscars but we know one country that won't be submitting and that's Russia since they're boycotting us given which side we fall on in their war on Ukraine.

We generally know most of the list before that deadline due to press releases from all around the world. But not all. There are usually about 90ish entries and we have 70 announced thus far. You might remember that last year the Academy chucked their (very good and transparent) tradition of releasing the full official list of submissions in early October. If they continue that this year we won't have exact counts for awhile which is quite sad since those films need all the attention they can get and they only have a short window to get that since the all but 10 of them will be culled on December 21st when the shortlist is announced. What's more we thrive on statistics and factoids when getting obsessed with this niche window into global cinema and you cant do that without the exact list. ANYWAY, sorry about all the minutae. There are quite a few interesting new submissions / factoids to share with you after the jump...

Click to read more ...

What did you see over the weekend?

by Nathaniel R

Don't Worry Darling opened at #1 which is impressive for two reasons. The first is that the press was of the "what a hot mess" rather than "what a good movie!" variety. The second, as Rob Watson pointed out on twitter, is that this marks the second consecutive weekend where a film directed by a woman starring a woman opened at #1 playing above expectations...

Weekend Box Office  September 23rd-25th 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended links if we've written about it
WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
DON'T WORRY DARLING	MOONAGE DAYDREAM

Click to read more ...

Palme d'Or Champions: En francais, s'il vous plaît

by Cláudio Alves

Apologies for my absence in the past few weeks, dear readers. Two back-to-back festival makes up a daunting task, when it involves over fifty write-ups. Anyway, eager to jump back into The Film Experience. To ease the way a curious trifle. As I was browsing through Twitter, I came across a curious conundrum in the form of a new French poster for this year's Palme d'Or winner, and the title splashed across its badly Photoshopped self. While Ruben Östlund's latest is called Triangle of Sadness or a direct translation in nearly every territory, those French distributors had another idea. In the land where it won the Croisette's highest honor, the film is known as Sans Filtre…

Click to read more ...