September. It's a Wrap (Thank Goddess!)

Let September be the demarcating line for The Film Experience is BACK. Nathaniel is no longer plagued by summertime (begone humidity!) or pneumonia. We're officially in Fall Film Prestige Season and you're going to see it EVERY. DAY. Comment please for it be the coal in blogging engines and Awards Season is going to devour fuel. But before October's starting gun here are ten highlights from the scrap heap that was September (yes, there's a day and ½ left but let's pretend it's over with!), in case you're just returning to us for all the gold man fun.

Toronto Diary Amir meets Ewan McGregor and loves Frances Ha
Oscar Vintage 1975 Carol Kane lives on Hester Street
Summer Review Podcast Nick, Joe & Nathaniel discuss their favorite 2012 summer memories - two parts!
In Flight Movie Nathaniel watches The Avengers again: high altitude, tiny screen
Song Titles I Wish Were Movies a silly top ten list
Take 3: Samantha Morton Craig looks back on three key films from a truly gifted talent

Describe The Master in Three Words it's tough to do but you gave it valiant efforts in the comments
Interview: William H Macy of The Sessions on free passes, religion and "trying too hard" 

Most Discussed
Anything August: Osage County gets y'all chatting. Now filming!
Most Eyeballs
Emmy Live Blog though I should note that Melanie Lynskey's extra great guest-blogging in August was still attracting visitors well into September!

Coming in October: Oscar Horrors Season 2, Oscar madness, Oscar foreign film competition, Oscar party coverage and... well, you get the shiny golden hint. Plus: The Sessions, National Coming Out Day, Joan Cusack, Frankenweenie, Argo, Halloween Fun, more actressy goodness than you're expecting and the rest of the NYFF coverage.

Stay tuned.

NYFF: "Frances Ha" Dazzling Brooklyn Snapshot

Michael C. here to report on the first home run I've seen at the New York Film Festival. Frances Ha is the type movie experience I’m hoping for every time I plunk down my ticket money. It knows exactly what it wants to do and how it wants to do it and as a result it grabs you by the sleeve and pulls you right in. It is Noah Baumbach’s finest film to date and the big breakout due for Greta Gerwig for some time now. 

Frances (Gerwig) is a dancer who shares a Brooklyn apartment with her bestest buddy Sophie (Mickey Sumner). Pushing thirty and stalled professionally and personally, she is right at the age when spending her nights flitting around the city getting wasted with her girlfriend stops being cute and starts being a cause for concern. When events transpire to threaten Frances' holding pattern the wheels quickly come off her cushy existence.

With this film Baumbach has not expanded his style so much as smashed it into a thousand pieces and arranged them into a collage. [More...]

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Do you think Jennifer Connelly ever has nightmares about Labyrinth?

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For Your Consideration: "Central Park Five" and "The Gatekeepers"

Amir here looking at two films we should keep an eye on in Oscar's documentary race.

"The Central Park Five"

I’ll be the first to admit that when it comes to judging the quality of documentaries, I have a particular bias. My favourite docs tend to be innovative films that aren’t necessarily “significant” in the grand scheme of things, like Grizzly Man or Senna, but I often find myself giving a pass to films that use a conventional structure to tell an important story, merely because thee subject matter does the work, towering above the film itself. Every once in a while, however, I’m confronted with a film that utilizes the old “talking heads intercut with archival footage” formula so powerfully that it becomes impossible to imagine it in any other way. Two such films came my way during TIFF that absolutely blew me away.

The first is Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon’s The Central Park Five, which tells the story of five black and Latino youths who were arrested in 1989 for the alleged rape and physical abuse of a white female jogger in Central Park. Despite a lack of evidence to support the charges and their youth (they were all between 14 and 17), they each ended up serving several years in prison or juvenile detention centres. In 2002, more than a decade after their first trial, the real criminal stepped out and confessed; DNA evidence supported his claim. But the irreversible damage had been done. [more after the jump...]

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Life of Pi and other movies inside my head. It's a zoo in there.

My head is all ascramble. Last thing I know I was boozing it up with Joaquin* Suddenly I'm waking up adrift in the ocean** with only my beloved dog***, who I'd just brought back from the dead ****, and a fierce Bengal tiger for company. All of this while trying to chase and kill an older version of myself from the future ***** ! 

Which movies are jostling around inside your head right now vying for attention? Which one is winning?

* The Master ** Life of Pi *** Bwakaw **** Frankenweenie ****** Looper 
(Thoughts coming on all of those pictures -- a streak of happy moviegoing -- though not in that order as soon as I can collect myself.)

P.S. I'm aware that I'm burying the headline which is that I've just seen Life of Pi. Judging on the joygasms on twitter, it looks like a critical crowdpleaser and a bonafide Oscar contender. I was less ecstatic but boy does it look good. Cinematography nomination #2 for Claudio Miranda (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) coming right up. Yes, I'll update the Oscar charts this weekend. A lot of adjustments are due from shifting release dates and buzz.