Exclusive Clip: Swallow

by Murtada Elfadl

Out this Friday is Swallow, a psychological thriller about a woman unraveling ie The Film Experience’s favorite genre. Haley Bennett stars as Hunter, a newly pregnant housewife leading a seemingly perfect life who cracks under pressure to meet her controlling in-laws and husband’s rigid expectations. Austin Stowell co-stars as the husband. Bennett won best actress in the US Narrative competition at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival and this could mark a major breakout for her after roles in The Girl on the Train (2016) and The Red Sea Diving Resort (2019).

We are debuting an exclusive clip from Swallow and to set it up here’s writer and director Carlo Mirabella-Davis:

One of the core visual themes of SWALLOW is the image of a cracking façade; a veneer of normalcy with a fracture slowly forming on its surface. We used this image as a central motif in the camera direction and the production design. Thematically, this façade represents the world of white, patriarchal power and “success” that we are all taught to idealize as the apex of the American Dream. SWALLOW is a quasi-satirical critique of the top one percent and its malignant, patriarchal norms that are propagated throughout our government, corporations, society, and media. Hunter, our main character, has married into this masculine world of power and success, but because of her gender and working-class background, there’s something about this gilded cage that doesn’t sit right with her. She represses this disquiet under a plaintive smile until it threatens to undo her.

Swallow will be in select theaters and on demand this Friday March 6th.

Three Reasons to "Bacurau"

by Jason Adams

Bacurau, the fierce new Brazilian film from the folks behind Aquarius in 2016 (and the accompanying Sônia-Braga-ssaince), is finally hitting U.S. theaters this week. It tells the story of a small rural community in the middle-of-nowhere Brazil that politicians are attempting to wipe off the map, literally, by hiring a bunch of heavily armed militia-types (including pointedly several Americans) to come down and burn the place to the dirt.

The movie has been out in its home country, where it was a huge hit, for several months already, and on its way here to the States it's already played several fests to mucho raves -- I reviewed it right here at NYFF in the fall, calling it "an ass-blistering revenge fable." And you should indeed cover your ass. It's an intense ride, throwing populism and politics and capitalism and little silver spaceships into its grindhouse meat-grinder, spitting a pulpy, invigorating scream out its other side.

Here, five months after last watching it, are three thoughts that still stand out about Bacurau to me...

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Weekend Box Office Actuals

Oops. sorry these are so late. What did you see over this past weekend? 

Weekend Box Office February 28th-March 1st (ACTUALS) 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended
WIDE RELEASE (800+ screens)	PLATFORM TITLES
1 🔺 INVISIBLE MAN  $28.2 *new* REVIEW	1 🔺  EMMA $1.1 (cum. $1.4)  EMMAS OF YORE

2 SONIC THE HEDGEHOG $16.2 (cum. $128.5	2 🔺 PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE $748k (cum. $2.4) TOP TEN LIST ★

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Poll: "Lady in the Cage" it is

We started a little biweekly 'streaming reader's choice film club' last month with Voyage of the Damned, and this time you've selected the Olivia de Havilland thriller Lady in a Cage (1964) for group discussion. So watch it over the weekend on Hulu, and we'll write it up and discuss on Monday night.

 Which is not to say that we'll never discuss the other films (we will have pieces on Ali Fears Eats the Soul and The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne as other members of Team Experience sometimes volunteer to write things up)  For the record the votes yesterday and this morning went like so:

1. Lady in the Cage (24%)
2. Cactus Flower (23%)
3. Ali Fear Eats the Soul / Fight Club (15% each)
4. Splash / Natural Born Killers (9% each)
5. The Slender Thread (3%)
6. Take Me Out to the Ball Game (2%)

Almost There: Bette Davis in "Of Human Bondage"

by Cláudio Alves

Nowadays, Oscar snubs generate justifiable fire on social media and occassionally even get primetime attention. However, they're not huge stories that threaten the existence and validity of the Academy itself. It wasn't always like this. Back in the early days of the Oscars, some snubs were so outrageous they made fear blossom in the hearts of Academy members, threatening to invalidate the entire (new) institution in the eyes of the general public. So much so, that new rules were put in place to avoid similar outcomes, write-in votes were allowed and apologies were handed out in the shape of what we now call a career Oscar.

Such was the case in the mid-30s when Bette Davis made Of Human Bondage, defied Hollywood's expectations, became a sudden star and still failed to get the Academy Award nomination most thought she deserved…

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