Sundance: The wondrous poetry of "Summertime"

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

Carlos Lopez Estrada, the director, with the cast of "Summertime" at Sundance

When Blindspotting premiered at Sundance on the opening night of the 2018 festival, the word was that two hundred ticket holders were turned away. They scheduled other screenings (where I saw the film), but it was clear that music video director Carlos López Estrada had something important to say that people wanted to hear. Just two years later, Estrada is back at Sundance opening the festival with his second feature…

In his first film, Estrada’s partner was Broadway star Daveed Diggs. This time he's working with twenty-seven spoken word artists, mostly between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six...

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Tarantino's Best Costumes

by Cláudio Alves

Despite some misgivings regarding this year’s highly unimaginative Best Costume Design line-up, there's much to rejoice about that Oscar category. One of the biggest reasons to celebrate is Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood's deserved nod for Arianne Phillips’ designs. As it happens, this is the first time any Quentin Tarantino film has been nominated for this particular award. Considering the director's ability to create memorable images and influential bits of cinematic iconography, this is somewhat preposterous. Better late than never.

Still, to shed light on the many costume delights of Tarantino's colorful oeuvre, here's a list of the ten best costumes in this director's films…

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The Actresses of 2019

by Murtada Elfadl

This year’s nominees for best actress do not offer much variety. Not in scope and type of role, not in diversity, not in film genre, and certainly not in quality of film. Only two of the five nominated films - Little Women and Marriage Story - have been recognized by the Academy for best picture, and the same two were the only ones to receive a metacritic average above 70. So how did we end up here when there other options that would’ve made the category stronger? Let’s take a look at what the film year offered...

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Fellini @ 100: "Roma" (1972)

A few volunteers from Team Experience are revisiting Federico Fellini classics for his centennial. Here's Cláudio Alves...

If Rome is the Eternal City, then Federico Fellini might be the Eternal Filmmaker. His cinema exists outside of time, both ancient and strangely new. A filmography that's a circus of pleasures where the grotesque and the beautiful are hand-in-hand, always dancing to a song of transgression and perversity. The faith of the church and the clown's laughter coexist too, precariously, but assuredly, and the images their communion produce are profane marvels. Like ancient frescos, there's a patina of age to these pictures, but they're bright as if they were freshly painted by master artists.

Perhaps no single film better exemplifies these wonderful contradictions than Fellini's Roma…

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Bombshell: Perfecting the Fox News look

by Cláudio Alves

Regardless of Bombshell's many problematic elements, there's one element that nearly everyone agrees is worthy of praise. We're referring to the astounding transformation of its cast into the famous faces of Fox News. Since the first teaser trailer dropped, many have marvelled at Charlize Theron's uncanny resemblance to Megyn Kelly. It's a remarkable feat of cinematic transfiguration that was made possible by the work of an Oscar-nominated makeup team as well as Colleen Atwood's clever use of costuming.

The movie has a limited view of the social and political insidiousness of Fox News, but, as it happens with many surface-level wonders, its look is on-point…

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