Podcast: American Hustle & Her

Nick, Katey and Joe join Nathaniel to wish you all a very happy holiday week. We begin by talking about David O. Russell's American Hustle. Katey wishes the movie had applied itself more, Joe doesn't believe a second of it, but Nathaniel and Nick enjoy the fun groovy chaos quite a lot more. We're split on Jennifer Lawrence's showboating, three of us think Bradley Cooper is amazing but the podcast quickly turns into an Amy Adams ♥fest. (Shout-outs to Saïd Taghmaoui and Michael Peña, too)

We also discuss Spike Jonze Her and its lovely script and performances. The Scarlett Johansson/Samantha Morton business on the voicework is also on the menu. Do we think Her hits its themes too hard or just right? And would we wear its futuristic fashions? 

PLEASE NOTE: If you're spoiler averse you might want to skip one minute from 18:00- 19:00

You can listen to the podcast right here at the bottom of the post or download the conversation on iTunes. 

Her Hustlin' Holiday

The Anchorman Continues...

Amir's Weekly Box Office Report

chart repurposed from boxoffice.com

Ron Burgundy and his news team were the story of the weekend with Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, though their numbers are anything but a big deal. The film opened at the lowest end of its expected spectrum and I have yet to come across anyone who’s liked this film unreservedly. I was never a big fan of the original, which I got around to a few years too late. (I expect this one to hit my rental queue sometimes in 2017). It opened behind The Hobbit, for which the amount of critical goodwill hasn’t been nearly strong enough to convince me something better than the insufferable first episode is in store. Smaug smug as it may sound, I can think of quite a few better things to do with two and a ½ hours.

American Hustle expanded beyond New York and Los Angeles and all the way to snowy Montreal, where I was able to watch it. (Personal story: this is the third time in my life that I’ve went to le cinema on trips to Montreal, after the first Sherlock Holmes installment and Ted. The experiences are very slowly but surely improving. I expect to catch a real good one on my 2017 trip.) Hustle is Russell’s unruliest but least energetic offering, though it’s totally worth watching because of Amy Adams and Bradley Cooper’s perm. At $20m, it doesn’t seem positioned to beat Silver Linings Playbook’s gross, but The Fighter’s should be within reach.

chart repurposed from Boxoffice.com

Further below, the stellar Inside Llewyn Davis continued its slow expansion and is hovering just outside the top ten. Like virtually any other film by the Coen Brothers, it is an essential watch. Spike Jonze’s Her is also playing now, though only on six screens. I’m less enthused than most, though there are certainly worthy elements about it – Hey! Look! Amy Adams again! – but Jonze is such a unique, vital voice. We should treasure this film before he hides for another three or four years.

Finally, Asghar Farhadi’s The Past has opened, though on even fewer screens than Her. This one’s really grown on me with repeat viewings so I encourage you to see it. Oh, and read my interview with Mr. Farhadi. Anyway, my weekend has consisted of Short Term 12 (I’m sorry Nathaniel) and American Hustle so far and will continue with whatever else goes with the mood on the train ride back home. What did you watch this weekend?

Scarlett Johansson in 'Her', 'Don Jon' and The Nicole Kidman Art of the Comeback

Glenn here to discuss two of The Film Experience’s favorite women. If you’re like me and have been watching with glee the re-ascension of Scarlett Johansson to critical favour then you also may have noticed the parallels between her and the goddess Nicole Kidman. It took a shorter amount of time, of course, but in this day and age everything moves father. With audiences finally being allowed to see hear Johansson in Her in movie theaters, it seems like as good a time as any to ask the question: is Scarlett Johansson this decade's Nicole Kidman?

When you look at the careers of Nicole Kidman and Scarlett Johansson, the two share a lot of similarities. Both broke out at the tail-end of a decade – the ‘80s for Kidman with Dead Calm, ‘90s for Johansson with The Horse Whisperer – and had critical successes before Hollywood ceased attempting to figure out what the hell to do with them. [more...]

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Team FYC: Her for Best Cinematography

Team FYC lets Film Experience contributors highlight their favourite fringe contenders for awards season. Here's Amir Soltani on Spike Jonze's Her.

In recent years, the Academy's cinematography award has been handed out in tandem with the best visual effects one. It has become an inevitability: if there is a best picture nominee that can be described as a "visual spectacle" is present, it will win both awards. This year will be no exception with Gravity, and if I were to put money on it, I'd a hazard a guess that Christopher Nolan's Interstellar will be the beneficiary of AMPAS's infatuation with big, effects driven cinema in this category next year. But Dutch cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shouldn't need to wait another year for his first Oscar nomination.

With Spike Jonze's Her, van Hoytema adds yet another impressive entry to a decade-long resume that already boasts an astonishing range of styles. The soft, colorless hues of Let the Right One In and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy are more easily recognizable as the works of the same DP, but the scrappy, hand-held look of The Fighter is almost a 180 degree turn. Her has shades of van Hoytema's collaborations with Tomas Alfredsson, but is infinitely more vibrant. Perhaps more than any other film this year, the cinematography here needs to be recognized as a collective achievement with the works of the production and costume design teams as it brings their colors and sleek, intimate designs to life, but contains them under extremely soft lighting. It is richly realized but also suitably representative of the cyberspace; think of it as beautifulhandwrittenletters.com incarnate.

In a way, Her's aesthetic is one of contrasts. It is bursting with reds and pinks but it feels melancholy. It is sensitive but equally icy. It seems perfectly appropriate for a film about "artificial" intelligence, creating a landscape that looks ethereally digital, but also oddly palpable. It's apt, because Her is as much about our future as it is about our modern condition and van Hoytema’s work captures that contrast beautifully. Will Academy voters recognize his genius? Does the strong critical response to the film tell us anything about its Oscar hopes? It is certainly possible. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time a Spike Jonze finds favor with critics and no luck with AMPAS. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Online Film Critics Society chooses 12 Years a Slave

Tim here - I won't keep you very long, since it's just another damn critics' award, but the OFCS has announced its winners this morning, with 12 Years a Slave winning five times, including only the second award that Michael Fassbender has received from any group to date. The asterisk here is that Her wasn't made widely available to the membership at large before the conclusion of voting, and it's the kind of film that tends to do well with OFCS.

The full list:

Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave
Best Animated Feature: The Wind Rises
Best Film Not in the English Language: Blue Is the Warmest Color
Best Documentary: The Act of Killing
Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron – Gravity
Best Actor: Chiwetel Ejiofor – 12 Years a Slave
Best Actress: Cate Blanchett – Blue Jasmine
Best Supporting Actor: Michael Fassbender – 12 Years a Slave
Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong’o – 12 Years a Slave
Best Original Screenplay: Her
Best Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave
Best Editing: Gravity
Best Cinematography: Gravity

Special Awards:
Best Sound Design and Best Visual Effects to Gravity
To Roger Ebert, for inspiring so many of our members

Top Ten films Without a U.S. Release:

Closed Curtain
Gloria
Like Father, Like Son
Our Sunhi
R100
The Rocket
Stranger By the Lake
We Are the Best!
Le Week-End
Why Don’t You Play in Hell?