The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
The Favourite In theaters tomorrow! DO NOT MISS IT.
BEST PICTURE The box office this weekend and so many openings and/or guild screenings this week (Roma and The Favourite both in limited release, Green Book going wide, Vice and Mary Poppins and Mary Queen of Scots screenings) etcetera will likely disrupt this chart, as will the impending NYFCC and NBR decisions, but here's what we're thinking right now...
• Glamour Amandla Stenberg goes au naturel with the body hair at the Rome premiere of The Hate U Give. Oh and also its their 20th birthday today. Happy birthday to them! • /Film Release date shuffle. Wonder Woman 2 has been pushed back to 2020 so now it's the Terminator reboot (with the original stars) and a reboot of Charlie's Angels facing off in Wonder Woman's old Novemeber 2019 date • Self Styled Siren anecdote of the week involves 1940s and 1950s star Jennifer Jones • MNPP lots of photos of Cory Michael Smith to celebrate his coming out and his new film 1985
• MCN first Gurus of Gold chart of the season with the actressing awards and Best Picture • Orlando Weekly Indiana Jones Land is probably coming to Disney World in the early 2020s with various parks dreaming up pitches • Variety it's going to be a big year for traditional studios at the Oscars • Coming Soon In demand Jean-Marc Vallée attached to a Yoko Ono / John Lennon biopic • Variety Critics Choice nominees for Documentaries. I really can't with the randomness of 6-9 nominees (are there any rules) in 12 different categories. It's like CHOOSE. If you nominate everything there is zero drama and no reason to look at what's been chosen. • THRHow to Build a Girl about a young woman (Beanie Feldstein) becoming a rock critic is building an impressive supporting cast with Emma Thompson, Paddy Considie, and Chris O'Dowd all joining • New Yorker lottery drawings in the age of plutocracy • Next Best Picture a report on 'lone acting nominations' • DeadlineBe More Chill, opening soon on Broadway has already auctioned off its film rights. Meanwhile Hamilton still hasn't ironed out a deal for the film rights but its expected to be a $50 million sale
Exit Video Hey look & listen, it's a brief soundbyte of a Mary Poppins Returns song in this "special look" that's basically pieces of the original trailer recut with a pieces of a song.
You guys. Everywhere I look there are articles or tweets positing that A Star is Born is going to sweep the Oscars, or win 3/4th of the acting categories or whatnot. This is unlikely. It's only because it's the biggest contender currently playing that people are losing their minds. Well, that and because the movie is a terrific piece of big studio entertainment aimed at adults that's also a hit at the box office. You know, the exact kind of movie that people pretend doesn't exist (it does almost annually) and also pretend that Oscar doesn't like (they do almost annually) whenever they write those dumb articles proclaiming "the Oscars are irrelevant!"
A Star is Born is just about at $100 million domestic at this writing but people are acting as if its earned one billion; I definitely wasn't expecting to hear it compared to Titanic today. So, let's all relax for a bit and talk about what is probable/possible since we've just barely finished UPDATING ALL THE OSCAR CHARTS.
BEST PICTURE I think it's too soon to call A Star is Born the frontrunner. It's just the first big Best Picture possibility to open since February (!) so that's a lot of time since Black Panther to bottle up armchair punditry feeling... bring on awards season! I dont currently believe Star will win (the remake stigma will catch up to it eventually) but let's say for the sake of argument that it does. That's one Oscar. Let's look at the other categories...
Heads up. We've begun the mid October overhaul of the charts. All four acting charts are updated with the biggest shakeups coming to Best Actor with Christian Bale and Clint Eastwood suddenly both roaring buzz-wise. Please take a look and comment. BEST ACTOR (Christian Bale & Clint Eastwood on the rise) | BEST ACTRESS (Davis and Aparicio on the rise) | SUPPORTING ACTOR (Robert Forster and Sam Elliott on the rise) | SUPPORTING ACTRESS (with Colman gone it's anyone's game)
Thoughts? Do share.
AND THIS JUST IN 10/15: Olivia Colman will be campaigning as lead for The Favourite with Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz officially "supporting" for the tragicomic triangular relationship. The charts have been updated to reflect the switch in presumed campaigns. Mostly this means Supporting Actress has no frontrunner... which is exciting.
Once Venice and Telluride and TIFF wrapped it was time to reflect the changes in buzz and hunches to reflect all that new information. Only a few potentially key titles now remain largely unseen by anyone: Vice, Mary Poppins Returns, Mary Queen of Scots, and Wecome to Marwen. If you want to get generous in the technical categories Mortal Engines and Alita: Battle Angel are two risky original would-be blockbusters that remain mysteries as well.