Split Decision: "All Quiet on the Western Front"

No two people feel the exact same way about any film. Thus, Team Experience is pairing up to debate the merits of each of the awards movies this year. Here’s Eric Blume and Cláudio Alves on Germany's Oscar contender.

ERIC:  Claudio, let's get down and dirty on Edward Berger's All Quiet on the Western Front.  I'm in camp "love" and I think you're in camp "don't love"?  The only real dissent I've heard from folks is that "it says nothing new about war" (which I look forward to addressing).  But let's start with overall impressions of the film.

CLÁUDIO:  Well, it's adapting a seminal anti-war novel – maybe THE anti-war novel pre-WWII – already made into a Best Picture Oscar winner before. So it's not like it had much hope of saying something new about its subject. Nevertheless, Edward Berger and company bring plenty of "new things" to the narrative presented in the literary work and its previous adaptations, so there's that...

Click to read more ...

"Pinocchio" and "Living" among USC Scripter Nominations

by Nathaniel R

The annual USC Scripter awards honor film and television adapted from other literary sources. The cool thing about them is they award both the current screenwriter and the original author being adapted.

It should be one of the nomination announcements that excite us the most each year in terms of assessment of screenwriting -- the jury is generally made up of writers and critics -- but they often fail to live up to their potential. Usually that's a result of them hewing very close to the Oscar conversation rather than suggesting that the full jury has actually been watching plentiful movies year round and thinking about the craft of writing. Whch is not to say that some of their choices aren't strong but there's usually at least one title that suggests they've been reading Oscar tea leaves rather than books and screenplays. I'll leave it to you to glean what that title is this year. They get a little more creative with the TV side, perhaps because there's no current awards buzz (Emmys were over a few months ago) to piggyback on...

Click to read more ...

Split Decision: "The Whale"

No two people feel the same exact way about any film. Thus, Team Experience is pairing up to debate the merits of each of the big awards season movies this year. Here’s Abe Friedtanzer & Eric Blume on The Whale

ABE:  Eric, I distinctly remember last year when I mentioned that my favorite movie was CODA that you wanted to start a series where you just kept telling me how bad it was. Well, fortunately or unfortunately, I hear you detest my favorite movie of 2022 just as much, so now you get that chance! I was recently a guest on The Rolling Tape podcast where we had five panelists discussing The Whale and expected someone to be in the "hate it" camp, but it turns out we all loved it. For me, the experience of seeing it in a completely packed press and industry screening at the Toronto International Film Festival back in September was an astounding one, and I left feeling entirely impressed with pretty much everything about it. I soon read about the issues some people had with it, but rather than guess what rubbed you the wrong way, I'll invite you to say your piece before I get to defending my top film of the year.

ERIC:  Abe!  It's a good thing we genuinely like each other enough to dive into this all in good fun.  It's not my fault you like badly-written films! 

Click to read more ...

Awards Season Catchup: "Devotion"

By Abe Friedtanzer

While Top Gun: Maverick has been enjoying a warm reception from audiences and awards bodies alike, another film about daring pilots is flying around in theaters. Based on the 2015 nonfiction book Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice by Adam Makos, Devotion is about a powerful friendship between two Navy pilots during the Korean War. One of them is Jonathan Majors, the only Black member of the unit. In the film's other Top Gun: Maverick connection, the other one is played by Glen Powell, who portrays Hangman in the present-day film. 

Devotion opens on Tom Hudner (Glen Powell) arriving to join Fighter Squadron 32, which already includes Jesse Brown (Majors), who faces routine racism from his fellow Navy officers and the neighbors who believe that his mere existence is stirring up trouble...

Click to read more ...

Awards Season Catchup: "Blonde" on Netflix

By Abe Friedtanzer

It’s hard to wait to watch a film months after its release and not be at least somewhat affected by what the public thinks about it. To say that the Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde has not received favorable mentions is an understatement. Still everyone has opinions so it seemed possible that there might be something worthwhile about it, like Ana de Armas’ Golden Globe-nominated performance or the Oscar-shortlisted makeup and hairstyling. Seeing the NC-17 rating and the daunting 2-hour-and-47-minute runtime at the start of the film sets up certain expectations, and, somehow, this film still manages to surprise, and not in a good way.

Blonde opens in black-and-white on a young Norma Jeane Mortensen (Lily Fisher) and her mother Gladys (Julianne Nicholson), who shows Norma a photo of a celebrity she claims is her father. Gladys quickly descends into a manic state, driving her young daughter straight towards a fire while everyone else is running the other way...

Click to read more ...