The 9th Annual Team Experience Awards!

by Christopher James

Many things may have changed in the past year, but one thing remains the same. The show must go on and the Team Experience Awards must continue! If there's one perk of staying quarantined in one's home for a full year, it's that there is ample time to watch movies. Before Nathaniel reveals all of his Film Bitch winners for the year, the rest of the writers at The Film Experience gathered together to vote on our favorites of 2020 (and the first two months of 2021). Nathaniel will be staying with the calendar year eligibility (plus US festivals) but the Team is using Oscar eligibility rules with one exception: we also decided to consider Small Axe in our awards as five separate films.

In the end, nothing was a match for Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman, which earned the most wins (4) and nominations (11) from the bunch. While that may have taken the top prize, the team nominated fifty movies across 21 categories. Check out the nominees and winners after the jump...

Click to read more ...

The Furniture: 10 Favorite Sets of 2020

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber. (Click on the images for magnified detail)

Our year in review list-making continues but this is not a “Best Production Design” list. The thing about production design is that it's hard to compare. Obviously all films are collaborative, but at least in such Oscar categories as “Best Original Score” and “Best Actress” you’re focusing on the work of easily identifiable individuals. “Production design” is the combined achievement of a whole slew of production designers, art directors, and set decorators, and more.

But beyond that, different productions task designers with using wildly different tools. How do you compare sets built on a soundstage to the careful decoration of a real historic home? The physical sets of period pieces with the digitally-conceived spaces of science fiction? Animation! It’s dizzying.

So herewith this is a list of ten favorite movie sets of 2020, using the loosest definition possible. It’s in alphabetical order, because ranking is stressful. Enjoy...

Click to read more ...

20:20 (Pt 2) Power chords, romantic comedies, and unseen gems?

Due to our ongoing fetish for freezeframing movies at random and for the practical reasons of looking for which 2020 releases are streaming --we are rapidly approaching "year in review" list-season so we gotta catch up --we're freezing 2020 pictures at the 20:20 mark. If you missed part one, that's here. The movies were chosen entirely at random ....so long as they were easily accessible for viewing.

How many of these 15 movies have you seen? Any you've been meaning to catch up with?

Are the people ready to make opening arguments?

Click to read more ...

"Virtual" Moviegoing - What's New?

by Nathaniel R

Tired of aimlessly scanning choices on Netflix? Treat yourself to a newish movie tonight that you might have been seeing in a theater in a better world! Increasingly the small indie distributors like Kino Lorber and Music Box Films are releasing their movies to pay per view streaming systems which share the ticket purchase price with the movie theater of your choice! So this weekend make some popcorn and pretend you're going to your local arthouse with one of these gems...

Click to read more ...

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...

Click to read more ...