What did you see this weekend?

by Nathaniel R

What did you see this week? I caught up with Ralph Breaks the Internet and *gasp* Paddington 2 (I regret my life choices that put the latter off this long). Here's what general audiences and big city moviegoers were checking out...

Weekend Box Office (Estimates) (December 14th-16th)
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide
1 🔺 Into the Spider-Verse $35.4 on 3813 screens *NEW* Review	1 🔺 The Favourite $2.5 on 439 screens (cum. $6.7) Review, Podcast ❤️

2 🔺 The Mule $17.2 on 2588 screens *NEW*	2 🔺 Mary Queen of Scots $700k on 66 screens (cum. $961k) Review

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Podcast: Critics Awards, Capernaum, Vox Lux

Nathaniel R, Murtada Elfadl, and Nick Davis to talk new films and awards madness

Index (68 minutes)
00:01 Top ten lists mania. And what makes a screener gay?
04:42 Vox Lux. What is going on there with Brady Corbet's messaging and Natalie Portman's ACTING?
16:01 Celebrity Cameos: Boots Riley, Julia Roberts, and pre-SAG silliness
22:16 LAFCA prizes and critical consensus especially around Roma
36:00 Ethan Hawke vs Bradley Cooper for Best Actor
41:22 Nadine Labaki's amazing Oscar submission Capernaum
49:20 Foreign Film Contenders. We don't like Girl
56:45 "Narratives" Glenn Close, Regina King, Amy Adams, Emily Blunt
63:30 Category Fraud Giggles and Carol Throwbacks
66:50 Ask us some questions, bitches!

Further Reading / References
• Boots Riley's Twitter account
• Foreign Film Race
• Nick's take on Girl
• LAFCA Awards
• ...oh and this is Christopher the cat, who was present for the recording

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Critics Awards, Vox Lux, Capernaum, and More...

"Shoplifters" wins the APSA. On its way to an Oscar nod?

by Nathaniel R

Hello awards-enthusiasts! Since Glenn Dunks is returning to his Doc Corner series later today after his annual duties at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, we realized we'd forgotten to list the winners and it's quite a good batch. Big prizes went to three currently buzzy foreign film Oscar hopefuls: Shoplifters (Japan), Burning (South Korea) and Capernaum (Lebanon). The first two are in theaters now in the US right now and Capernaum opens on December 14th. They're all terrific films and have to be considered very real threats for Oscar nominations. But it's true that that particular category is super competitive so virtually any high profile title might miss the shortlist. [Before we hear who nabbed the 5 nominations on January 22nd, the Academy will narrow that huge 87 film list down to just 9 contenders on December 17th.]

The list of APSA winners along with a few acceptance speeches after the jump...

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FYC Young Performer Award 2018

by Nathaniel R

Evan Rosado was just one of a handful of truly incredible child performances this year in "We the Animals"

Each year one of our award traditions here at The Film Experience is to help fellow BFCA members choose more wisely when it comes to the "Young Performer" category at the Critics Choice Movie Awards. We do this with a not-so-simple eligibility list. You see, our ballots don't come with lists of eligible choices so it's up to each member to think up a list and since the category gets no media coverage it's hard to think up choices on the spot so sometimes the nominations are quite lazy (You had a high profile child or teen role in a big studio film? You're nominated!). For instance this year, voters would be practically insane to skip Zain Al Rafee in Capernaum (only one of the best child performances ever) but given that that's within a foreign film hopeful that has yet to open in theaters (December 14th), voters ARE likely to be insane and skip him.

It takes a bit of research for the teen/young adult performances to see who is actually eligible. Given that we're apt to miss a couple of names, so do let us know if you don't see your favorite. The BFCA voting is about to begin so here are those cheat sheets to help them vote along with some trivia notes...

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Cannes Closing Ceremony - the Palme to "Shoplifters"

by Nathaniel R

The 71st edition of Cannes has ended. The closing ceremony started all fiery with Asia Argento reminding the audience that she was raped at the festival and Harvey Weinstein used to use Cannes as his "hunting ground" but after that impassioned speech, this settled quickly into the usual Closing Ceremony format of jury introductions, and strange presentation of awards in which "presenters" don't actually do the presenting but then turn to Madame President (in this case Cate Blanchett in a dress with a bow the size of her entire body on its back) to read out the winners.

So here's one last gif-heavy look at Cannes, which is really our first look (since the films have yet to open anywhere) at the winners from the closing ceremony. Many of these titles will go on to further glories at other festivals and hopefully in theatrical release in the US and some will definitely be Oscar foreign language film submissions. But even if this is the end of their awards run, winning prizes at Cannes remains a very big deal...

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