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.)
With the 95th Academy Awards wrapped, it's time to look to the future. Herewith a quick little series about what's in store for the recently nominated. Let's start with the writer/directors.
EDWARD BERGER The 52 year old director behind Germany's latest Oscar winner, All Quiet on the Western Front, was surely thisclose to snagging an Oscar nomination for his directing (given how well the film did across the board) but he had to make due with sharing a writing nomination. His credits to date have largely been on German television but he'd already made inroads into Hollywood prior to the World War I Oscar magnet, directing episodes of two Showtime series, Your Honor and Patrick Melrose.
Let's just say he's very busy. He's already shot a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (as a miniseries) starring Benedict Cumbatch. Around the time of the Oscar nomination he was also shooting a religious thriller Conclave...
Last night the Critics Choice Awards were held and broadcast on the CW. They copied and pasted many of the winners from the Golden Globes, though not quite all. To their credit, though, the repeat acting winners mostly seemed to understand this (a stark change from years past where you'd hear the same speech at every show) and didn't copy and paste their own speeches. There were also a few differences in attendance that varied things up (most noticeably Cate Blanchett who didn't attend the Globes; she won at both). But it was a dull night, overall, if you weren't in the room. We've gone before of course but it's been a few years and it does feel different if you're inside the room. Especially if you manage to get a seat at a fun table.
For the low energy, maybe we should blame the absence of awesome cheerleader Jamie Lee Curtis whose enthusiasm was very much missed since Everything Everywhere All At Once kept winning awards (it took five in total, the most prizes for anything) The winners and a few more comments after the jump...
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 Friedtanzerand Baby Clyde talking about Everything Everywhere All at Once.
ABE: Baby Clyde, I hope all is well! I'm eager to start talking about a film that I absolutely loved, Everything Everywhere All at Once. I actually am very late to the party on this one. I wasn't seeing films in theaters yet back when it was originally released. I finally caught it about two months ago in early November and was impressed that it more than lived up to the hype. The performances are all phenomenal, and it's just drowning in creativity in a way that so few films are these days. But, if I'm to understand correctly, you don't agree. Before I get in to what else I loved about it, can you tell me what you didn't?
I suppose this is the part where I’m to mention that Swiss Army Man prompted walkouts at its Sundance premiere, features Paul Dano propelling across the ocean on the back of Daniel Radcliffe’s farting corpse, and that its sophomoric scatology dominates the runtime of the film. All of these things are true. But if you’ve been avoiding Swiss Army Man out of fear of offending your eyeballs, I implore you to clutch your pearls and give it a shot anyway now that the film has arrived on Blu-ray and DVD...
When the raucous survival film Swiss Army Man set Sundance aflame this January – aided in no small part from some infamously inflammatory methane – the only tidbit more shocking than hearing secondhand strands from its preposterous plot was the news that indie dynamo distributer A24picked up its check to jet ski it across cinemas nationwide. Prompting walkouts that don’t sound too dissimilar from recently announced Tribeca juror and enfant terrible Sebastian Silva’s 2015 submission Nasty Baby, Swiss Army Man was immediately accused of churlish, childish, and undeniably crass crimes against good taste – what else would one expect from a buddy film about Paul Dano enduring starvation and isolation on a desert isle thanks to the multipronged malleability of Daniel Radcliffe’s flatulent, tumescent corpse? Certainly not a Directing Award, which the film’s directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinhart scooped up nonetheless; together, they go by the monicker Daniels…please make us proud.
Well, the trailer landed this week and it’s a doozy. Alternating between the bracing and bizarro, its Robinson Crusoe by way of Weekend At Bernie’s visionis sure to split audiences, test their endurance, and leave them wondering if it belongs with the sublime or subpar. Feast your eyes; clutch your stomach.
A few stray thoughts…
Surely I can’t be the only one clamoring for a Moonrise Kingdom beachside boogie with those two dudes amongst the sand and rocks. I have plenty of quibbles with both of their heavily mannered works the past few years but that almost makes it more enticing.
On that same point, their chemistry makes me long for their buddy cop film. Let's call it Love & Mercy.
While Radcliffe’s face is sort of frozen in that I’m A Conflicted Man! way that featured heavily in the post-puberty Potter films, at least MacGyvering him into a karate chop trebuchet, bulletproof vest, and eternal spring puts it to good use.
I know it’s the tongue-in-cheek inspirational tune, but the combination of fun house imagery and unconventional companionship warms my heart.
If a Paul Dano screams in the woods with no living soul around to hear it, does it still make a sound?
Gotta say, I’m kind of into it. The slapdash inventiveness, bold visuals, and blowing up of the rote genre volleyball hooked me. Does this look like a page one wash or does the audacity strike a chord with you?
Wednesday, March 22, 2023 at 2:34PM 
EDWARD BERGER
