Film Bitch Awards: Breakthrough Performers, Small Gem Performances, Memorable Scenes

by Nathaniel R

Diego Calva at the "Babylon" premiere. Photograph by Sthanlee B. Mirador / Sipa USA via AP

In a mad race to finish the Film Bitch Awards before the Oscars, we've posted five more categories!  Breakthrough of the Year features rising stars from the US (Stephanie Hsu, Brandon Perea), UK (Bella Ramsey), Finland (Aamu Milonoff), and Mexico (Diego Calva). It's not strictly an acting award (like the others) but more about which new stars we're most eager to see in another picture... immediately.

Best Actress in a Limited or Cameo Role is also up for the scene stealers who do a lot with a very little like Lia Williams who is so self-regarding and droll as the poet Edith Sitwell in Benediction.

Finally the Best Scenes page is in process now featuring Best Opening Scene (Triangle of Sadness "H&M / Balenciaga" has to be there), Best Ending (The Fabelmans horizon line naturally), Credit Sequence (Jackass Forever's dick kaiju terrorizes) and also a Dozen Memorable Scenes that don't fit into the other various scene categories.

Enjoy!

Split Decision: "Babylon"

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 Chris James, Ben Miller and Glenn Dunks duking it out over Babylon.

CHRIS: Hey Glenn and Ben, happy to chat with you on the most talked about/least seen movie of the holiday season. Oscar winner Damien Chazelle's big budget tale, Babylon, opened with $3.6 million over the holiday weekend. I hate to be the person to kick a movie when it's down. It benefits no one for an original auteur project to flop. However, I found Babylon to be an all-out disaster. Its grand scale debauchery grows stale with each passing scene, with nothing ever exuding sexiness or splendor. 

Much could be saved if Chazelle had a clear thesis with the movie, or engaging characters to follow. Unfortunately, Chazelle never quite knows whether to vilify or exalt Hollywood; instead, we just get a confused portrait of the silent era that feels neither real nor heightened. Despite a game performance from Margot Robbie, none of the central three characters jump off the screen because they don't have a strong, propulsive want. They do wild and crazy things, but the movie never bothers giving any of their actions a strong enough motivation. Maybe I'm just being the Grinch of Babylon. What are both of your thoughts on Babylon? Were there any elements that really worked - or didn't - for either of you?

Click to read more ...

Yes No Maybe So: "The Fabelmans" and "Glass Onion"

by Nathaniel R

It's hard to keep up in September with festival premieres, Oscar news, and fresh trailers arriving daily. The strangest thing about September though is how future-oriented everything is. It's not about what people have access to now (theaters start crawling out of their current wasteland Friday) but what they might be talking about in December and January. Which makes September feel like foreplay without pleasure. But October is just around the corner and things get significantly more in-the-moment the further into the last quarter we get. Still trailers have their own kind of anticipatory pleasure. So today let's talk The Fabelmans which is getting raves from the first responders at TIFF...

Click to read more ...

Thoughts I Had... while staring at the first images from "Babylon"

by Nathaniel R

Damien Chazelle photographed by Scott Garfield on the set

Damien Chazelle's Hollywood opus (of some sort or another), Babylon, wasn't ready for the fall festivals so we had no clue when we'd get our first taste. Thankfully today Vanity Fair ended our long drought of information, visual and otherwise, with several lux images from the film. Naturally then it's time to discuss our thoughts, yours and mine (as they come to me). Yours go in the comments. Please don't be shy. The team misses socializing with you in this way. Okay, lots of images to get through so here we go as fast as can, thoughts in the order they came to us...

Click to read more ...