DGA Nominees: Chung, Fennell, Fincher, Sorkin, and Zhao

by Nathaniel R

The Director's Guild of America have announced their nominations for the 2020 film year. And it's a doozy. For the first time ever two women have been nominated in the top category. It's worth noting that the DGA has nominated more women for their top prize over the years than Oscar has but they've never nominated two simultaneously in their top category.  The nominees and some comments and awards season stats are after the jump...

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How many female directors are going to be nominated?

by Juan Carlos Ojano

In hindsight, concerns that "there are no movies" or cries to "cancel the Oscars" during the pandemic were premature and also insulting. We could lament all the films postponed or we could embrace the extraordinary films we got. 2020 was a rich year of diverse voices behind the movies. That happily translated to the awards conversation: BIPOC and female filmmakers have had an unprecedented presence in the run up to the Oscar nominations.

Looking back at Oscar history, only five women have been nominated for Best Director...

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Team Experience SAG/Globe Reactions Pt 2: Happy Thoughts & Virtual Anticipation

In part one, we polled Team Experience about the darker side of the SAG and Globe nominations this week. For part two we'll lighten up with happy questions.

• Which acting nomination most thrilled you?
• What was your happiest non-acting moment during the nods?
• Despite a rough week for them, which film or performer are you still hopeful about?
• Whose home are you most eager to see in the virtual ceremonies to follow? 

You know what to do! Read their answers and provide your own in the comments... 

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How Do You Solve a Problem Like Nina: The Ghost of "Promising Young Woman"

by Lynn Lee

Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS for Promising Young Woman. Do not read until you've seen the film.

Can we all agree that Carey Mulligan IS Promising Young Woman?  Not just that she’s sensational in it, though she is.  No, I mean she is the movie: her performance as the tormented and tormenting protagonist, Cassie, is what holds it together and propels it to its gut-punch of a conclusion.

That’s not to shortchange PYW’s solid supporting cast or writer-director Emerald Fennell, who brings impressive confidence and panache to her feature debut and whose razor-sharp script gave Mulligan a perfect opportunity to shine.  But what could have remained merely provocative on page really needed the right acting touch to sell the character’s complex blend of steeliness and vulnerability, wit and anguish, sexiness and inconspicuousness, icy calculation and seething rage, on screen.  Luckily for Fennell, and for us, Mulligan convincingly conveys all aspects of this unlikely avenging angel and fuses them into a cohesive, if conflicted, whole.

Well, almost all aspects...

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Sundance Review: Promising Young Woman

by Murtada Elfadl

Carey Mulligan is an actress of immense range. Since her breakout at the 2009 edition of Sundance with An Education, she’s given us many tremendous performances. All of them heartbreaking and deeply felt in different ways, whether she’s a replicant trying to make human connections (Never Let Me Go), F Scott Fitzgerald’s famous Daisy (The Great Gatsby), a broken sister singing her heart out as a last cry for help (Shame) or a wife and mother facing the dissolution of her marriage and the paucity of choices after (Wildlife). And once again she gives an exceptional performance in Promising Young Woman.

This time she’s Cassie, who at 30 still lives home with her parents (Clancy Brown and Jennifer Coolidge), whiles her days away working in a coffee shop where even the boss (Laverene Cox) thinks the job is beneath her. Little by little we find out the reason for her apathy. An event that happened during college made her dropout and become a sorta avenger against “nice guys” who take advantage of vulnerable women...

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