Sundance: "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley"

The Film Experience has two contributors at Sundance this year, Murtada and Abe. So here's your first of several reports. -Editor

Alex Gibney discussing his new doc on opening night of Sundance 2019

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

One of the first films to premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival comes from renowned documentarian Alex Gibney, who has previously taken on the Catholic Church, Scientology, Enron, and Lance Armstrong. He won an Oscar for his exposé on torture practices in the disturbing Taxi to the Dark Side (2007). It’s fair, at this point in his filmography, to assume that whatever Gibney wants to spotlight is going to be interesting.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley tells the recent story of young entrepeneur Elizabeth Holmes and her company Theranos, which launched with the promise of performing over 200 medical tests using just a tiny drop of blood...

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Festival Wrap - All The Reviews

We screened them at TIFF or NYFF or Middleburg but you also may have heard about them from Cannes or Venice media coverage. Now that the festivals are wrapped (only AFI remains and we're unable to make it this year *cries*) the rest of the year is all of these treasures and some of the duds hitting movie theaters (hopefully) near you. THEN, THE OSCARS. You know how it goes. It's our very very very favorite time of year. That sound you hear is the squealing of movie fans everywhere.

Nicole making the festival rounds in the fallHere's everything we reviewed from TIFF and NYFF or Middleburg in case you missed any of them...

• Ash Is Purest White (China) - Murtada at NYFF
• Border (Sweden) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Bulbul Can Sing (India) - Chris at TIFF
• Burning (South Korea) - Nathaniel at NYFF
• Can You Ever Forgive Me? (US) - Chris at TIF
• Climax  (France) - Chris at TIFF
• Cold War (Poland) - Jason at NYFF
• Destroyer (US) - Nathaniel at TIFF  
• Diamantino  (Portugal) - Chris at TIFF
• Duelle's / Mother's Instinct (Belgium) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• A Family Tour (China) - Murtada at NYFF
• The Favourite (UK) - Nathaniel at NYFF
• Fig Tree  (Israel/Ethiopia) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• First Man (US) -Nathaniel at TIFF 

• Giant Little Ones (Canada) - Chris at TIFF
• Gloria Bell (US) - Chris at TIFF
• Green Book (US) - Nathaniel at Middleburg
• Happy as Lazarro (Italy) - Jason at NYFF 
• Her Smell (US) - Jason at NYFF
• High Life (France) - Jason at NYFF
  
  
• If Beale Street Could Talk (US) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy (US) - Chris at TIFF
• The Kindergarten Teacher  (US) Nathaniel at TIFF
• Long Day's Journey Into Night  (China) - Jason at NYFF
• Museo (Mexico) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Non-Fiction (France) - Jason at NYFF
• The Old Man and the Gun (US) - Chris at TIFF
• The Quietude (Argentina) - Nathaniel at TIFF

• Rafiki (Kenya) -Chris at TIFF
• Ray & Liz (UK) - Murtada at NYFF
• The River (Kazakshtan) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Roma (Mexico) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Ruben Brandt Collector (Hungary) - Nathaniel at Middleburg
• Shadow  (Hong Kong) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Sorry Angel (France) - Jason at NYFF
• A Star is Born (US) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Tell it to the Bees  (UK) - Nathaniel at TIFF

• That Time of Year (Denmark) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Too Late To Die Young (Chile) - Murtada at NYFF
• Touch Me Not (Romania) - Chris at TIFF
• Transit (Germany) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Vita & Virginia  (UK) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Widows (US) - Chris at TIFF
• Wildlife (US) - Chris at TIFF
• Woman at War (Iceland) - Nathaniel at TIFF

'extras'

• Venice winners - Murtada
• Venice fashion - the gowns -Nathaniel
• Venice thinks pink - Nathaniel
• The men of Venice - Nathaniel
• Toronto Fashion - Murtada
• Nicole in Toronto - Nathaniel
• Jury of One TIFF - Nathaniel's honors
• Best of NYFF Performances - Murtada's honors
• Yalitza Aparacio tribute - Nathaniel at Middleburg
• Diane Warren concert - Nathaniel at Middleburg

It's true we didn't review everything we saw at Festivals but the biggies we didn't get to --  Shoplifters, El Angel, Capernaum, and Boy Erased -- will be in theaters very soon so reviews are forthcoming.

Believe the hype: "Green Book" is a true crowd pleaser

by Nathaniel R

The final day and a half of the very short but very fun Middleburg Film Festival went by with a whirl. We've since received word on the winners. Though Middleburg is a non-juried festival, the audience votes for a people's choice style prize. The documentary winner was Biggest Little Farm, a film about the director and his wife trying to develop a sustainable farm on 200 acres in California. Farm has been making the festival rounds for the past two months and is aiming for an April 2019 bow in movie theaters.

The narrative feature winner, echoing the crowd-response at TIFF a month earlier, went to Peter Farrelly's Green Book. Green Book was the closing film of the festival and I was able to catch its first screening on Sunday before racing to the airport to return home. The crowd went wild for it and it's worth noting that Middleburg has a more diverse audience than a lot of festivals (that's probably due to the vast social connections of the founder Sheila C Johnson, co-founder of BET who is one of the nation's richest African-American women and very involved in the arts). Sadly I wasn't able to attend the Q&A though I did manage to snap this photo before racing to the airport as the star Viggo Mortensen, the composer Kris Bowers, and director Peter Farrelly entered to a wild standing ovation to discuss the movie... 

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Middleburg: "Ruben Brandt" Collects and "Widows" Thrills

Day two of the Middleburg Film Festival

Friday kicked off with a special "sneak" of Stan & Ollie (which, more on tomorrow) and then two more movies which went like so...

Ruben Brandt, Collector
From the opening shot of this animated film from Hungary you know you're in for an idiosyncratic lark. We're humorously crosscutting between an ultra fast moving train and the molasses crawl of a snail on the tracks. Then we're inside the train with Ruben Brandt, a famous psychotherapist who is promptly attacked by a little girl with a very sharp bite who is dressed suspiciously like Diego Velázquez's  "Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress". I say 'dressed like' because it's hard to make the connection at first...

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Middleburg Opening Nite: Yalitza Aparicio and "Roma"

by Nathaniel R

with Yalitza Aparicio on opening nightThe Film Experience's beloved annual trip to the Middleburg Film Festival in Virginia got off to a late start. Flight delays and airport mix-ups and the like but a happy result: the Lyft driver was very chatty and wanted movie recommendations. I was happy to oblige since it wasn't just small talk but actual cinephilia! She wanted to know if I'd ever seen Woman in the Dunes and Hereditary. C'mon Double Feature! 

By the time I arrived at the opening night film, Alfonso Cuarón's Roma, it was already halfway over. As you know we've already seen and loved, but I watched from the back of the house as it was a sold-out house. Who knows how many chances any of us will have to see those teeming incredible images on a gargantuan screen...

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