Almost There: Emma Stone in "Battle of the Sexes"

by Cláudio Alves

Our most recent two-time Best Actress champion is back in theaters with Yorgos Lanthimos' Kinds of Kindness, a black-hearted tryptic that allows Emma Stone to experiment with three distinctly realized characters. To mark the occasion and the success of another tennis-related movie – Guadagnino's Challengers – let's think back to one of the few times this Academy favorite was in the race but didn't land a nomination. In 2017, right after her first Oscar win, Stone played Billie Jean King in Battle of the Sexes. Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the biopic was made in parallel with a Presidential election that saw a very different outcome than its titular match. Looking back, Battle of the Sexes reached for the zeitgeist yet failed to predict where the world was headed.

As for Stone, the project signaled her most outward flirtation with traditional prestige before her career went into another direction altogether…

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Berlinale goes for genderless acting prizes

There were quite a few comments the other day wondering why we hadn't shared the news that Berlinale, one of the world's top film festivals, will no longer be giving out separate Best Actress and Best Actor prizes. Instead they'll now be giving out two genderless acting prizes, one for a leading role and one for a supporting role. The reason we hadn't yet shared the news is that we found it self-sabotaging and depressing. A disclaimer before we continue: Before yet another angry comment explosion wherein we're accused of not having any perspective -- 'the world is burning, who cares about movie awards,' etcetera, you know the drill -- we must state upfront that we're fully aware that film awards are not the most important thing going on in the world. To which we must also state "duh!" reflectively and pre-emptively. But this is a film site, and a film site that is obsessed with film awards so please just let us do our thing. If you want to read about the world burning, you're at the wrong website anyway. This one is built for talking about arts and entertainment with a heavy emphasis on the filmed kind.

Now let's continue to the Berlinale topic...

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1981 Retro: Revisiting the Women of "For Your Eyes Only"

Team Experience is revisiting 1981 this week inbetween your regular programming...

by Deborah Lipp

For Your Eyes Only  (1981) is fairly well-loved among Bond fans; in looking at the 24 official movies plus Never Say Never Again, it ranks a bit above middle-of-the-pack. I slice my data on a few different metrics to get an accurate picture (but that’s a story for another day). The 12th Bond film is often thought of as Roger Moore’s best outing (I prefer The Spy Who Loved Me) and it's certainly his most serious.

My love for James Bond, and Bond movies, is unwavering, but each time I revisit them, I see them with new eyes. I’ve seen 1981’s For Your Eyes Only many times, but watching it in 2020 is necessarily different from watching it at any other times. After all, we always bring ourselves to our movie-going...

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Eric Rohmer Centennial: Six Moral Tales

by Eric Blume

Last weekend marked the 100th birthday of one of France’s greatest directors, Eric Rohmer, and we here at TFE figured that a nice way to celebrate him would be a look back at the six-film series that launched his career, the Six Moral Tales, which were released between 1962 and 1972.  

These films basically have the same plot:  a man obsessed or in love with one girl finds himself distracted by another woman, only to return to the first girl.  Rohmer uses this framework to examine the stunted male psyche, the rationalizations of behavior, and the mystery of love...

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The prizes literally never stop... NSFC, GLAAD, NAACP and more

As per usual we've fallen a bit behind in the awardage department so we're doing a massive post right now to catch up. Here are the latest critics groups to announce their awards as well as nominations from two civil rights organizations, GLAAD and the NAACP...

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