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Entries in Hand of God (5)

Sunday
Jan302022

An exhaustive Italian guide to Paolo Sorrentino’s 'The Hand of God'

by Elisa Giudici

As your Italian correspondent here at The Film Experience, it's my duty to give you an exhaustive guide to our current Oscar finalist. Or, at least, it is my attempt. I am not from Naples and The Hand of God is a movie that's deeply connected to Neapolitan folklore and culture. Let’s start from the beginning though we hope you've already screened the movie on Netflix...

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Thursday
Oct282021

New International Contenders: "The Hand of God" and an extremely hot Instagram star

by Nathaniel R

Time to check in again with Oscar submissions as five more countries join the fray. The highest profile new entry is Italy's The Hand of God by Paolo Sorrentino. He triumphed in this category eight years back with The Great Beauty (2013) which ended the longest drought -- seven years -- that Italy has ever had in this particular competition. If The Hand of God snags the nomination, Sorrentino will have performed this feat twice since Italy hasn't been nominated since. Sorrentino joins Iran's Asghar Farhadi (A Hero) as the only International contender this season who has already led a film to victory in this category.  The Hand of God is a memoir about Sorrentino's teenage years and a family tragedy. He's been campaigning enthusiastically since Cannes, recently attending the Middleburg Film Festival to receive an International Spotlight prize.

Other new contenders are after the jump...

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Tuesday
Oct192021

The Italian Oscar race: 18 contenders for the submission, 1 probable winner

by Elisa Giudici

THE HAND OF GOD


The Italian longlist for the 2021 Oscar submission is very long and much better than usual, quality-wise. Although if the Italian Cinema Academy appointed by ANICA really wants to give Italy a chance to make the finals,the choice is obvious: Paolo Sorrentino's The Hand of God.

Unfortunately, in the last decade, the Italian film commission's rulings on this matter have not proved to be that smart. I mean, how can you send Marco Bellocchio's The Traitor (as beautiful and important as it was domestically) when The New York Times states that Pietro Marcello's Martin Eden is the best movie of 2020? Our only solace was that that was the year of Parasite, so there was no room for a real contender to Bong Joon-ho's victory in Best Internatural Feature Film...

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Thursday
Sep232021

Middleburg Film Festival to open with "King Richard", close with "Power of the Dog"

by Nathaniel R

The 9th annual Middleburg Film Festival, which will be returning to an in-person experience this October 14th-17th in Virginia's historic wine and horse country (about an hour's drive from DC) has announced the first six films in this year's selection. The festival will open with Warner Bros King Richard on Thursday evening, Focus Feature's Belfast as its Centerpiece, and close with Netflix title Power of the Dog on Sunday night. Yours truly will be returning to Middleburg and I couldn't be happier about it.  (You might remember that for the past couple of years we've co-hosted a "Coffee and Contenders" panel there early in the morning to discuss the Oscar race.)

Ticket packages are now on sale and individual tickets go on sale on October. 

With health and safety being a top priority, MFF 2021 will require festival goers to be fully vaccinated and present proof of a negative COVID-19 test administered within 72 hours of arriving at the festival. Additionally masks will be required for all indoor screenings and events.

Other films announced for Middleburg 2021 are A24's Red Rocket, Netflix's Hand of God and NEON's Flee as the three "Spotlight" titles for US, International, and Documentary respectively. More films and panels will be announced as we get closer to the fest!

Thursday
Aug282014

Amazon Pilots: "Hand of God" 

Someone needs to have a long talk with Amazon about trying to compete with Netflix and the like with their original programming. Very first step (once you have content) is to make it accessible and advertise it. Advertise it AT LEAST on your own website where you have millions of shoppers. I'm a good case study. Ever since speaking with Dana Delany, a guest star here last month, I've been eager to see her new pilot that she and I talked about offline "Hand of God". I go to Amazon a lot and I've been wondering when advertisements would pop up for it and they never did. I had to search for it specificially and then once I was searching I had to instinctively know to click on a very small ad that said "Amazon Pilots" above the actual search results that showed me old attempts at original programming. They produced five new show possibilities but will any of them go to series if people don't know where to watch them?

Get it together Amazon or you're never going to be able to compete with Netflix!

 

For what it's worth, Hand of God was a gripping hour of television if, and this is an important caveat, you can stomach one more antihero show. (There are just so many of them). Ron Perlman stars and gets a pretty great 'WTF who/what is this?' opening scene for both a character and the pilot itself, beginning as it does with him naked in water, speaking in tongues. Turns out he's a very powerful judge who is losing it and whose son is in a coma. The Judge believes God is speaking to him and ordering him on a vengeance mission. We meet a ton of characters, none of whom appear to be entirely trustworthy.

Cons: Some of the expository bits were clunky (as they often are in pilots) and there was one subplot too many for a first hour. There are dozens of ways it could go wrong, mostly with overstatement; the Hand of God ministries scenes felt way too easy with immoral con-artist smarminess. Pros: But, that said, the pilot was well-acted stuff with at least two absolutely discomfiting and psychologically explosive scenes that manage to mess with multiple character's psyches. If the show continues it should look to the electric tension between the core family members (Perlman, Delany and Alona Tal as their daughter in law) and readjust the simplistic extremes of the peripheries. Film director Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, World War Z, Finding Neverland) produced and directed and it's the kind of pilot that wisely whets the appetite while also feeling like a full chapter. The best reason to give it a try is the cast: Perlman is memorably unpredictable, Delany simmers with barely-veiled contempt, and among the supporting actors there's the always watchable Garret Dillahunt as a volatile born-again convict and Emayatzy Corinealdi (so great recently in Middle of Nowhere) as a high-priced call girl.

Hand of God and four more pilots (including one collegiate comedy starring "Assjuice" himself, Craig Roberts from this summer's Neighbors) are available for viewing now at Amazon. If in the Emmy aftermath, if you're ready for the new Fall TV season, have at them. As for myself, I'm so eager to get back to movies but August has been dull in that regard. Come rescue me, Fall Prestige Season, I need you!