Oscars: The Five Club

by Eric Blume

It’s always fun when “the conversation” starts to brew for Oscar nominations every year, seeing which actors are gaining traction for a potential nomination. What’s interesting this year is that there are an unusually high number of actors (six, in fact!) who currently have four acting nominations under their belt who all stand good-to-great chances of joining The Five Club with nods this year. Five Oscar nominations is a big deal. Only 22 actors currently have five, and the names are among some of our best from older Hollywood (Olivia de Havilland, James Stewart), to the modern age (Albert Finney, Anne Bancroft, Susan Sarandon) to contemporary (Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams). It’s very nice company to be in. 

Let’s take a look at the actors who stand a very real shot of being a part of The Five Club this year…

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Cannes at Home: Day 3 – Innocence Lost

by Cláudio Alves

New films by James Gray and Jerzy Skolimowski have hit the Croisette, leading to many a Belfast mention and plenty of donkey talk. Armageddon Time, a memoirist exercise that purports to evoke Gray's childhood, has been met with mixed reactions, including here at The Film Experience. However, the consensus leans towards warmth, and, as a longtime James Gray devotee, I couldn't be more excited. After all, nearly every film the man directed faced some negative critiques, yet I love most of them regardless. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about Jerzy Skolimowski. His filmography has been a dependable source of disappointments. By reading some reviews (including Elisa's), his new project, EO, sounds like the cynical bastard child of War Horse and Au Hasard Balthasar. That being said, I doubt the Bressonian comparison will do EO any favors.

For Cannes at Home, today's topics are the film that should have won James Gray the Palme d'Or and Jerzy Skolimowski's Deep End…

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NYFF: "C'mon C'mon"

by Jason Adams

Mike Mills, the maestro of what actually matters, strikes excellence yet again with C'mon C'mon, his latest film screening at NYFF this week. How in the ever-loving world is this only his fourth -- yes you read that right, his fourth! -- feature film? The math don't lie: Thumbsucker, to the grand Beginners, to the masterpiece 20th Century Women, and now C'mon C'mon, and Mills' ability to laser right in on the emotional truth of any and every moment remains unparalleled. Jettisoning all the Joker toxicity from his body, the film stars Joaquin Phoenix, thankfully in his sweet smiling airiest tender boy mode. This is the Joaquin I personally signed up for, whispering his feelings into a telephone with wet eyes. What a heartfelt symphony this whole experience is; a gift..

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Almost There: Nicole Kidman in "To Die For"

by Cláudio Alves

This October, the Criterion Channel is celebrating all things death and murder, be it fantastical or otherwise. Indeed, amid its new collections, one can find a curated program of movies that reflect the idea of True Crime in some way or another. Gus Van Sant's pitch-black comedy To Die For is one of those films. The story of an ambitious weather girl with aspirations of TV fame who manipulates teenagers into killing her husband was a breakthrough for Nicole Kidman back in the mid-90s. After years of being systematically undervalued by audiences and critics alike, the actress got immense critical acclaim and came close to an Oscar nomination…

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Come On Come On, C'Mon C'mon

by Jason Adams

I'm still not sure what to make of the movie year that's been 2021 -- everything still feels to me of a piece with 2020 to be honest, for reasons I am sure you can extrapolate. I have only been inside a movie theater a handful of times and those have been for press screenings or for a cannot-miss repertory screening (like when The Paris here in NYC screened Call Me By Your Name a few weeks ago); that is to say I still haven't been to see a single new movie in a theater with a crowd of normals since March of last year. Add on the fact that I saw several of this fall's big movies this past winter at Sundance (my first), while several of this fall's big movies were first meant to be last fall's big movies, and I think this has given the current moment a formlessness that I'm having trouble delineating.

Anyway my ultimate point is I was going to call Mike Mills' new film C'Mon C'Mon my most anticipated film of the fall, but I actually have no idea what that means anymore. So let's just say I really really really really really wanna see this movie. So much so that doing any "Yes No Maybe So" for this morning's just-dropped first look trailer would be a total and complete farce. I am one thousand percent down for this. I mean did you SEE 20th Century Women? 

C'Mon C'Mon will be playing NYFF in a few weeks and then will presumably be out by the end of the year but A24 hasn't set a date yet. What are your thoughts on the trailer?