Consider Oscar Isaac in "The Card Counter"

by Lynn Lee

Is it too early to start an “Oscar for Oscar” FYC campaign?  Because there needs to be one for Oscar Isaac in The Card Counter, stat.

Sadly, it’s not at all a given that he’ll get much traction.  Initial reception of The Card Counter among critics has been positive but rather muted, and the film hasn’t made much of a mark with general audiences.  It probably doesn’t help that the trailer gives the misleading impression of a snappy, heisty movie about a poker player with a shady past when in reality it’s a slow-burn Paul Schrader Dark Odyssey into the Mind of a Morally Tormented Man.  Schrader fans, at least, will get what they’re expecting; Isaac fans will get that and so much more...

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Chastain wins San Sebastian (+ Best Actress Chart Updates)

by Nathaniel R

Women won every award at San Sebastian this year.

Congratulations are in order to Jessica Chastain who took Best Actress at the San Sebastian Film Festival for her sensational star turn in The Eyes of Tammy Faye. We've updated the Best Actress chart. At this very early stage it's looking like a Stewart vs Chastain vs Gaga battle royale. Yes yes the internet always likes to crown the winner before there's even a battle (with everyone deciding Kristen Stewart is winning) but here at The Film Experience we prefer the contest for the nominations -- it's more egalitarian and one should always celebrate multiple actresses as there has never been a year with only one worthy contender. And, listen, when you earn substantial Oscar buzz you're already a winner baby.

Nevertheless "wins" do exist so let's look at the other San Sebastian winners and which actresses have won all the major festivals thus far after the jump... 

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Albania, Ireland, Kyrgyzstan, Slovenia, and Ukraine choose their Oscar submissions

by Nathaniel R

We have five more Oscar submissions for the Best International Feature Oscar to share, all from countries that have never been nominated. With 13 official contenders we're probably around 15% there -- we don't even have enough "official" contenders for a full finalist list (of 15) yet...

ALBANIA is going with Jonid Jorgji's road trip comedy Three Lions Heading to Venice about filmmakers headed to the festival who meet adult movie actresses on the way, derailing their plans...

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What will the Netherlands submit to Oscar?

by Nathaniel R

Will The Netherlands submit "De Oost", currently streaming on Amazon?

For those of you who like to follow the admittedly super niche drama of the submission battles for Oscar's best International Feature Film race, we have another finalist list to report. The Netherlands will be announcing their submission in early October but we have their 14 wide finalist list. The first thing to note is that Paul Verhoeven's excellent lesbian nun drama Benedetta is not on it. Perhaps it's because the Dutch director who The Netherlands have submitted four times (Turkish Delight, Soldier of Orange, The Fourth Man, Black Book)  is now working in France mostly. Elle, his most recent previous picture, was a submission for France and perhaps Benedetta wasn't deemed Dutch enough? Only three of the fourteen possibilities from The Netherlands have anything like an international profile and all three are about young soldiers so we suspect the Dutch will be sending a war drama.

After the jump a brief decription of each finalist, one of which is already in release in the US...

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Review: Jessica Chastain and those "Eyes of Tammy Faye"

By Nathaniel R

A makeup artist fumbles, discovering she can't undo what Tammy Faye hath wrought. It's not a matter of removing the makeup and starting fresh as some of it is tattooed right on. The former televangelist's lips are permanently lined and the raccoon eyes are there to say; mascara as monument. Was this scene at the beginning or the end of the new biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye? One can never remember with framing devices that flashback to tell you the whole story that got us there but it hardly matters. The point that comes across is not so much how we got there -- though perhaps the filmmakers think go given the framing device-- but that Tammy Faye's clown makeup bioqueen persona is an absolute. She didn't will into it existence so much as uncover and reveal its eternal nature. 

Is this laying it on too thick? The prose, I mean, not the mascara. Of course! But "too much" is just right for anything Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker related...

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