Doc Corner: Democracy, Nostalgia and Deadly Protest at Slamdance

by Glenn Dunks

We will be looking at both the Documentary Feature and Documentary Short Subject category in February as we approach the Oscar ceremony, but this week we're taking a small trip to the Slamdance Film Festival in Utah. Situated alongside Sundance, this smaller festival obviously doesn’t get the attention of its much larger cousin – not helped by also happening at the same time as Oscar nominations – but we’re proud to give it a visit.

Here are thoughts on three of their documentaries this year....

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Months of Meryl: The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979)

Hi, we’re John and Matt and, icymi, we are watching every single live-action film starring Streep.

#4 — Karen Traynor, a Southern political operative who has an affair with a popular senator.

JOHN: I can’t even imagine what it must have felt like to be an actressexual in 1979, the year when Meryl Streep catapulted herself from that interesting, up-and-coming actress of The Deer Hunter, the Holocaust miniseries (which brought her first Emmy win), and the New York theater scene, to first-class movie star, appearing in three successful films and winning her first Oscar for the year’s highest-grosser and Best Picture champ, Kramer vs. Kramer. But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves; buried in the middle of all this impressive acclaim is perhaps Streep’s least-known triumph of her early period: Jerry Schatzberg’s The Seduction of Joe Tynan.

This story of a liberal senator (Alan Alda, who also penned the script) struggling to balance political ambitions with family life, is a keen, sophisticated relic from a time when studio movies were risky, inspired, and targeted towards an adult audience, free of gimmicks or condescension. They were capable of making bank to boot.

In Joe Tynan, Streep plays Karen Traynor, a Louisiana lawyer who, while aiding Tynan’s campaign against a racist Supreme Court nominee (Remember when racism disqualified you from office?), begins a fling with Alda’s fast-rising political star...

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Doc Corner: 'The Final Year'

by Glenn Dunks

There is a pall that lingers over The Final Year. And rightfully so considering how everything turned out within the 2016 American presidential elections. And yet, that emotional baggage is brought to the film more by viewers and less so by director Greg Barker. The Emmy-winning director of Manhunt: The Inside Story of the Hunt for Bin Laden makes odd choices throughout this otherwise straight-forward documentary, not least of which is barely referencing the elephant in the room for the majority of its (brief) 90 minutes...

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Reviews: "The Post" and "The Greatest Showman"

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad. It is reprinted here in slightly altered form...

If you take film critics, Rotten Tomatoes, or any review aggregate site seriously you might think that future Oscar contender The Post (86%) is a pricey gift from Santa Spielberg that’s come exquisitely wrapped for Christmas. You might also believe that the new Hugh Jackman musical The Greatest Showman (51%) is an oversized lump of coal fouling up your otherwise pretty stocking. Don’t fall for that anti-fun / theme=worth messaging; See both for a well-rounded holiday week at the movies...

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"Everyone is Nominated... but you!" Our annual SAG Ensemble Rules Exposé

by Nathaniel R

Betty Gabriel is not included in the Get Out ensemble nomination. For shame, SAG!The Film Experience started a tradition of exposing the Screen Actors Guild Awards unfortunate rules regarding ensemble nominations back in 2004. If you'd like a little history as to why we became advocates for change in this matter you can find the details at the bottom of the post. But for now let it suffice to say that SAG's rules for inclusion strike us as punitive for less famous actors and thus unbecoming given that they are a union and unions are ostensibly there to support the workers. The rule boils down to this: you need your own title card in a movie to be so honored - being on a shared title card or in the credits scroll won't do. With a new set of nominees for Outstanding Cast of a Motion Picture let's investigate which valuable players were unjustly left out while their (usually) more famous coworkers were honored, no matter their actual contributions to the movie in question.

2017 SAG OUTSTANDING CAST NOMINATIONS
Who was excluded this year despite their fine work?

THE BIG SICK
Nominees (in billing order): Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano, Anupam Kher, Zenobia Shroff, Adeel Akhtar 

Who was left out? The first shared title card belonged to Bo Burham and Aidy Bryant, with the second shared card going to Kurt Braunohler and Vella Lovell. Burnham, Braunohler and Bryant played Nanjiani's inner circle of comedian friends. Lovell was fantastic as a would-be arranged bride for Nanjiani but anyone who has seen her on Crazy Ex Girlfriend knows that she is skillful with mixing sharp comedy with dramatic undertow.

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