Cláudio's Best Shot Pick: Yentl (1983)

The next episode of our series, 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot,' arrives Thursday night. This week's film is Barbra Streisand's directorial debut, Yentl. In 1983, she was infamously snubbed for a Best Director Oscar nomination after winning the Golden Globe. You still have time to participate! Here's Cláudio's entry:

This isn't the first or second time I've explored the wonderful world of Yentl on The Film Experience. First, when writing about two instances when the same performance got nominated for both an Oscar and a Razzie, I defended Amy Irving's work, concluding she deserved the former rather than the latter. Then, when revisiting all of Babs' work as a director, Yentl emerged as her most passionate project as well as the best showcase for the star's behind-the-camera talents. Check out those other articles if you're interested.

My positive feelings about Yentl haven't changed with this Hit Me With Your Best Shot-prompted revisit. In other words, I'm still a fan…

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Cláudio's Best Shot Pick: Ex Machina (2014)

The next episode of our series, 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot,' arrives Tuesday night. Since Alex Garland's Men is upon us, this week's selection falls on the director's breakthrough feature – the Oscar-winning Ex Machina. You still have time to participate! Here's Cláudio's entry:

Even though one tries to avoid the online discourse around Men – at least until everybody has had a chance to watch it – some grumblings are rather hard to block off. If that wasn't enough to affect the expectations going into the new movie, this look back at Ex Machina certainly does. The sci-fi chamber drama is a formidable reminder that Alex Garland is a better director than a writer, colligating blunt ideas and blunter dialogue with spellbinding form. Within the realm of glances refracted through glass labyrinths, insinuating architecture and eerie eroticism, Ex Machina triumphs. It's when its characters open their mouth to blabber on that the appearance of cinematic greatness gets spoiled. 

Thankfully, Hit Me with Your Best Shot is about visuals, so we're in a safe place with Ex Machina. Whatever misgivings I might have, the film looks impeccable…

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Touring 'The First Lady' Suites

By Abe Friedtanzer

Showtime’s new anthology series The First Lady debuted this past weekend. The series looks simultaneously at three First Ladies throughout history: Eleanor Roosevelt (Gillian Anderson) in the 1930s and 40s, Betty Ford (Michelle Pfeiffer) in the 1970s and Michelle Obama (Viola Davis) in the 2000s and 2010s. The Film Experience will be covering its run (more soon on invididual episodes). 

The network is rolling out a very specific type of red carpet to celebrate the series as it begins airing. Reporting for The Film Experience I was able to visit one of the First Lady Suites, which is a transformed presidential suite at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Los Angeles. This is also happening in New York, Chicago, and Washington D.C. This was quite the lavish and detailed visual experience.

I snapped a few photos to complement my written descriptions of the visit…

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Chart Updates: Film Editing, Production Design, Cinematography!

by Nathaniel R

All of the Visual categories in the Oscar charts have now been updated save Costume Design which we tend to give its own articles -- playing favourites, sorry! But looking over the charts and the possibilities, it does beg the question: are Dune and West Side Story just going to be nominated in every category? And will any other films core as many nominations?  The year isn't short on films that are visually remarkable of course. There's Power of the Dog, Nightmare Alley, Tragedy of Macbeth, The French Dispatch, The Green Knight, Passing, and more.

But the question is always what are voters actually watching and what are they liking? Being remarkable only gets you so far...

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93rd Academy Awards: Best Production Design

by Daniel Walber

Is it a good year for the Best Production Design category at the Oscars? Is it a bad year? What does the word “good” even mean? Or, for that matter, the word “year”? Certainly not the same thing as “eligibility period,” given the way things have shaken out with the 93rd Academy Awards. Pour one out for First Cow.

But I digress. We have five films nominated for Best Production Design, and they’re a relatively modest batch. There’s the eternal joke about the Oscars nominating movies for “most” rather than “best” design, but by some miracle that hasn’t happened this year...

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