The New Classics - The Florida Project

Michael C. here. When I started this column I made a rule that anything less than two years old was too recent. So for the season finale let's go with a first round draft pic. 

Sean Baker and Willem Dafoe on the set of The Florida Project

Scene: Child Predator
There’s nothing that he can do about it. That’s the guiding principle that drives Willem Dafoe’s Bobby throughout Sean Baker’s heart-rending The Florida Project. He maintains the boundaries he needs to keep up the pretense that he is operating a motel and not a lilac-colored homeless shelter, but we can intuit that he would help more if he could. It’s all in the unnecessary helping of kindness and humor around the edges when he’s laying down the law... 

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New York Film Critic Circle's Best of 2017

by Nathaniel R

Founded in 1935 the New York Film Critics Circle remains one of the two most important film critics organizations in the country (the other being the Los Angeles Film Critics Association). They might not have the influencing power they once had when there weren't 30+ similar organizations but people still hear them out each year before the "critics named this the best" accolades start sounding like ambient noise. Last year they were heavy on Oscar frontrunners or presumed runners up in virtually every single category. Will their winners be such Oscar favorites this year. Time will tell.

It was quite a day for A24 with two of their films being the only multiple winners: Lady Bird (Best Picture and Best Actress) and The Florida Project (Best Director and Best Supporting Actor).  Complete list of winners including interesting statistics follow after the jump...

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NYFF: The Florida Project

by Jason Adams

When I was eight years old my mother and I finally moved out of the room we had been renting since my parents had divorced into our own house. The house was so small the movers had to break our bed-frame in half to get it up the staircase, but it was ours. A house! A home. The day after we moved in the police showed up at our door and took my mother away - in order for us to get our own place she had stolen money from the laundromat she worked at. I went and lived with my grandmother for awhile after that.

I take films about poverty as a deeply serious business...

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TIFF: Sean Baker's Wondrous "The Florida Project"

by Chris Feil

With Sean Baker’s compassionate ingenuity, The Florida Project is a heartbreaking (and heart-renewing) fable of American poverty seen through the resilient eyes of children. Set in a slum motel just a stone’s through away from Disney World, the film follows a boisterous toddler names Moonee and her mother Halley as they struggle to get by. But like Baker’s other tales of people on the fringes, Project lives more in their joy than their pain.

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"The Florida Project" Drops a Gorgeous Trailer

Chris here. We were already on board for whatever director Sean Baker would be giving us post-Tangerine, but after his follow-up The Florida Project received some of the best reviews out of this year's Cannes Film Festival, it quickly became one of our most anticipated of the fall season. The first reactions primed us for something equally heartwarming and breaking, with some stunning 35MM lensing that is just as inventive as Baker's iPhone innovation on Tangerine - and the new first trailer promises just that.

What I already sense from this candy-coated jungle that we weren't expecting is that it might be just as instantly quotable as anything we got from Sin-Dee and Alexandra ("YOU'RE NOT WELCOME!" - I mean, come on, little Brooklynn Prince is already giving such gold here). The trailer certainly sells the lighter side of this look at poverty just outside of the excess of Disney World, so we'll see just how optimistic the film turns out to be. A24 is planning a big Oscar push for the film and if the film remains a tiny tough sell for that crowd, this trailer does lay a lot of ground work for a major play for Willem Dafoe. Could he be this year's "career recognition in a sentimental role" supporting nominee? Or if it is a major player, will they pass out soft serve ice cream for some cute bit during the ceremony?

We're keeping our fingers crossed that The Florida Project is added to the TIFF lineup, but the film will play NYFF before opening on October 6.