The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
Manuel here catching up with Pedro's latest at the New York Film Festival
Following the New York Film Festival screening of his 20th film, Pedro Almodóvar admitted that, in adapting Alice Munro’s short stories (from her collection, Runaway), he had aimed for a more restrained tone. Indeed, especially in comparison to his previous outing—the mile high club comedy I’m So Excited!—Julieta is an aggressively austere affair. Of course, “austere Almodóvar” is still inimitably Almodóvar. Take the film’s first shot: we’re awash in a sea of red fabric. It looks like draperie, perhaps a bedsheet or even a curtain. It pulses like a heart...
Look at this cute still from Train Driver's Diary. That's Serbia's submission to the Foreign Language Film Oscar race which was announced yesterday. It won the audience prize at the Moscow Film Festival and tells the story of a retiring train driver training his son to take over. The old man holds an infamous record: the most accidental killings on the job.
Forty-one countries have now made their announcements official including high profile choices like Chile's Neruda which stars Gael García Bernal and could put the auteur Pablo Larraín in contention for yet another nomination to whatever haul his brilliant Jackie picks up.
Spain's submission of Julieta, is even more high profile given Pedro Almodóvar's international statue...
RANDOMNESS • Pajiba Meryl Streep getting herself into trouble with an African comment when asked about diversity • LongReads Pregnancy in movies with Mad Max Fury Road as starting point • Inverse The Rock gleefully warning fans he'll get naked on HBO's Ballers • Funny or Die! Johnny Depp as Donald Trump. Didn't know they did 50 minute skits! • Cinematic Corner we need to talk about Harrison Ford in Witness • Library of America Carrie Rickey on The Age of Innocence • Unseen Films would like you to consider Toni Collette in Glassland • Coming Soon Gal Gadot's career before Wonder Woman • Regal Cinemas cute teaser poster for Finding Dory
CASTING & PRODUCTION • Variety Amy Schumer trying her hand at drama. She's joined the cast of the PTSD movie Thank You For Your Service which stars Miles Teller • THR Chris Weitz will write the screenplay adaptation of upcoming nonfiction book 21 Years to Midnight which centers on Obergefell v. Hodges, which eventually led to the legalization of same-sex marriage • AV ClubThe Bachelors will star JK Simmons as a widower. He and his son (uncast) meet two extraordinary women and their lives are transformed. Julie Delpy will play one of the women. We just hope this isn't yet another movie where women only exist to help the man through their character arc. • Tracking Board Goldie Hawn might finally act again... in a new Amy Schumer comedy • The Film Stage has a lot of info on Claire Denis new project High Life so it's spoilery but the film will star Robert Pattison, Patricia Arquette, and Mia Goth from Nymphomaniac
AWARDAGE • VarietyMustang tops the Lumiere Awards in France (precursor to the Césars) • THR I apologize that TFE forgot to cover the Goya awards. So much happens every week with awardage this time of year. The big winner was Truman starring Ricardo Darin (Secret in Their Eyes) and Javier Camera (Talk to Her). Best Actress had some international superstar nominees in Penelope Cruz and Juliette Binoche but they lost to Natalia de Molina (Techo y Comida) • AARP "Movies for Grown-Ups Awards" red carpet. Spotlight took Best Picture. Ridley Scott best director. Acting winners: Lily Tomlin (Grandma), Bryan Cranston (Trumbo), Diane Ladd (Joy) and Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies). And you should know that Diane took the opportunity to speak out against Category Fraud. God bless her! And FYI, Ladd is NOT the Academy member actress I spoke to earlier this year who was angry and vowed to not for anyone pitched in the category. So people are finally if slowly starting to see this for what it is. Now, if only critics and journalists, who have such opinion-making power would stop promoting it in their own awards and write-ups!
Here is Queen Ladd on the topic.
I've already seen snippy things on line about "she wouldn't have been nominated regardless," but, FACT: We do not know this. Listen up: if we didn't have Category Fraudsters each year people would be discussing the options among real supporting actresses (because people always discuss possibilities when it comes to the Oscars) and who knows who might have gained traction without Vikander and Mara sucking up all the conversation?
BRIE LARSON WORLD • In Contention Brie and Saoirse Ronan honored in Santa Barbara • Elle Magazine more Brie. Lots more. • Pajiba ...Elle Magazine has gone a little crazy with the photoshop, though.
THEATER & TV • Playbill Aaron Sorkin writing a new adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird for Broadway • Gothamist Sikh actor Waris Ahluwalia, from Wes Anderson's movies, was banned from a flight since he wouldn't remove his turban! • MNPP Great news for Bryan Fuller fans. The Hannibal and Pushing Daisies man will be running the new Star Trek series premiering a year from now. • Slate reviews Samantha Bees political comedy show Full Frontal. (I was really hoping she's get Jon Stewart's seat when he left The Daily Show.) • Playbill YES! Sutton Foster will be part of the Gilmore Girls reunion. Can they just have her play her character from Bunheads since they take place in the same Sherman-Palladino world? • Theater Mania Stephen King's 5 reasons you should see Misery on stage.
Jose here. Flowers is centered around a mystery which sees construction site office worker Ane (Nagore Aranburu) start receiving flowers from an unknown admirer. Week after week, beautiful flowers arrive on the very same day, then one day they stop. Is it a coincidence that they stopped right after Ane's construction site co-worker Beñat (Josean Bengoetxea) passed away in a car crash? We soon meet Beñat's widow Lourdes (Itziar Ituño) and her mother in law Tere (Itziar Aizpuru) whose relationship only seems to weaken in the aftermath of Beñat's death. Flowers is beautifully constructed by José Mari Goenaga and Jon Garaño (who co-wrote and co-directed the film) who know how to take audience members along on a journey and understand how important it is to have us participate in trying to solve the mystery.
Meditative and melancholic, Flowers, is a worthy follow-up to their equally beautiful For 80 Days, and has been chosen as Spain's official Oscar submission for the Best Foreign Language Film category, a historic achievement since it's the first Basque film chosen for the honor. Individually Goenaga and Garaño have done it all, from animated films to documentaries, but their work together has a truly haunting quality, not to mention exquisite performances. I spoke to the filmmakers to discuss their Oscar hopes, making films in Basque and the movies about women that inspire them.
JOSE: When I first reached out to you, Flowers didn’t have a US release date, now it’s opening on Friday. Are you excited about that?
JOSE MARI: We’re a little bit nervous, the film opens in NYC on October 30 and on November 27th it opens in Los Angeles, which is part of our press agents’ strategy to capture the attention of AMPAS voters. We’re nervous because we don’t know how people will receive it, and the commercial run will undoubtedly affect how it’s perceived by the Academy.
Jose speaks with the star of the must-see one-take German drama Victoria (now in theaters!)
Few performances this year have been as electrifying as Laia Costa in Sebastian Schipper’s Victoria. Playing the title character she combines innocence with determination in thrilling ways. When we first meet Victoria she is dancing the night away at a club unaware that before the night is over she will be part of a high stakes heist with three men she just met. Schipper’s film is notorious because it was shot in a single, uninterrupted take, no digital trickery in this one, although people have been comparing it to 2014’s Best Picture Birdman all over, “comparisons are inevitable” but “Victoria is punkier”, says Costa when we speak on the phone. “Someone said that everything has already been invented, we can’t invent anything new” she adds laughing.
Talking to the actress you get a sense of the camaraderie she developed with the cast and crew of the movie. She refers to her director and co-star by their last names, and you can tell she has endless anecdotes about the challenging shoot. Costa will be familiar to fans of the television series The Red Band Society, but Victoria is her biggest screen role to date and has already won her the German Film Award for Best Actress (the first time a Spanish actor has won this accolade). Audiences in Spain can currently see her in Carlos, Rey Emperador where she plays Mary of Austria, a process she calls “more artificial, they’re interested in facts about Spanish history not seeking truth in the characters”, but very necessary because as an actress she seeks to learn by working in as many genres as possible.
JOSE: How many Red Bulls and espressos did you need to shoot Victoria?
LAIA COSTA: Not a single one. It was all just concentration (laughs).
JOSE: You’ve mentioned that making the film was like being on drugs…
LAIA COSTA: Yes, because it was a shooting style I’d never done before, which allowed me to live Victoria’s life for two and a half hours, and go on a “trip”. [More...]
Wednesday, October 5, 2016 at 4:54PM 
