Split Decision: "Past Lives"

No two people feel the exact same way about any film. Thus, Team Experience is pairing up to debate the merits of this year’s Oscar movies. Here's Mark Brinkerhoff and Lynn Lee on Past Lives...

MARK: Past Lives, fresh off its big wins at the Independent Spirit Awards, is, I think it’s safe to say, the indie darling of this Oscar season. American Fiction aside, no 2023 indie film seems to endure with as much feeling in cinephile's imagination than Past Lives, more than a year after its premiere at Sundance. But maybe I’m projecting here, because I love, LOVE, love! Past Lives, the beautiful, heartfelt film debut of real-deal filmmaker Celine Song. What say you?

LYNN: Past Lives is absolutely this year’s indie movie that could – the one that premiered with relatively little fanfare at Sundance only to build a tidal wave of support over the course of 2023. Not just support: love like yours, and not just love from critics, but from regular moviegoers. I can’t tell you how many friends or even casual acquaintances have told me, unprompted, that Past Lives was the best film they’ve seen in a long time...

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Split Decision: "The Zone of Interest"

No two people feels the exact same way about any film. Thus, Team Experience is pairing up to debate the merits of this year’s Oscar movies. Here's Ben Miller and Nick Taylor on The Zone of Interest...

BEN: Hey Nick!  I will freely admit that The Zone of Interest haunted me in a way that I won't soon forget.  I consider it among the absolute best of the year and one of the most impactful Holocaust films to come out in some time.  The praise for the film is near universal, so I know that you thought it was just as exceptional as I did. We can be in agreement, and then call it a day.  Quick and painless...you thoughts?

NICK: I am definitely haunted by it! There’s plenty to admire in Jonathan Glazer’s direction, and I can’t deny I was taken aback by its provocations when I watched it. But even without the comparison to Glazer’s previous stone-cold masterpieces, I felt myself disengaging from the movie’s rhythms as it went on. Intellectually, I get why we’re kept at such a remove from the Höss family, and what the oppressive sound design and spycam cinematography are meant to convey about these people. I swear I do. But this did not connect with me the way it clearly has with you, and I would love to hear more about why this is one of the best movies of the year for you . . . .

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Split Decision: “American Fiction”

No two people feels the exact same way about any film. Thus, Team Experience is pairing up to debate the merits of this year’s Oscar movies. Here’s Lynn Lee and Cláudio Alves on American Fiction...

LYNN LEE: Hi Cláudio - looking forward to a friendly fisticuffs (is there such a thing? at TFE, yes!) on American Fiction, one of my favorite movies of 2023. 

I have to admit I'm a little self-conscious about ranking it so high in a year filled with noteworthy films.  It wasn't a cultural behemoth à la Barbenheimer.  It's not the work of a known auteur or a rising one; it doesn't have the weird-cool vibe of a Poor Things or the wistful-cool cachet of a Past Lives.  Visually, it's not particularly interesting.  Thematically, it follows in the footsteps of other, similarly themed movies about Black artists confronting racial pigeonholing and stereotypes - from The 40-Year-Old Version to Bamboozled all the way back to Hollywood Shuffle - but made significantly more palatable (I won't say diluted) for mainstream audiences...

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Split Decision: “Society of the Snow”

No two people feels the exact same way about any film. Thus, Team Experience is pairing up to debate the merits of this year’s Oscar movies. Here’s Eric Blume and Cláudio Alves on Society of the Snow...

ERIC: Hi Cláudio, there are few finer, smarter people to discuss a film with than you.  So I'm looking forward to diving into J.A. Bayona's Oscar-nominated Society of the Snow.  To me, Bayona has delivered one of the best films ever in the "survival genre," a tiny slice of cinema that admittedly isn't for everyone.  And perhaps I'm a sucker for these tales, as I also loved the best most recent example, Danny Boyle's 127 Hours, as well.  But what I feel Bayona accomplished here, and it's no small feat, is a one hundred percent believable environment where he gets his actors to a level of despair and desperation very, very high, very, very early in the film and sustains it for almost two hours…

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Split Decision: Top Gun: Maverick

No one feels the same way about any film. Thus, Team Experience is pairing up to debate the merits of each of the big awards season movies . Here’s Chris James, Travis Cragg and Cláudio Alves duking it out over Top Gun: Maverick.

CHRIS: I couldn’t think of a better movie to have reignited the box office this summer than Top Gun: Maverick. The sequel arrived 36 years after the first became a blockbuster in 1986. Personally, I never loved the original. Despite fun, pop-culture defining moments, it often felt like a scattershot action movie with nauseating jingoism. My expectations for the sequel were low, but the film blew past them like a fighter jet passing Mach 10.

Central to my enjoyment of Top Gun: Maverick is the renewed focus on character over spectacle...

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