Streaming Review: "A Teacher" on FX/Hulu

by Christopher James

A Teacher is an odd little show. Hannah Fidell’s adaptation of her 2013 feature once again explores an illicit relationship between a female teacher and her male high school student. The miniseries sometimes feels like an Adrian Lyne movie by way of a 2013 indie film. It’s both muted and salacious. This makes for an odd viewing experience, given the subject matter. However, at less than 30 minutes a pop, A Teacher is still a quick and satisfying binge.

Kate Mara plays Claire, a thirtysomething English teacher in Austin, Texas. Her home life feels incredibly familiar. She has a nice, if distant, husband (Ashley Zukerman), a lovely suburban home and is in the process of trying to start a family. Still, there’s something in Claire that chafes against this life she’s built for herself. When she reads Dylan Thomas’ poem “Race against the dying of the light” to her senior AP English students, she captures the eye of Eric (Nick Robinson), a golden boy senior.

It all begins seemingly innocent enough...

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Pt 2 - Looking at Netflix's contenders in all Oscar categories

by Juan Carlos Ojano

As explained in Part One we're looking at Netflix's deep slate this year and pinpointing how they might be competitive in each of the 23 Oscar categories (it used to be 24 categories but Sound Editing and Sound Mixing have now become one category). In part two, which follows after the jump, we're discussing the "big eight" marquee categories, plus animated feature...

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Have you seen "Legendary" on HBOMax? Let's celebrate its best contestants

And now for something completely random. Word of mouth is everything in streaming culture since we're all on different timetables. Please welcome guest contributor Allen Nguyen (of the beautiful Oscar site Statuesque) to discuss a show we meant to watch this summer but didn't get around to. Now just might be the time!

by Allen Nguyen

In case you haven’t already heard, HBO Max’s glorious ballroom competition show Legendary is now casting for its second season. I was turned on to Legendary a few months after its debut, my interest piqued partly by way of its ecstatic word of mouth and partly because I was in desperate need of queer quarantine content after enduring the five month bender that was RuPaul’s Drag Race, Secret Celebrity Drag Race, and All Stars 5. What I wasn’t expecting with Legendary was the return of that same enthralling high I felt when I first watched Drag Race a decade ago. Think of Legendary as the show Drag Race fans didn’t know we’ve been waiting for — the natural next step in the venn-diagram that intersects these two queer worlds... 

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Streaming Roulette, Nov: Paranorman, Thunderball, Time and "Psychiatry On-Screen"

After the jump you'll find a listing of everything that's new to streaming this month (November 2020). But first we pick two handfuls of titles and randomly freeze them with the scroll bar. Whatever comes up is what we share. Do these images make you want to see (or rewatch) the movie? 

[on the radio]  It's christmas time in the city. Ring a ling. Hear them ring ♫ ♬

Carol (2015) on Netflix
Always forget this is a Christmas movie! But, really, 'tis always the season for the best movie of the decade. 

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Portuguese Cinema on Criterion

by Cláudio Alves

It's not often that one gets the opportunity to promote Portuguese cinema in these parts of the internet. Despite good reviews and some acclaim across the festival circuit, it's rare to find films from Portugal being discussed internationally. Even though I love my country's pictures, I find it difficult to justify writing a piece about them for The Film Experience, especially considering plenty of readers don't have access to said films. When the opportunity strikes, one can't waste it. 

Recently, the Criterion Channel has curated two collections focused on the works of Pedro Costa and João Pedro Rodrigues, some of Portugal's most important contemporary filmmakers [some NSFW images after the jump]...

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