‘The English Patient’ Wins Best of Man Booker Prize

by Murtada

The English Patient, the novel by Michael Ondaatje, has won the Golden Booker prize. The one-off award, voted for by the public, commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Man Booker prize. The shortlist of five novels was selected by a panel of judges from the 51 previous winners of the Man Booker, which honors the best novels written in English and published in Britain or Ireland. The book, which I read after the film won 9 Oscars in 1996, has always been a favorite. Not only for its beautifully written lyrical romantic love story but for its exploration of the fallacy of nationalism.

The characters in The English Patient - Hungarian, Indian, Canadian and English - form artistic allegiances rather than arbitrary ones based along geographical lines. Those themes resonate even more today, as we are in the midst of a of a volatile debate about immigration...

Click to read more ...

Bergman Centennial: Winter Light (1963) and the echo of First Reformed (2018)

Team Experience will be celebrating one of the world's most acclaimed auteurs for the next week for the 100th anniversary of Ingmar Bergman's birth. Here's Sean Donovan...

Perhaps none of Ingmar Bergman’s films do more to conjure clichés of what a ‘Bergman film’ is than 1963’s Winter Light. While Persona is undoubtedly the cinephile consensus choice for his best film, and The Seventh Seal or Wild Strawberries are his most widely-seen, frequently adorning college syllabi about the history of European cinema, the morose sadness for which his work became known feels most exemplarily expressed in Winter Light. The second part of a trilogy about “the silence of God” (starting out grim already), Winter Light’s infinite quiet, stark black-and-white cinematography, freezing cold exteriors, and tear-soaked monologues scream BERGMAN in capital letters. It’s strange viewing with which to start a hot summer weekday morning, but here we are. Though the severity of film that threatens to overwhelm you, it is my personal favorite of the Bergman canon, superbly acted and filmed with a brisk lightness that befits an auteur frequently in danger of getting weighed down in heavy-handedness. A freezing shot of aquavit on the rocks can knock you over and have you questioning the purpose of your life. 

Winter Light may be reaching new audiences this year as it has received a renewed relevancy from Paul Schrader’s First Reformed, an unofficial remake blatantly taking the premise and applying it to the contemporary United States...

Click to read more ...

Ask Nathaniel

Let's get some more Q&A questions up in here to inspire some discussions. Preferrably happy ones to combat the despair. You know what to do in the comments! 

Sharp Objects: Episode 1 "Vanish"

By Spencer Coile 

It’d be easy for audiences to tune into Sharp Objects with considerably high expectations. It stars Amy Adams and Patricia Clarkson, is the latest “prestige” piece of television from HBO, and is directed by Jean-Marc Vallée – who is coming off of a fantastic year with the success of HBO’s 2017 phenomenon,Big Little Lies. Add in source material from Gone Girl’s Gillian Flynn, and you have yourself an unsettling, binge-worthy summer series to watch. 

Yet, while Big Little Lies was fantastic, those drawing comparisons between it and Sharp Objects are evaluating HBO’s latest all wrong. Its first episode, “Vanish” demonstrates this perfectly by introducing a story and a leading lady who are so detached, so cut off from reality, that it’d be difficult to compare it to anything else. 

Click to read more ...

YNMS: The Favourite

Chris here. One of our most conspicuously hidden fall movies has finally teased us with a feisty first look trailer: Yorgos Lanthimos' royal period piece The Favourite. We've suffered months without a glimpse at what a Lanthmos costume drama might look like, with even the first teaser poster being literal white text on a black background. But rest assured that this intriguing setting for the starkly contemporary director does not look to be tamer than his previous films. In fact, it might just be his Lanthimost.

Last year's The Killing of a Sacred Deer had a fairly divisive response, so some of his fans will rejoice to note that this trailer promises something more in line with The Lobster. And it's not just the mischievous, cutting tone that is in line. It looks like we will also be getting another dryly genius performance with supporting player Olivia Colman as Queen Anne. Set during the 18th century during war with France, the film stars Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz as servants clashing for her favor. Take a look at Lanthimos' take in the trailer, and we'll break down the Yes No Maybe So...

Click to read more ...