Make Up For Ever

by Seán McGovern

About ten months from now, there will be a press release from the Academy informing us that some of the 24 categories will be handed out during the commerical breaks. Initially there will be uproar all over again. How dare they?! Didn't we go through all this last year? What an outrage! But then I'll turn to you and say 'yeah but remember those make-up people who won for Vice?' at which point we shall all accept this harsh but necessary decision...

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Berlinale 2019: Juliette Binoche, delights & disappointments, and the festival winners

Seán McGovern concludes his coverage of the Berlin International Film Festival.

Juliette Binoche presents the Golden Bear to Israel's Nadav Lapid for his drama "Synonyms"

There is a bittersweet conundrum with film festivals, that no matter how many films you see, you still only get one colourfully subjective corner of a greater kaleidoscope of stories. But you do get a sense both from the conversations you have in line and the energy on the ground as to what you absolutely must see. Each year we ask the same question, no different for the 69th Berlinale: was it a good year, or a bad year? The answer is... a resounding shrug of the shoulders.

Not that the festival was without worthy winners. In typically pluralistic European style, a veritable bread basket of awards were given to a range of films both in the main competition and beyond, led by our “beautiful” president Juliette Binoche. I don't know if it was a translation thing, but the amount of times that Binoche was referred to as “our beautiful president” during Berlinale was insane...

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Berlinale 2019: Three queer selections, a doc from the Sudan, and one walkout

Hallo! Seán here reporting from the 2019 Berlinale. It's the first big European film festival of the year, where new work premieres, deals get made, parties go on (and on) and where cinephiles prove their love of film by standing around in the freezing cold. I'm doing my best "Berlinale business bear" I'm here in an offical capacity: getting a first look at the queer TEDDY titles (which we'll talk about after the jump) and the short films for festivals in London and Dublin, but aside from that I'm also here to enjoy the film festival experience i.e. standing in the wrong line and walking in completely cold to something truly bizarre and extraordinary.

The Berlinale has many distinct and diverse sections, each with their own different forms and appeal. As someone who (a year later) is only a year later beginning to figure this out, allow me to impart my knowledge on the sections before we jump into the queer selection...

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Great Moments in Screen Kissing: Notorious (1946)

For the next few days Team Experience will be sharing favourite screen kisses. Here's Seán...

Seán here in Berlin, saying hallo! to you with the adequate amount of Prussian warmth. I'll be filling you in with all my hot takes on only a handful of the myriad of films premiering at the Festspiele. But first a quick wink to one of my favourite on-screen kisses (the whole lot of them).

Alfred Hitchcock was a master of genre and form, leaving behind a body of work admired by scholars and movie lovers alike. Aside from being a good, old, problematic trickster on set, he also knew how to do it within the confines of the screen. The Production Code which outlined what was decent and indecent on film had a long list of cuttable offenses. Even toilets were verboten. But what if the inclusion of one was essential to the story, as it was when Marion Crane disposes of a letter in Psycho? Hitchcock knew how to skirt the rules and Notorious (1946) is one of the best examples of this...

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FYC: Richard E. Grant in "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"

by Seán McGovern

There is a particular kind joy that we film lovers get to experience once a year or so, and that is seeing an actor who we have enjoyed and admired for years finally receiving the widespread praise and admiration we have always felt for them. Here at the Film Experience that's usually actresses: Isabelle Huppert in Elle, Laurie Metcalf in Lady Bird as recent examples. But every once in a while there is a man and a performance that makes you excited to pay attention to Best Supporting Actor.

Richard E. Grant in Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a performance so involving and entertaining that to know he is on the cusp of an Oscar nomination fills me with almost the same excitement he is currently experiencing; In a recent interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, he found out during the recording that he had been SAG-nominated, exclaiming that he was "levitating" at the news...

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