Yes No Maybe So: "The Outrun"

by Nick Taylor

After a strong premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, we have our first trailer for The Outrun from Sony Pictures Classics, directed by Nora Fingscheidt and starring international sensation Saoirse Ronan. The film has been seen as a possible contender for Best Actress 2024 since January, something no one wants to hear before the 2023 Oscars have even been handed out. But now we’re past the halfway mark of 2024’s cinematic year, and as the prestige-y vehicle and awards hopefuls start revving up their engines, we now have the time and patience to discuss Best Actress awards. At long last.

Trailer and first reactions below the cut...

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The People's Joker: Legally Available In Homes Everywhere

by Nick Taylor

The People’s Joker, a.k.a. the best comic book movie of the year and one of 2024's best films hands down, is now available to rent, buy, stream, and cherish on digital media. Wait til August 13th and you’ll be able to buy a Blu-Ray, DVD, and/or VHS tape to add to your collection. I’ve been cheerleading this film relentlessly since I first saw it in theaters four months ago. It pales in comparison to how long the folks who saw it two years ago at TIFF and have been waiting for it to receive any kind of release, while writer/director/editor/lead actress Vera Drew has battled against an ungodly amount of legal troubles and copyright litigation...

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San Sebastián Announces Their Competition Slate!

by Nick Taylor

THE END (2024) Joshua Oppenheimer

More film festival announcements yesterday, this time from the 72nd San Sebastián International Film Festival. They’ve unveiled their Main Competition slate, with more titles set to come, and it’s a damn exciting list of names. The festival runs from September 20th-28th, which probably means a lot of folks will sprint from Toronto to Spain...

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Yes No Maybe So: "Joker: Folie à Deux"

by Nick Taylor

Remember the fucking hubbub around Joker when it premiered at Venice back in 2019? Stephanie Zachareck fearing MRA riots? Lucrecia Martel giving it the Golden Lion? Leading the Oscar nominations with a whopping eleven citations, with Mark Friedberg’s incredible sets somehow left out in the cold? Winning Best Actor for Joaquin Phoenix and Original Score for Hildur Guðnadóttir? Wild times!

Although Joker: Folie à Deux was first announced roughly two years ago, it feels as though the spectre of it has been haunting us for so much longer. At long last, the sequel is on its way, in just over two months. The first full-length trailer dropped less than 24 hours ago, and we here at The Film Experience are ready to dig in to whatever the hell is going on...

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Venice Main Competition Round-Up (plus London and NYFF Openers)

by Nick Taylor

BLITZ (2024) Steve McQueen

So many film festivals the past few days have come to make an announcement! Steve McQueen’s Blitz, about Londoners trying to survive a bombing during WWII starring Saoirse Ronan and Harris Dickinson, has been named the opening film for the London Film Festival. Meanwhile, the New York Film Festival will open with Nickel Boys, an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel helmed by Hale County This Morning, This Evening director RaMell Ross.

A lot of films have been announced for TIFF, and will presumably keep being announced until the festival starts in September. We’ve also received word of the full lineup for the 81st Venice Film Festival, and since they’ve got much fewer releases than TIFF, I’ll be doing a quick run-down of which titles are most exciting to me personally. While I won’t be able to attend Venice, you can still see me watching them take off from the sidelines, like a 20th century mother waving to her children as they set sail on a voyage to a new country, hoping for the absolute best but steeling myself to be strong, just in case of disaster...

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