The Irresistible Danger of Matthias Schoenaerts and Michael Shannon

 As we continue Actor Month here's Murtada on Matthias Schoenaerts & Michael Shannon.

One might ask what do Matthias Schoenaerts and Michael Shannon have in common. A hulking body (stocky Schoenaerts and tall angular Shannon). Intensity? Yes but also a certain menacing danger that sweeps through in every performance. It's a danger that comes out sexy with Schoenaerts and somewhat evil with Shannon. One never knows what they are going to do next, and that's why they are so mesmerizing to watch.

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Newish to Watch at Home: Crimson Peak, Trumbo, Grandma, Etc.

Newish on DVD/BluRay

• The 33 Antonio Banderas / Chilean miner rescue story
• 99 Homes the other acclaimed housing crisis movie
• Black Mass the gangster movie with Johnny Depp, buried under alien makeup, plays a gangster. Watch out for great performances on the periphery from Peter Sarsgaard and Julianne Nicholson
• Crimson Peak from Guillermo Del Toro. Critics were divided or had many reservations but those who loved it really loved it. Here's a rabidly pro piece nicely titled "Ghosts are Movies".

LUNCHTIME POLL:
Would you rather...

- Be seduced by Tom Hiddleston?
- Gain access to all of Mia Wasikowska's money?
- Marry into Jessica Chastain's family?

• Girls S4 -I've definitely lost track of this show. Weirdly I quit with an episode I couldn't have loved more (S3E7 "Beach House")
• Grandma - Lily Tomlin gets her own well deserved star vehicle and drives it superbly
• Love the Coopers - Diane Keaton earns a paycheck
• Spectre  -the first Bond I haven't seen in theaters in some time. It just kind of happened, the skipping of it
• Steve Jobs -the intense three act drama starring Michael Fassbender & Kate Winslet
• Togetherness S1 the highly undervalued HBO dramedy. Melanie Lynskey and the rest of the cast are just super
• Trumbo in case you'd like to discover why it did so well in the precursors

NEW TO STREAMING
Netflix added Dope, The Face of Love (a romantic drama misfire from The Bening), Open Season, and the 2007 Best Picture nominee Atonement (tomorrow) and by the end of the month they'll add Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny which looks terrible *sniffle* despite being something we've looked forward to for so long. Amazon Prime added Solomon Kane a fantasy action film starring James Purefoy, Max von Sydow and Rachel Hurd-Wood that Radius TWC buried in 2009 (never opened in the States but played elsewhere). By the end of the month they'll add Digging For Fire from Joe Swanberg.

Which of these will you be catching up with?

Welcome Back Andrew Garfield

Murtada is happy that Andrew Garfield is no longer a superhero. You?

Vince Vaughn and Garfield in the first picture from Hacksaw Ridge

Andrew Garfield recently started production on Mel Gibson's World War II drama Hacksaw Ridge in Australia. The movie is based on the life of Desmond T. Doss, the first conscientious objector to win the Congressional Medal of Honor after saving dozens of soldiers during the Battle of Okinawa.

Hacksaw Ridge will mark Andrew Garfield’s third post Spider-Man film. Coming in 2016 is Martin Scorsese’s Silence and he’s currently in cinemas with 99 Homes. From 28 to 31 years of age, Garfield was only the web-slinger. Some think he squandered the promise he showed in Boy A and The Social Network. Garfield himself was torn about what he had accomplished, saying in a recent interview:

I never felt like I was able to do enough. And I couldn’t rescue those films…even though I didn’t sleep. [laughs]. And I wanted to…not to say that I needed to rescue those films, but I couldn’t make them as deep and soulful and…life-giving as I could ever dream. And I’m never gonna be able to do that, with any film. It was especially difficult in that situation because…well, just because. And it was especially important because that character has always meant so much to me.

Garfield in 99 Homes

If 99 Homes is any indication there’s no reason to worry. Playing a construction worker who loses his home in the aftermath of the 2008 housing crisis, Garfield is effortlessly affecting as he deals with the shame and grief of losing everything and hitting rock bottom. While he is overshadowed by Michael Shannon’s blistering embodiment of “Americana”, the movie works because Garfield grounds it with a natural soulfulness that reminded this viewer of Mark Ruffalo at his best.

Garfield is obviously someone who feels a lot. Read that quote above again. Doesn’t the story of a heroic conscientious objector seem like a perfect fit? To prove the point about all the feels he feels, we’ll leave you with what he said about working with Emma Stone.

"Working with Emma was like diving into a thrilling, twisting river and never holding on to the sides. From the start. To the end. Spontaneous. In the moment. Present. Terrifying. Vital. The only way acting with someone should be."

Amir Sat on a Branch Reflecting on TIFF

Amir here, looking back at the Toronto Film Festival that recently wrapped up.

"Girlhood," superior to Boyhood and one of the best of TIFF 14

You may have noticed that after a few years of covering the festival to various degrees for The Film Experience, I was completely absent from this space for the past ten days, mostly because of a personal decision to enjoy the films without sweating over writing. TIFF is a big festival, maybe the most frantic and hectic in the world, with more choices than one can physically experience over ten days. Nathaniel and I shared so few films from the program’s sprawling lineup, we could have each written about every single thing we saw and you’d never know we attended the same festival. It’s this overwhelming scale that made me want to take a break from reporting, and yet, I feel unsure about how that affected my festival experience.

Writing about films for me is a passion born out of the necessity to articulate my thoughts on the things I watch. Maybe that process of writing makes the films more memorable? Isn’t it so that writing, even about bad films, makes us appreciate good cinema all the more? Without recording my memories, details about this year’s films have fled my mind quicker than ever. My feelings about some of them have been diluted a bit, too. There is something missing, even though I had the best festival experience of my life, meeting more people than ever and watching some terrific films. Maybe this pessimism is just a withdrawal symptom. Let’s stay positive!

As has become something of an unplanned tradition for me – with precedents including Oslo, August 31st and Closed Curtain – my favorite film of the festival came my way on the last day.

MORE...

"The Look of Silence" will be in theaters next summer

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