Streaming Review: Apple TV+ 'Swan Song'

By Ben Miller

Delicate and sentimental, Benjamin Cleary's Swan Song gives two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali a showcase performance in this adult drama.  Featuring strong supporting performances and a cleanly futuristic setting, the film is an easy watch - just make sure to have the tissues ready...

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Review: "Shang-Chi" soars through action and chemistry

by Nathaniel R

Father vs Son in Shang-Chi

Many years ago I was at the movies with my best high school girlfriend. I had convinced her to see The Piano, which was not her usual sort of film. At the exact moment that mute Holly Hunter lost her little finger to her husband’s axe, I let out a non-mute yelp. My bestie and I were both deep in the story onscreen and at the film’s most violent moment she had dug her fingers into my arm so tightly offscreen that I was in pain. What does that have to do with the latest Marvel Cinematic Blockbuster, you might, very sensibly, ask? It is only that this long-forgotten sense memory came rushing back to me in two winning ways, the first of which occurred as Shang-Chi’s action mettle was put to the test.

While the film takes its time getting there — blame the familiar slow pacing of flashback heavy origin stories— the story properly takes off as soon as Sean (Simu Liu) and his best girlfriend Katy (Awkwafina) are suddenly beset by assassins on a San Francisco city bus, One of them, Razor Fist (Florian Munteanu)  is so extra he has a blade where his arm should be. This particular action sequence is as shocking to us as it it is to Katy but for different reasons...

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Would you rather?

We've had an entirely uneventful but weirdly stressful week so we're gazing at beautiful celebrities again on Instagram. So. Would you rather...

• sunbathe with Iko Uwais?
• plan a Disney trip with Annaleigh Ashford?
• hug it out with Taylour Paige and doggie?
• study fierce geometry with Billy Porter?
• swing in a hammock with Billy Eichner?
• embrace nature with Katee Sackhoff?
• relax in the pool with John Boyega?
• ride a pony with Channing Tatum?
• go to a Mets game with Awkwafina?
• finish your vaccinations with Carrie Preston?
• go surfing in nothing but body paint with Eiza González?
• stop traffic with Sebastian Stan?

Pictures are after the jump to help you decide.

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SAG Predictions from a SAG Nominating Committee Member!

[Secret Guest Post]

Awkwafina announcing the nominees last season. I think she'll be nominated this year.Hello again to readers of The Film Experience!  I previously shared a few reactions from our SAG nominating committee screenings including The Farewell and The Irishman and Bombshell and Little Women. The following are my predictions for tomorrow, NOT who I nominated (I nominated only 8 of these 30 predictions.)

LEAD ACTOR
Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory
Robert De Niro, The Irishman
Adam Driver, Marriage Story
Joaquin Phoenix, Joker
Jonathan Pryce, The Two Popes

LEAD ACTRESS
Akwafina, The Farewell
Cynthia Erivo, Harriet
Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story
Lupita Nyong’o, Us
Renee Zellweger, Judy

I’m skeptical about Ronan, Theron and Woodard in Best Actress since their screeners came relatively late...

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The Farewell: Where personal and universal meet

By Lynn Lee

Coming out of The Farewell, I jokingly asked my husband, “Any of those family dynamics ring a bell?”  It was a double-edged joke, as one of the most challenging differences between us is our night-and-day attitudes towards our respective families, which we attribute to our different backgrounds.  He’s white and can trace his American lineage back to the Mayflower, but feels no particular responsibility to his immediate family and rarely sees his extended family; I’m a second-generation Korean American, born to naturalized U.S. citizens who, despite having now been here far longer than they ever lived in Korea, have maintained strong ties to their birth country and culture.  As such, they regularly remind me of my obligations to my immediate family, my extended family, and even my husband's family - something that both amuses and bemuses my husband.

No surprise, then, that The Farewell was a must-see for me.  True, it’s not “my” story: I’m not Chinese, after all, and as far as I know no one in my family has ever lied to anyone else in the family about their health.  But the film’s broader underlying themes – the feeling of being caught between the values of East and West, and not fully belonging to one or the other – spoke to me at a gut level...

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