Oscar History
Film Bitch History
Welcome

The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)

Follow TFE on Substackd

Powered by Squarespace
Keep TFE Strong

We're looking for 500... no 390 SubscribersIf you read us daily, please be one.  

I ♥ The Film Experience

THANKS IN ADVANCE

What'cha Looking For?
Subscribe

Entries in BIFA (21)

Tuesday
Nov032015

BIFA Nominations: Amy, Ex Machina, Macbeth, and More...

We've already heard from the Gotham Awards (New York's indie awards) and now we're off to the UK for their rough equivalent the Moet British Independent Film Awards. The leaders are the absurdist festival sensation The Lobster (reviewed), the marital drama 45 Years - go Charlotte Rampling! (reviewed), and the long-awaited Macbeth (reviewed). Doesn't it feel like the latter has had buzz for about 16 months now without ever appearing in US theaters? Annoying. We still can't make sense of the US release plans for it. 

Best British Independent Film + Best Director
Amy”  Asif Kapadia
Ex Machina” Alex Garland
45 Years” Andrew Haigh
The Lobster” Yorgos Lanthimos
Macbeth” Justin Kurzel

The Lobster is may be the presumed frontrunner given its hefty 7 nomination total, but The Film Experience's position is that Ex-Machina deserves some awardage and it better be here because where else is it going to be, you know?

A 5/5 match with film and director suggests that the voting wasn't even close and those films were far out front though High-Rise, Brooklyn, and Suffragette also enjoyed multiple nominations

The complete list of nominees with brief commentary is after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Monday
Nov032014

British Independent Film Award Nominations

Manuel here bringing you fresh awards news from across the pond.

O'Connell in the Belfast riots film '71

The British Independent Film Awards (I will kindly refuse adding the requisite champagne-sponsor ahead of their name) announced their nominations earlier this morning and from the looks of it, we are surely headed for a fascinating "Year of Jack O'Connell" narrative to shape up in the next few months. We already got a nice glimpse of his physique in Starred Uphere he's racked up a nod for nomination leader '71 (reviewed by Nathaniel), and that small film Unbroken will by year's end cement him as not only an up and comer but a firmly established rising star.

While I have yet to catch many of these (Pride and Frank's strong showings are gentle reminders that I really have no excuse for not doing so already), I have to say a lot of these categories look quite impressive; that Best Actress lineup (Pei Pei, Knightley, Jabeen Ahmed, Mbatha-Raw and Vikander) is wonderfully diverse while that International Independent Film category (with Ida, Blue Ruin, Boyhood and The Badadook) seems cooked up by (and for!) the TFE community.

Catch the full list of nominations after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Friday
Nov152013

Links with an Invisible Glass of Moët

Inside Movies Andrew Lincoln looks back at "to me you are perfect" from Love Actually
MNPP wants to watch Only God Forgives again. Are you also experiencing these deviant feelings?
Ultra Culture anatomy of most Blue is the Warmest Color "reviews" 

In Contention wonders if Will Forte can win Best Supporting Actor traction for Nebraska - well the category is amorphous still...
BuzzFeed saw fit to rank every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Such a mammoth project so even if you quibble with the ranking -- and boy do I (love "Beer Bad") --you have to respect 
Gawker weeping through The Best Man Holiday 
Pajiba how to prepare yourself for the release of Nicolas Cage's nude photos 

And while I was in Los Angeles earlier this week the Moët British Independent Film Award nominations were announced. I love little weird awards groups like this (the corporate titling not so much) because you can't tie them to "ooh, they're trying to influence the Oscars" which is just about the most boring thing you can possibly do if you're a group thinking of handing out awards. No matter what your group is, if it has no character, personality or purpose outside of predicting another groups awards, QUIT - the world doesn't need you! But anyway... here's a complete list of nominations in case you missed them as I did. They were big fans of the bleak with the violent Starred Up and Clio Barnard's festival gem The Selfish Giant leading the nominations. They also approved of Metro Manila which is the UK's Oscar submission. But they also found room for more mainstream senior Brit efforts like Philomena with Judi Dench and Le Week-End starring Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan.

What a World: Ralph Fiennes & Kristin Scott Thomas are co-stars again. But this time he's sleeping with her screen daughter. Here's why I spit out my Moët, though. They ignored 12 Years a Slave in "International Film" and had a reaction to Ralph Fiennes' The Invisible Woman that I find not only puzzling but deeply lazy. They nominated it only for Best Actress (Felicity Jones, whose appeal still escapes me like crazy) and Best Supporting Actress (Kristin Scott Thomas). Now y'all know I am an über fan of KST but if you're handing out acting prizes to that movie and you DON'T start with Joanna Scanlan, who plays the unloved wife of Charles Dickens, you're on autopilot with stars in your eyes. To which you might counter if you haven't yet seen the film "But KST is a great actress!!!" Well, yes, dear reader and BIFA voters, she is... but Joanna is this movie's MVP. And by a significant margin, too. 

Of course the movie is marginalizing Scanlan, too. She doesn't appear or barely appears in the ads and none of the film's promotional stills include her; P&A has never been a meritocracy.

Monday
Nov052012

BIFA Gives an Early Boost to "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel"

The British Independent Film Awards are what I like to think of, rightly or wrongly, as the UK version of the Gotham Awards... or maybe the Spirit Awards. British readers can correct that assumption in the comments if it's totally untenable. They've announced their nominations and on the heels of the EFA announcement this is more minor good news for Amour but I'm already off track. That's barely a blip story here since the awards focus (almost) exclusively on British Indies. Let's talk headline.

In terms of Oscar the biggest boost (i.e. more laurels for the FYC ads to tout) goes to the sleeper hit The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel which we should've figured would come back to life at year's end given how well liked slash comfy it is. It even doubles up on the Dames for maximum BAFTA/AMPAS pleasure.

BEST BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM
Berberian Sound Studio
Broken
Sightseers
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
The Imposter

Broken, a film about a young girl who witnesses a violent attack, leads the BIFA nods with 9 nominations including 4 for acting. Marigold Hotel won 3 acting nominations. Complete list of nominations with commentary after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Sunday
Dec042011

Moët BIFA Awards Spread the Movie Wealth

The Stars gathered this evening in London for the Moët British Independent Film Awards which was ruled by one particular Tyrannosaur and also afforded Michael Fassbender his second best actor prize (following the Venice Volpi Cup) for Shame. He needs to keep nabbing these to stay in play for a very competitive Oscar race.

photo via @shamefilm

Photos and a list of winners after the jump.

Click to read more ...