Split Decision: "Past Lives"

No two people feel the exact same way about any film. Thus, Team Experience is pairing up to debate the merits of this year’s Oscar movies. Here's Mark Brinkerhoff and Lynn Lee on Past Lives...

MARK: Past Lives, fresh off its big wins at the Independent Spirit Awards, is, I think it’s safe to say, the indie darling of this Oscar season. American Fiction aside, no 2023 indie film seems to endure with as much feeling in cinephile's imagination than Past Lives, more than a year after its premiere at Sundance. But maybe I’m projecting here, because I love, LOVE, love! Past Lives, the beautiful, heartfelt film debut of real-deal filmmaker Celine Song. What say you?

LYNN: Past Lives is absolutely this year’s indie movie that could – the one that premiered with relatively little fanfare at Sundance only to build a tidal wave of support over the course of 2023. Not just support: love like yours, and not just love from critics, but from regular moviegoers. I can’t tell you how many friends or even casual acquaintances have told me, unprompted, that Past Lives was the best film they’ve seen in a long time...

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Oscar Volley: Best Director could be 2012 all over again

Team Experience is discussing each Oscar category before the nominations come out. Here's Eric Blume and Glenn Dunks to talk Best Director...

ERIC:  Hi Glenn, excited to dive into this year's crop of Best Directors with you.  To me, the big question is whether all three of the "big gun pictures" will carry their directors to nominations.  That's Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon; Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer; and Greta Gerwig for Barbie.  I personally can't get too excited about Nolan or Scorsese, even though they both do expert work but nothing that rattled my cage.  I think one of Gerwig's biggest achievements directing that film...and this is no easy feat...was dealing with what must have been BINDERS of notes from Mattell and Warner Bros and still delivering the film she set out to make...

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Gotham Awards 2023: Getting a grip on "Past Lives"

By Nick Taylor

With the Gotham Awards dropping tomorrow, I decided to cap off this little series with a rewatch, one of the year’s most popular independent films that, to my surprise, did not have a full review at The Film Experience . . . . until NOW!! That’s right folks, we’re talking about Celine Song’s Past Lives. Nominated in Best Feature, Breakthrough Director, and Lead Performance for Greta Lee, this sleeper hit has made about as strong of an impact as an early-year release could hope to achieve. I was fully seduced by it reputation in the weeks leading up to its release, and though I was completely besotted with Past Lives on first watch (to the point of showering it with attention across my own halfway-through-the-year ballot), I’ve never quite shaken the concern I succumbed to hype rather than fully engaging with it. This was an ideal opportunity to give the film another shot, and seeing it again helped to further solidify my feelings on this tricky flick . . . .

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The 2023 Gold Digger Mid-Year Awards: "Past Lives" and "Asteroid City" Win Big!

by Cláudio Alves

Earlier this month, I shared the Gold Digger Mid-Year Awards nominations, and now it's time to talk winners. First, one should mention that the group, organized by Patrick Gratton, comprises over forty people, spanning from cinephiles to critics and historians, including some members of Team Experience. Second, between nods and victories, the voting process took around a month, with hundreds of films mentioned and much love for cinema. Now, the final results are in, with Celine Song's Past Lives confirming itself as the season's grand winner – the film is currently available on VOD for those interested in experiencing its bittersweet resolutions. 

Though they didn't take the top prize, Asteroid City and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse were also big champions in the final ballot...

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First Round Oscar Predix - Picture / Director

by Nathaniel R

Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein in "Maestro" (Netflix)

As noted in Best Actor & Best Supporting Actor, we're pretending as if the strike will be resolved and movies will actually arrive later this year (because if we don't predictions will be nightmarishly impossible). So let's look at Best Picture and Best Director. What might the future hold for us in these two categories? 

EARLY BIRD DIRECTORS 
It's possible that we've already seen 60% of the Best Director list (Greta Gerwig, Chris Nolan, Celine Song) but that would be highly unusual. This isn't 1972 where the two biggest contenders (Cabaret & The Godfather) had already been popular for literally over a year when they dominated Oscar night. The Oscar formulas and awards season release patterns have calcified in the half century since then. The earth still orbits the sun at the same speed as it did decades earlier, but time (at least in pop culture) has sped up considerably; you're an "old" movie much quicker now... 

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