In Conversation: Oscar's Documentary Class of 2014 (Part 2)

Welcome back to The Film Experience's look at this year's Oscar documentary nominees. Glenn Dunks is again joined by Daniel Walber of Nonfics in this second part looking at the once maligned and controversy-filled Best Documentary Feature category. If you missed part one then go read that first - our thoughts on Wim Wenders' The Salt of the Earth were not echoed by you, the readers, but that's what makes this all so fun. If you're a fan, check out discussion from last year about the 1989 winner, Common Threads.

Daniel: (cont'd) The way [Virunga director Orlando von Einsiedel] orchestrates it all, particularly in the thrilling climax, is what sets it apart. In a way that makes it not unlike Last Days in Vietnam (Glenn's review). Both films take a single sequence of events, in that case the 1975 evacuation of Saigon, and tell its story with several different perspectives. I’m not sure the strategy works quite as well for Last Days in Vietnam, which is also the only nominee this year made up primarily of archival footage. Do you think that has something to do with it?

Archival power, Roger Ebert and our own ballots after the jump

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Sundance Award Winners: Slow West and Earl and That Diary Girl

Michael and Nathaniel are both safely back in New York but a few more Sundance reviews are forthcoming as well as an Oscar discussion about the first possibilities for the new film year. The festival closes up tonight for another year and last night, they announced the winners. As with last year when Whiplash one both the Jury and the Audience award, one film took both again this year: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, based on the best seller by Jesse Andrews. Can we expect a similarly Oscar friendly trajectory? 

THE WINNERS

U.S. DRAMATIC

Grand Jury Prize & Audience Award  Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Michael's review coming later today. It's said to be a bit Fault in the Stars-ish young people and terminal illness only better. 

Directing Award The Witch, Robert Eggers 
Michael's rave review. A 1630s set horror film about a religious family in Salem. 

Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award The Stanford Prison Experiment, Tim Talbott
Nathaniel's Review. This one is based on the infamous 1971 college psychology experiment that's inspired other movies before it.

Special Jury Award – Excellence in Cinematography Diary of a Teenage Girl, Brandon Trost
Michael's review & Nathaniel's quick take. Michael liked it a bit more but expect a lot of talk about it when it's released. With Bel Powley, Alexander Skarsgard, and Kristen Wiig

Special Jury Award – Excellence in Editing Dope, Lee Haugen
Nathaniel's review. The editing has crackerjack timing and is deeply commendable for the first half but why is the second hour so much less taut?  

More after the jump...

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In Conversation: Oscar's Documentary Class of 2014 (Part 1)

Once one of the Academy's most frequently frustrating branches, voters for the Best Documentary Feature category have been on an impressive run lately. In the lead up to this year's Oscar ceremony, The Film Experience's Glenn Dunks is joined by Daniel Walber of Nonfics and Film School Rejects for a discussion on this year's nominees (and some that aren't). If you missed their discussion about 1989's Common Threads then make sure you do and join us over the weekend for part two of this look at the doc class of 2014.

Glenn: Welcome back to The Film Experience, Daniel. Before we get into the individual films, I thought I’d ask how you thought 2014 stood up for the documentary form and whether the Academy’s did a good job of encapsulating the year with their nominations. I don’t see anywhere near as many docs as you do so correct me if my reading of the year in non-fiction is off, but I do think this year’s Oscar line-up did a good job of representing the year in documentary: solid, but not truly exceptional. Certainly, some of the best doc’s we saw weren’t even eligible so it was impossible they would show up – like, for instance, both of Team Experience’s best unreleased films, The Look of Silence and Silvered Water: Syria Self Portrait – but it was always going to be tough to beat 2013’s all-time great nomination list.

Daniel: Last year was certainly quite something. I wouldn’t necessarily say that 2013 was a much better year for documentaries in general, but rather that the top films were harder for the Academy to ignore. I don’t think anyone thought of The Act of Killing as a contender at first, but the overwhelming critical acclaim made the difference. Most of my favorites of 2014 were a little further from the Oscar radar. [More...] 

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Sundance Begins: The Bronze, Dark Horse & Nicole Kidman

Sebastian Stan from his InstagramNathaniel, reporting from the snowy mountains of Park City Utah for the annual Sundance Film Festival. Michael, currently en route, will also be covering though we both missed opening night (I was still visiting family in Utah).

From what I gather the opening night talk mostly revolved around Sebastian Stan's muscular performance in a raunchy sex scene in The Bronze. While that event was happening (unbeknownst to me) I was still visiting my mom and brother and they made me* watch muscular Sebastian Stan and his robot arm terrorizing Captain America and The Black Widow.

So, it was unofficially Sebastian Stan Day. Perhaps this is a good omen for the actor's 2015, which he already seems rather happy about (see photo evidence, left). Variety interviewed him at the premiere and he said the script for The Bronze was so funny that before he even got the role he was quoting his own character to friends. It's a supporting role but a showy one, as a former gold medalist Olympic gymnast 

Dark Horse
After picking up my badge, I raced off to my first movie, the only thing I could squeeze in before a Nicole Kidman party I had no intention of missing. [More...]

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Poster Madness! The Best of 2014

Glenn here with my now annual list of the best movie posters of the year. I should apologize for being so tardy with this, but I've been working on a big non-movie-related project that took precedent. Never mind that though because we're back. Last year logged the first time that I dragged my lil ol' list of the year's best movie posters over from my own blog onto The Film Experience we're back to see what'll win this year. Last year the honor went to Spring Breakers and this year was no less fierce. I have once more assembled an... eclectic list of films ranging from French orgy dramas and Christian religious flicks to British sci-fi and obscure horror titles.

I have tried to keep the posters featured within down to American 2014 theatrical/VOD releases only. That means designs that emerged online as much as 18 months ago can be on here if the film was only released this year (hi Nymphomaniac!). Likewise, designs for 2015 releases that are already hanging in cinema foyers do not feature - I'm going to spend the next year tossing and turning over whether this hilariously unsubtle phallic poster for Fifty Shades of Grey is actually good or completely terrible. Having said that, being an Australian means I have snuck few Aussie films on the list because, I guess, my list my rules. I should also point out that, just like last year, the lack of many big budget blockbusters on the list isn't my contrariness popping up (my lonely passions are now a thing), rather it's just proves that so many working for Hollywood studios would be absolutely lost without the billions of dollars that they take for granted and the audiences that flock to their movies like sheep.

Follow me as I count down the best posters of 2014!

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