Film Bitch Awards: Breakthrough Performers, Small Gem Performances, Memorable Scenes

by Nathaniel R

Diego Calva at the "Babylon" premiere. Photograph by Sthanlee B. Mirador / Sipa USA via AP

In a mad race to finish the Film Bitch Awards before the Oscars, we've posted five more categories!  Breakthrough of the Year features rising stars from the US (Stephanie Hsu, Brandon Perea), UK (Bella Ramsey), Finland (Aamu Milonoff), and Mexico (Diego Calva). It's not strictly an acting award (like the others) but more about which new stars we're most eager to see in another picture... immediately.

Best Actress in a Limited or Cameo Role is also up for the scene stealers who do a lot with a very little like Lia Williams who is so self-regarding and droll as the poet Edith Sitwell in Benediction.

Finally the Best Scenes page is in process now featuring Best Opening Scene (Triangle of Sadness "H&M / Balenciaga" has to be there), Best Ending (The Fabelmans horizon line naturally), Credit Sequence (Jackass Forever's dick kaiju terrorizes) and also a Dozen Memorable Scenes that don't fit into the other various scene categories.

Enjoy!

"TÁR" is an exceptional film with a terrible ending

By Ben Miller

I can't say I went into Todd Field's TÁR, only his third film, with any sort of expectations.  Rave after rave of Cate Blanchett's performance piqued my interest but I wanted to go in with fresh eyes so I didn't read them. The opening credits hit.  We're in for something different.  Then we get Lydia Tár's introduction and her interview with Adam Gopnik.  All the way on board. The next two hours were magical, transfixing.  This is a perfect film. It might be my new number one of the year!  Everything was working.  The tone, the supporting players, the drama, the comedy.  Nothing was missing.

But then we reached the last 15 minutes. SPOILERS AHEAD - READ ONLY IF YOU'VE SEEN TÁR...

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SPOILERS: The Endings of "Passing" and "Power of the Dog"

by Deborah Lipp

So, the title says “spoilers.” And it says “endings” which makes “spoilers” somewhat redundant. Stop reading now unless you’ve seen both of these movies.

Okay. Coast is clear...

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A Room With a View, Pt 3: A lot of lying on the way to Truth, Beauty, and Love

Previously in our deep dive retrospective, Nathaniel visited Lucy Honeychurch at her idyllic pastoral home in England and her new engagement to Cecil Vyse, whose sneering fastidiousness is only matched by his complete inability to relate normally to other people. Things got delightfully complicated when the Emersons turned up unexpectedly as neighbors.  They’re about to get a lot more complicated in part 3, with Charlotte Bartlett, of all people, emerging as the unsung savior of truth, beauty, and love.

A ROOM WITH A VIEW
(a three part miniseries)
part 3 by Lynn Lee

I’ll be honest: although A Room With a View is one of my all-time favorites, for a long time the third act was my least favorite.  Too much lying and denial by Lucy, too much drawing out of the inevitable, not enough humor to make it go faster.  But as I grew older, I came to see it differently.  If the first act is the most romantic and the second the most comedic, the third is – pardon my French – when shit gets real.  We see the emotional consequences of our heroine trying to bury what’s in her heart, and in so doing we get to see her finally grow up. 

1:18:26  First-time viewers may not know it yet, but the library book Lucy’s mother admonishes her to pick up is a narrative grenade...

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Giulietta Masina @ 100: Cabiria's perfect ending

by Cláudio Alves

Born 100 years ago in San Giorno di Piano, Giulietta Masina is one of the most indelible faces of Italian cinema. She started her career as a theatre and radio actress but, by the time her husband Federico Fellini made the transition from screenwriter to film director, Masina was ready to follow him on the journey to the big screen. Despite having worked for other such notable auteurs as Rossellini and Wertmüller, Masina's legacy is defined by her husband's pictures. He immortalized her in more ways than one, both creating film monuments to her humanity, and using their marital strife to create many a celluloid drama...

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