Split Decision: "The Whale"

No two people feel the same exact way about any film. Thus, Team Experience is pairing up to debate the merits of each of the big awards season movies this year. Here’s Abe Friedtanzer & Eric Blume on The Whale

ABE:  Eric, I distinctly remember last year when I mentioned that my favorite movie was CODA that you wanted to start a series where you just kept telling me how bad it was. Well, fortunately or unfortunately, I hear you detest my favorite movie of 2022 just as much, so now you get that chance! I was recently a guest on The Rolling Tape podcast where we had five panelists discussing The Whale and expected someone to be in the "hate it" camp, but it turns out we all loved it. For me, the experience of seeing it in a completely packed press and industry screening at the Toronto International Film Festival back in September was an astounding one, and I left feeling entirely impressed with pretty much everything about it. I soon read about the issues some people had with it, but rather than guess what rubbed you the wrong way, I'll invite you to say your piece before I get to defending my top film of the year.

ERIC:  Abe!  It's a good thing we genuinely like each other enough to dive into this all in good fun.  It's not my fault you like badly-written films! 

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Almost There: Hong Chau in "Downsizing"

by Cláudio Alves

With The Whale in theaters and The Menu currently streaming on HBO Max, it's a good time to be a Hong Chau fan. For many of us, she's the best part of both productions, finding the humanity within the former's misery, acing the stylized line readings and deliberate oddness of the gastronomic-inclined latter. Thanks to those achievements, the Asian-American actress is back in the Oscar discussion, working through her second bid for a Best Supporting Actress nomination. The first time this happened was in 2017, when  Chau also proved herself the standout element of a movie with mixed reviews. Even those who hated Alexander Payne's Downsizing generally concede that her performance rises above the movie, shining brightly from within its failings.

Indeed, as Ngoc Lan Tran, Hong Chau is the best reason to watch the sci-fi satirical misadventure cum environmentalist existentialist crisis…

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Oscar Volley: the still bonkers-crowded Supporting Actress race

Here are Baby Clyde and Mark Brinkerhoff to discuss TFE's favorite category, Best Supporting Actress:

Jessie Buckley in WOMEN TALKING

MARK:  Happiest season, to all who celebrate! I love a supporting actress smackdown, in real time, don’t you?This is a blood bath, to be sure, although one thing I’m fairly certain of: There will be someone from  Women Talking and  Everything Everywhere All at Once. At this point, I’d say Claire Foy and/or Jessie Buckley and Jamie Lee Curtis and/or Stephanie Hsu could even form the bulk of the lineup.  Curtis definitely is gunning for it—will she be the third veteran, overdue actress in as many years (after Amanda Seyfried and Kirsten Dunst) to find herself finally nominated in supporting?. If Everything Everywhere All At Once overperforms, that could augur well for Hsu. (Wouldn’t it be something if we got four actors in a single film nominated again this year after The Power of the Dog did it just last year?)

My hunch is we’re likely to see a majority of first-timers in this category, which is always exciting...

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Review: "The Menu"

Dining with Chef Slowick (Ralph Fiennes) is a dangerous experience in "The Menu."By Christopher James

The subgenre of class warfare comedy is alive and well in 2022. Most recently, movies like Bodies Bodies Bodies and Triangle of Sadness have smeared the 1% with blood and excrement, respectively. Director Mark Mylod (of Succession fame), opts for the former with his all-star comic thriller, The Menu. The film effectively entertains, even if it doesn’t ultimately add much to the conversation.

We meet Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) at a dock about to be picked up for an elite dining experience. Right from the beginning, we see a disconnect between the two, as if they were newly dating. Tyler is beyond excited for the dining experience, documenting every moment. On the flip side, Margot couldn’t care less. Tyler and Margot travel alongside nine other illustrious guests to an island restaurant run by celebrity Chef Slowick (Ralph Fiennes)...

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NYFF: Kelly Reichardt continues her perfect track record doing absolutely no wrong with the subtle marvel of 'Showing Up'

by Jason Adams

The worlds that writer-director Kelly Reichardt grants us access to with her movies are special places. Even if they’re filled with terrors, as they very often are – her wonderful 2013 eco-thriller Night Moves is not as out of place as it might initially seen – they’re all so delicately spun you might find yourself not breathing lest the spell be broken. The grace on display in her work is meditative, plaintive, lovely even in the most dire of straits. They are quite simply always one of my favorite places to visit. 

And her latest titled Showing Up, which reunites Reichardt with actress Michelle Williams for the first time since 2016’s Certain Women, is another wondrous, delicate world – one I know I’ll be returning to time after time, year after year, to soak in, to absorb whatever wonders and mysteries I can from someone whose view of existence I’m thankful for receiving every single damn time...

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