From the Sundance Film Festival here's Nathaniel on "Blind" which won the World Cinema screenwriting prize...
Excuse me while I leap forward 11 months and give Blind the gold medal for "Best Opening Scene" of 2014. This highly original Norwegian film begins with a visualization exercize. Ingrid (Ellen Dorrit Petersen), a married blind woman, is detailing her recent loss of sight. She's trying to remember what things looked like and has been warned that with no new visual stimuli from the optic nerves, her memoires of sight will fade. She'd like to keep the images for as long as she possibly can. She visualizes a tree, her apartment, a park, a dog. It's a German Shepherd to be precise - a morbidly funny choice given their status as the original seeing eye dogs.
Once the dog is visualized in a park, the background vanishes leaving only the panting dog on a blank canvas, as if it's posing in a photographer's studio. Ingrid visualizations a shopping center she likes and just before this intriguing prologue ends we see the dog again, barking forcefully in a window. But we don't hear it. Ingrid and director Eskil Vogt have unexpectedly robbed us of one of our other senses to close out this playful series of images. [more...]
Mysjkin with Woody Allen. As close as she fears she'll get to him!We're getting to know the Film Experience community. Should this be a weekly feature? Today we're talking to Ann-Mari from Norway who goes by "Mysjkin" in the comments.
Quick what's the last movie you watched before I asked you to do this reader spotlight?
MYSJKIN: I finally got around to watching Let the Right One In after finally having read the book. As a librarian I am intrigued by how page translates to screen. It's impossible to completely capture a novel, choices need to be made. Let the Right One In was to me a really well judged adaptation, focusing on what I found to be the heart of the novel; the relationship between Eli and Oscar and their fragile, violent and compelling coming-of-age.
When did you start reading The Film Experience?
MYSJKIN: I discovered TFE back when IMDB had links to fun stuff at the bottom of their page and I clicked to read Unsung Heroes: The SFX of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, that being one of my favourite films. After reading that post and several of your own, I felt like I had discovered a treasure chest of cinematic goodness!
I was so sad when IMDb stopped that link feature but I'm glad you stayed - that was just before the site overhaul.
MYSJKIN: I love the mix of old and new and the unabashed obsession with actresses and Oscar! All your contributors are excellent and reading the comments is highly enjoyable, that last bit is in itself a rare online treat. But most of all, it's your writing, your warmth, wit and creativity that keeps bringing me back.
Tusen takk! Do you remember your first movie?
No, but I remember my first movie obsession. It was Pete's Dragon. I would watch that video tape (<3 the 80s ) over and over and over. Whenever someone claims to have seen something weird, "A dragon, a dragon, I swear I saw a dragon!" is the first thing that pops into my head.
Let's move on to more adult matters. Have you ever broken up with someone because of a movie?
Haha! Almost... When I was 19, my boyfriend of about a month wanted me to watch 'the best film he had EVER seen'. It was Braveheart... I had my first portent that it would'nt last right then and there. It was over a couple of months later.
Three favorite actors?
Vintage Gem: Gregory Peck Current Obsession: Michael Fassbender (yes, like EVERYONE else ;D) God Among Us: Daniel Day Lewis.
I saw The Last of the Mohicans in theaters at the tender age of 15. The hotness! The hair! The instant teenage girl crush! The jawdropping realization that this was the same actor I had seen in A Room With a View only a few months prior.
Since I speak a little broken Norwegian tell us which 5 Norsk movies readers should check out?
I'm so happy about your love for Joachim Trier, because I think Reprise and Oslo, 31. Augustare perhaps the two best Norwegian films ever made! ...and third place goes to DeUsynlige (Troubled Water). For some vintage spookiness, watch De dødes tjern (not sure if there's an English title, but it translates as Lake of the Dead) and to tap into the Norwegian Heart and Soul, watch Flåklypa Grand Prix
Finally, we need to talk about Elling! Not only is this a good, heartwarming film, but it also features yours truly as an extra! Yup, (as you will see from the attached picture) that's the back of my head right there! I'm only visible for a few seconds, but it was enough to secure the film an Oscar nomination! ;D
Steve McQueen didn't make the list but Fassy still loves him (as do many of our contributors)Amir here, to bring you the first edition of Team Top Ten, a communal list by all of Film Experience’s contributors that will sit in for our regular Tuesday Top Ten list once a month. For our first episode, we’ve decided to rank the best new directors of the 21st century. These are all directors who have made their first film after 2000. (Short films, TV and theatre work didn’t render anyone ineligible. Only feature length fiction and documentary films were considered.)
I had a blast compiling the 18 lists of our contributors to arrive at the final ten because their submissions were incredibly eclectic and surprising. I’d made a bet with myself that Steve McQueen (Hunger, Shame) would top the list, and lo and behold, he failed to make the cut altogether, though by a very fine margin. Korean director Bong Joon Ho was also left off, despite showing up on more than a handful of lists. Jason Reitman, Joshua Marston, Rian Johnson and David Gordon Green all came very close too but this was a tightly contested race, evidenced by the three-way tie for our tenth spot. Overall, 71 directors got at least one vote. We travelled all the way from Japan to Portugal, from Greece to Mexico, via documentaries, comedies and superhero films. We loved stories about Muslim families, gay romances, World War II and the beautifully painted worlds of Sylvain Chomet. What we didn't like very much turned out to be actors-turned-directors, as current Oscar champ Ben Affleck got only a single vote, and George Clooney and Tommy Lee Jones failed to manage even that.
In the end, these are the twelve men and women Team Experience considers the best (thus far) of the 21st century crop:
=10. Michel Gondry Human Nature, Eternal Sunshine, The Sciene of Sleep, Block Party, Be Kind Rewind, etcetera
Gondry's films are shaggy fantasies powered by a boundless imagination. They're more than a little goofy, speaking quirky as if it were a language, and they have an endearing handmade quality, with their maker's fingerprints visible around the rough edges. Bent as they are toward romance and optimism, Gondry's miniature worlds provide a little solace from reality. - Andreas Stoehr
A Filmic Notion on The Red Shoes "...a film that 'could be' my all time favourite" Awards Circuit on the breakthrough performers of 2012 Pajiba 15 pop culture moments that made us cry in 2012 Boy Culture continues their countdown of hottest actors of all time (#50-21) ranging from Buster Crabbe, to Tyrone Power through Christian Bale in this edition. But I've just been informed that Takeshi Kaneshiro is not on the list at all so someone will have to explain this word "hotness" to me!
Antagony & Ecstasy Tim shares his ten best of the year: Magic Mike, Oslo August 31st, Tabu and more... I wish I liked Oslo a bit more than I do but I'm thrilled that so many critics I like are suddenly enthused about Joachim Trier because I don't remember having much company when I was all "ohmygodeveryone Reprise !!!" a few years back. Media Decoder on footing your own Oscar campaign. And no, this article is not about Ann Dowd. People do it every year. Gawker Rich Juzwiack on the year in film. I've always loved Rich's writing but it's so weird to read a full "year in" piece in which I agree with quite literally nothing. haha Coming Soon promotional art for the next few years of Pixar films Reverse Shot's top ten with The Deep Blue Sea an out of time chart topper
Old Hollywood loves Federico Fellini. Isn't that an amazing sketch (left)? It's Fellini's first rendering of Gelsomina from La Strada. The Sheila Variations a beautiful birthday piece about crushing on Ralph Macchio before The Karate Kid (!) and the transformational power of getting hooked on the storytelling arts and the actors who make us dream. Thelma Adams corrals some friends to discuss the annual topic: does nudity equal bravery for actresses? Your Movie Buddy (and ours) interviews Kirsten Dunst on Melancholia. ioncinema Fox Searchlight signs the Borderline Film trio (Antonio Campos, Sean Durkin, and Josh Mond) to a first look deal. That filmmaking collective operates in such a cool way, alternating in the director's chair but sticking together and supporting each other. Their latest venture being the fab Martha Marcy May Marlene (my review if you missed it). Little White Lies interviews our current favorite Norwegian director Joachim Trier on his new film Olso, August 31st
Coming Soon Gallery of on set images from Terrence Malick's Lawless starring The Driver and That Girl With the Tattoo. Now that Malick is making movies as fast as say, Martin Scorsese (Allen & Eastwood's clip will thankfully remain out of reach... that speed doesn't do many people favors), that 20 year gap between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line is looking ever more perplexing. Tom Shone thoughts on Leonardo DiCaprio and a top ten. It's odd that I disagreed so much with the content of the article but apart from the weird preferencing of Blood Diamond, I totally get the top ten choices. MNPP Jake Gyllenhaal on the subway. Stars... they're just like us! Flickr awesome gallery of "the end" onscreen In Contention will be there for a Vanessa Redgrave AMPAS tribute in London next week Oh No They Didn't 13 Movie Poster trends from the legs spread stance, to floating heads in clouds threw sexy backs holding weaponry.
Finally...
That's the Hunger Games cast doing one of those Vanity Fair shoots that make everyone look All American Rising Star Sun Dappled Models in the Great Outdoors. Doesn't it bother anyone that the movie is all about these people killing each other and yet it's like "yay, the cool kids. you could be their friend, too!"
Sunday, January 26, 2014 at 11:00AM 
From the Sundance Film Festival here's Nathaniel on "Blind" which won the World Cinema screenwriting prize...
