The Furniture: The Nest and Its Not-Haunted House

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber. (Click on the images for magnified detail)

Don’t marry an investment banker!

This, as far as I can tell, is the central message of Sean Durkin’s The Nest. And it’s good advice! Rory O’Hara (Jude Law) is a Gordon Gekko without any of the charm, a stiff Englishman determined to perform his financial success in front of a vaguely imagined audience of the rich and powerful. His wife, Allison (Carrie Coon), is miserably along for the ride. It’s a period piece, but it’s laser focused on toxic aspects of our culture that certainly haven’t gone away. The ‘80s never ended, not really.

And so we watch as Allison and her two children are dragged from their house in the US, already their third home in 10 years, and across the pond to an enormous old mansion in Surrey. Rory’s determination to make it big back in the UK upends everything, from Allison’s equestrian interests to their daughter’s gymnastics. I bring this up because it’s one of our few glimpses at the life before, represented in wide spaces like the sun-dappled walls of the stable and the well-lit, colorful gym...

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Cast This: Johnny Depp out of "Fantastic Beasts" franchise

by Patrick Gratton

Understandably lost during the fog created of election week, on Friday afternoon Johnny Depp took to his Instagram page, announcing that he was stepping down from the role of Grindlewald. The Warner Bros’ Harry Potter spin-off franchise, the Fantastic Beast series is no without a villain. Depp claims that the move comes at Warner Bros request following his failed libel suit against News Group Newspapers, the publisher of the tabloid magazine The Sun, over allegations that Depp abused ex-wife Amber Heard.  

The news comes after a tumultuous year for the Potterverse. Not just for Depp, whose years of litigation with ex-wife Amber Heard and whose substance abuse has made him tabloid fodder...

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Podcast: "Nomadland" and "The Nest"

with Nathaniel R & Murtada Elfadl

We're back for weekly podcasting now as the season revs up.

Index (58 minutes)
00:01 Virtual festivals pros & cons and blurry lines between film and TV
13:00 NYFF - Frances McDormand in Chloe Zhao's Nomadland
27:00 Ivory Coast's Night of Kings and the documentary Time
40:22 Sean Durkin's The Nest starring Jude Law and Carrie Coon 
49:00 Boys in the Band in brief
56:00 Wrap up: French Exit is soon! Eeeeeee

Related Reading:
• Nathaniel's Review of Night of Kings
• All posts on Nomadland
• Murtada's Review of Boys in the Band

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

The Nest and Nomadland

Best Performances by Actors in Limited Roles

Andrew Scott gives incredible cynical cameo in "1917"

And now a semi-tangential train of thought. Over the 20 years of doing the Film Bitch Awards we've noticed that our cameo categories have gone from being a fun place to shine the spotlight on unknown actors who we're curious about to an annual war between not-quite household names or "it" girls and guys who are appearing in everything. The problem for lesser known actors trying to catch a break these days is that we're long past the years when mid-level stars, or even major stars, had egos about the size of their roles. More and more stars will happily become day-players as if everyone wants to be working 24/7 and has never heard of the concept of over-exposure...

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Va Va Voom in Venice

by Nathaniel R

Timothée Chalamet talking to well-wishers in Venice

Scarlett Johansson at the premiere of "Marriage Story"

Sadly Team Experience is not a big enough team to be everywhere at once and we rarely have someone in Venice. But we can ogle the stars collectively with the rest of the world as they werq the red carpets to make those premieres work for their movies (or their own celebrity if they aren't actually pushing a film).

Any favourite looks? The photos are after the jump...

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