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

Back to the movies with "Tenet" and a "Personal History..."

by Eurocheese

I drove 100 miles (one way!) to see two movies last weekend. Was it worth it? Well… yes and no. Here’s my take on returning to theaters and my thoughts on the two films I went (way) out of my way to see: Tenet and The Personal History of David Copperfield.

First, the moviegoing experience itself...

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Tenet finally opens. What did you see this week?

As expected Tenet was a major draw at the US box office for the holiday weekend, posting the best numbers of any film since the pandemic began. Still, it's obviously a far cry from what it would have made in a normal year when theaters didn't have to limit seating and there were far more of them open globally. 

US Estimates Holiday Weekend (Sept 4th-7th)
01 Tenet $20.2  (Global cumulative gross $146.2)
02 The New Mutants $3.6  (Global cum. $19.9)
03 Unhinged $2.2  (Global cum. $23.6)
04 Bill & Ted Face the Music $809k (Global cum. $2.4)
05 Spongebob: Sponge on the Move $470k  (US only cum. $3.4)
06 Personal History of David Copperfield $430k  (Global cum. $11.0)

NYC still isn't playing movies (the nearest theater playing Tenet, for example, is an hour and a half away by train) so the big new movie for us this week was I'm Thinking of Ending Things on Netflix (more on which later if we can figure out what to say about it!). What did you see this week? 

Venice Begins with Tilda's Mantra

by Nathaniel R

Cinema, simply, is my happy place. Its my true motherland. And its fellowship is my heart's family tree.
- Tilda Swinton

The Venice Film Festival has begun its annual journey. Venice's 77th opening night film was the Italian marital drama Lacci. The day's festivities also included the arrival of the glamorous jury (Jury presiden Cate Blanchett is only wearing gowns she's previously worn at other events!) and a Golden Lion lifetime tribute to the alien icon punk actress Tilda Swinton.

Tilda's full speech is below... it's a true beauty. I want to type it all up and use it as a daily mantra but first let's join together in listening to Tilda's elegant commanding voice and passion.

Tilda Swinton Leone d’Oro alla carriera a #Venezia77 #biennalecinema2020 #tildaswinton #leonedoro@la_Biennale pic.twitter.com/GCgrRDUhZX

— Rai Movie (@raimovie) September 2, 2020

New Mutants and New Films. What did you see this past week?

Everyone is wondering when it will be safe to go back to movie theaters, or, in some markets (like here in NYC), when theaters will reopen at all? Vanity Fair sent Richard Larson to his home town of Boston for a wonderfully evocative piece about returning to the movie theater... for The New Mutants of all things. That Fox movie's long troubled voyage to cinemas has been well documented on the internet and Vulture recently tried to sum it all up, if you haven't been following along.

I was an avid reader of comic books when The New Mutants first emerged (September 1982) and I gobbled that book right up...

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