Berlinale 75: "Blue Moon" isn't your traditional biopic

by Elisa Giudici

Watching Blue Moon, I couldn’t help but think of Inside Llewyn Davis, one of the Coen brothers’ most accomplished yet underappreciated films. That movie introduced Oscar Isaac in what remains his most astonishing performance, portraying a talented but ill-fated musician who arrived just a bit too soon to achieve success. A similar fate awaited Blue Moon’s protagonist, though his story unfolds decades earlier, in 1943 New York, amid the turmoil of World War II...

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Venice 2023: "The Killer" and "Hit Man"

by Elisa Giudici

Venice's most sought-after job this year? The sicario. Professional assassins are trending. Today David Fincher's The Killer and Richard Linklater's Hit Man. 

THE KILLER by David Fincher
The real mystery here is whether The Killer's lack of ambition stems from production during the COVID years and a tight schedule due to Michael Fassbender's busy agenda, or if Fincher simply wanted to have fun. While it may not be a masterpiece or top tier Fincher, The Killer is still a thriller directed by Fincher, a master of the form.

This time, Fincher designs the movie around the protagonist's voiceover, setting the rhythm for the entire story and influencing the cinematography and editing choices...

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Almost There: Christian McKay in "Me and Orson Welles"

by Cláudio Alves

The Almost There series' month-long celebration of the Criterion Channel's May offerings draws to a close with a highlight from their Richard Linklater collection. In 2008, the Austin auteur made his most Oscar-ready project yet, complete with a dazzling supporting turn that seemed poised for a nomination. Me and Orson Welles is the well-researched and studiously put-together account of a teenager cast in the director's famous 1937 staging of Julius Caesar. The Academy usually loves these real-life tales, mainly when they include a good amount of celebrity mimicry, making the film an apparent shoo-in for Oscar glory.

And yet, Christian McKay's critically acclaimed take on young Orson Welles failed to secure a nomination. Considering precursor honors, he must have come close…

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Merrily We Roll... and Roll... and Roll... Along

by Nathaniel R

Real life theater friends Ben & Beanie, doing a musical theater movie adaptation together. But they won't be done with it for another 20 years

While The Film Experience was in the pro-Boyhood camp in 2014 we were never among its biggest fans. It was hard to be in that club given the massive stanning for a movie that was winning Best Picture prizes left and right in its year. But today we love it more than we ever have now that it's given the king of longform cinema, Richard Linklater, the funding and confidence to attempt the coolest or most foolish movie musical ever. As you may have heard he's now embarking on an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's most beloved flop Merrily We Roll Along to be filmed over the next 20 (gulp!) years...

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Review: Where'd You Go, Bernadette

by Murtada Elfadl

What if that one thing that you cared about and that you built your life’s work around was gutted away from you violently? Can you recover? How do you cope in the days and years that follow? These are some of the questions that Richard Linklater is trying to answer with his adaptation of the Maria Semple novel, Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

Bernadette (Cate Blanchett) is a harried mom (to Emma Nelson’s 15 year old Bee) and wife (to Billy Crudup’s Elgie) in Seattle. She spends her days in her big semi-rundown house trying to manage the small details of her family’s life, but mostly running away from facing the minutiae and drudgery of those tasks by composing long email and text messages to her virtual assistant Manjula. But Bernadette’s life wasn’t always so banal and she wasn’t in perpetual war with everyone she meets (Kristin Wiig plays her nemesis and next door neighbor). She used to be a genius architect with lots of promise until she suffered a major career setback that she couldn’t recover from. 

If you are a fan of the novel you might not recognize what you liked about it from this adaptation...

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