Abe Gives Thanks 2020

A few volunteer members of Team Experience will be giving thanks this holiday week. Here's Abe Friedtanzer

This year has had its share of disappointments, but there’s plenty to celebrate personally and cinematically. I’m fortunate to have great weather in Los Angeles where I can spend time outdoors on a regular basis. It’s also been exciting to write much more frequently for The Film Experience and to interact with contributors and readers who were mostly willing to forgive my lukewarm attitude towards Schitt’s Creek. Here are ten movie/TV-related reasons I’d like to give thanks:

• Parasite winning Best Picture. I predicted 1917 but couldn’t have been more thrilled to see a stat-busting international triumph. It’s also the first time since The Departed that my #1 film of the year was also chosen by Oscar.

• The Sundance Film Festival happened completely as normal. For my seventh time in Park City, Utah, I got to see 41 films and enjoy sitting in the front row in crowded theaters for five movies in a row per day for a week straight. Little did I know that January would be my last visit to a movie theater...

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Onward, First Cow, to the Weekend Box Office.

What did you see this weekend? Pixar's Onward was the big winner with a $40 million haul. The hot ticket in platform release was Kelly Reichardt's First Cow which had the weekend's highest per screen average at just 4 theaters.  

Weekend Box Office March 6th-8th (ESTIMATES) 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended
WIDE RELEASE (800+ screens)	PLATFORM TITLES
Onward	First Cow
1 🔺 ONWARD  $40 *new*	1 🔺 PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE $540k on 334 screens (cum. $3.3) TOP TEN LIST ★
2  THE INVISIBLE MAN  $15.1 (cum. $52.6) *new* REVIEW	2 🔺  BAAGHI 3 $475k  *new*

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Sundance Awards (Plus Abe's 'Jury of One' Wrap)

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

Minari won Sundance

The Sundance Film Festival is officially over, closing out yet another busy week and a half of nonstop movies. I managed to catch 41 films this year, including almost all the Premieres titles and most of the U.S. Dramatic Competition films. I enjoyed running into Murtada a few times and noting how much we disagreed on a few films (one of his least favorites is on my top ten list, and I hated Zola, which he loved).

After the jump, the official awards and the best of what I saw... 

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Sundance: Benh Zeitlin returns with "Wendy"

by  Abe Fried-Tanzer

Eight years ago, director Benh Zeitlin, just twenty-nine at the time, brought his debut feature Beasts of the Southern Wild to Sundance, where it took home the Grand Jury Dramatic Prize. It went on to score four Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture and a bid for directing for Zeitlin. Since then, he has produced a few projects, but now marks the much-anticipated release of his second effort behind the camera.

Wendy is a creative retelling of the Peter Pan story, with Wendy (Devin France) and her twin brothers (Gage and Gavin Naquin) helping their single mother at the diner where she works and watching excitedly as trains go by their windows every night...

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No Sophomore Slump?

Here’s Murtada with casting news for three directors’ sophomore efforts after the critical success of their debuts.

Insane chemistry retread?

DAMIEN CHAZELLE
While everyone is talking about Miles Teller and how maybe he was fired from La La Land, the new movie from his Whiplash (2014) director Damien Chazelle, that movie has been adding cast members. It's got a rather charming cast all told. Joining Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in lead and J.K. Simmons and Ex Machina’s Sonoya Mizuno in support, are John Legend (Selma) and Rosemarie Dewitt (Rachel Getting Married).

The movie is about an aspiring actress (Stone) and a musician (Gosling) falling in love while trying to make it in LA. Legend’s role is unknown but we assume his talents as an Oscar winning songwriter will be used in some capacity in addition to his acting. DeWitt will reportedly play Gosling’s sister. Can you spot any family resemblance?

TOM FORD
Yesterday Michael Shannon and  Aaron Taylor Johnson were announced as the latest additions to Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals joining Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams. There were reports a few months ago that Joaquin Phoenix was being considered for a part, which we'll assume is the one Shannon has now taken. Plot details are sketchy on this one beyond the fact that it’s based on Austin Wright’s 1993 novel Tony And Susan, and it involves two interlocking stories. One story is maybe a fictional one within the other. Ford has written the script and could have veered a bit from the book. Any readers of the book that can shed some light on the plot?

Will he find someone as talented as Quvenzhane Wallis?

BENH ZEITLIN
And  Benh Zeitlin is finally following up Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012). Reports appeared online that he has put up a casting call for child actors to appear in his new movie Wendy. Filming will take place in Antigua and the story is about “a young girl who gets kidnapped onto a hidden ecosystem where a tribal war is raging over a form of pollen that breaks the relationship between aging and time.” Hmmm, sound similar to Beasts, no? Other reports say it's loosely based on the Peter Pan myth.

Expect to see these three intriguing projects in 2016. Have they jumped to the top of your most anticipated lists?