BATTLE OF THE SEXES (Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton, 2017)
Starring Emma Stone and Steve Carell on autopilot, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’ tennis biopic was tedious awards bait that sent audiences to sleep – although some of it was deliberate. Specifically, it’s 12 minutes in when Andrea Riseborough caresses and snips Stone’s hair for a slow, seductive scene. Credit where credit’s due: the filmmakers admit that they and their sound team were directly inspired by ASMR YouTubers. “People work to make videos that elicit this response,” Dayton told Fast Company. “And we were wondering, ‘Could we get that response in a theatre full of people?’” The Oscars already have categories for Sound Mixing and Sound Editing – we need an ASMR trophy to make awards season relevant again.
