Through Her Lens: 2012 (The 85th Oscars)

A series by Juan Carlos Ojano. Introduction / Explanation

Come Oscar nominations announcement, the Best Director category was one of the most discussed among Oscar fans and predictors. Perceived frontrunners Ben Affleck (Argo), Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), and Tom Hooper (Les Misérables) missed out on nominations while two legitimate shockers came in their place:  Michael Haneke for the arthouse drama Amour and Behn Zeitlin for the fantasy drama Beasts of the Southern Wild. This led to one of the most chaotic Oscar races of the decade, leading to Argo winning Best Picture even without its director Affleck nominated.

While she was a strong force in that category leading to nominations, previous winner Kathryn Bigelow was the only female director given considerable awards attention that season...

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April Foolish Pt 7 - All Oscar Charts Are Complete!

by Nathaniel R

The annual 'April Foolish' Oscar speculation charts are up for the 95th Academy Awards. They'll be held next winter or spring in 2023 honoring the films of 2022. Normally by now we'd have a ceremony date but perhaps burnt by two years of COVID and media fallout from Oscar night, the Board of Governors is being coy about the dates for the new season.  Now about these predictions...

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Oscar Volley: Can anyone beat Jane Campion? Or, rather, who is in second place?

Team Experience is discussing the various Oscar categories. Here's Mark Brinkerhoff and Timothy Lyons to discuss Best Director

MARK BRINKERHOFF: There's only a few days left of Oscar voting. So, in the spirit of balloting, let’s settle something when in comes to one of this year’s presumably more predictable categories: Best Director. And the 2021 nominees are...

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Best Director - "How'd They Get Nominated?"

The Best Director Oscar chart is fully revamped with a poll, lots of stats, trivia, and information. If we fused all five directors into one Mecha-Director we'd have a 59 year-old 5'9" Sagittarian living in California who has New Zealand, Irish, and Japanese roots. This fictional Mecha-Director has made 15 movies and been nominated in this category 3 times.

The chart also contains our annual thought experiment: "How'd they get nominated?"...

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Oscar Volley: Those DGA Nominees (and more) in Best Director

Our Oscar Volleys series is down to our last two categories. Here are Tim Brayton and Eric Blume to talk Best Director. (This volley was recorded before the BAFTA announcement but since those nominations are juried they probably won't have much bearing on Oscar outcomes.)

Eric Blume:  Tim, I'm thrilled to talk shop about the Best Director category. Let's start with Jane Campion, Denis Villeneuve, and Kenneth Branagh who all seem unlikely to miss.  I'm personally thrilled that Campion might ride her crest all the way to a win. Nobody else could have made The Power of the Dog work so layered and subtle, or told that story without it seeming heavy-handed, obvious, or silly. The film gives Campion the chance to do her specialty: embroiling us in a narrative and in character motivations so intensely strange yet fully human that we're transported by our own confusion and curiosity.  She has that special ability to deliver a rare grounded sense of whatthefuckery in her movies. There are moments where so much is happening psychologically, where so many meanings are transpiring simultaneously, that you can't even fully process it until it's passed you by.

I'm also a huge fan of Villeneuve, a natural-born filmmaker if there ever was one...

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