This Week's Smackdown Panel

Thank you for all the votes for this weeks Supporting Actress Smackdown for the 91st Oscars - so many ballots for us to sift through with opinions so varied which is just how it should be and how we like it (if you forgot, we'll accept them today as well but they're due by midnight!) Due to behind the scenes technical stuff we'll be posting the Smackdown Monday night, but it's time to meet the panel. We cheekily asked them for their pics in the three chopping-block craft categories but then the Academy reversed course. We're sharing their votes anyway, because shouldn't you always know who people are rooting for in cinematography, editing, and makeup? We think so! 

Please welcome two first time panelists

GINNY O'KEEFE
INSTAGRAM | IMDb

Rooting for... 

Picture: BlacKkKlansman
Cinematography: A Star is Born
Editing: BlacKkKlansman
Makeup and Hair: Vice

Ginny O’Keefe was born and raised in Westchester, New York. She credits her love of film and television to her parents, since they let her watch pretty much whatever she wanted growing up. They also helped fuel her love of acting by frequently taking her and her two sisters into Manhattan to see Broadway shows. She graduated from Elon University in 2016, with a BFA in Acting and a minor in Communications. She now lives in Los Angeles working as an actress and hopes to write and produce her own films one day. Follow her on Instagram.

ROBIN WRITE
TWITTER

Rooting for...

Picture: The Favourite
Cinematography: Cold War
Editing: The Favourite
Makeup and Hair: Mary Queen of Scots

Robin Write is the Editor-in-Chief of Filmotomy, a movie site that promotes the likes of female filmmakers, independent film, world cinema, documentaries etc. He's been writing, thinking, breathing, watching movies for as long as he can remembe and still feeds the addiction that is the Oscar race for near-30 years - a truly hard habit to break.

Your Host...

NATHANIEL R
TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | LETTERBOXD

Rooting for... 

Picture: The Favourite
Cinematography: Cold War
Editing: BlacKkKlansman
Makeup and Hair: Border

Nathaniel R has been running The Film Experience since the first seacreature grew legs and walked ashore in prehistoric times. He was there when Wings won best picture of 1928. Kidding... but he does love Wings and he's been loving the Oscars for far too long!

And two of your favourite TFE Regulars...

CHRIS FEIL
TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | LETTERBOXD

Rooting for...
 
Picture: The Favourite / Black Panther
Cinematography: A Star is Born
Editing: The Favourite / BlacKkKlansman
Makeup: Border

Chris Feil writes regularly at The Film Experience (including his column on movie music called Soundtracking) and lives in Columbus, OH. He cohosts the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast and has also been published at Vice, Paste, and Decider. You can easily beetlejuice him into your conversations by talking about soundtracks, RuPaul's Drag Race, and WALL•E. He is remembering to notice the collateral beauty around him. 

MURTADA ELFADL
TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | LETTERBOXD 

Rooting for...

Picture: BlacKkKlansman
Cinematography: A Star is Born
Editing: The Favourite
Makeup and Hair: Border

You know Murtada from his writing on TFE and as the co-host of our podcast. However one thing you might not know is that recently he recorded his first video interview; with rising playwright Jordan E Cooper whose play AIN'T NO “MO starts at The Public Theater on March 12th. 

Interview: Rachel Weisz on "The Favourite" and why she hasn't peaked yet.

by Nathaniel R

Rachel with her BAFTAWhen we sat down with Rachel Weisz to discuss The Favourite, she was as intimidating as the Lady Sarah Marlborough. Not, we think, on purpose. Sometimes an actor so slays a role that, if you've never met them before and have a tendency to live for the movies, it's like looking straight into the character's eyes. Weisz, cool and measured, impeccably dressed, offered tea. Remembering Lady Sarah's own downfall, I chose water.

We'd both seen The Favourite just once at the time but were eager for round two. "I'm so glad you liked it," she cooed, if somewhat cooly. All business, and why not, ready for questions but not any question. Taking the hint I steered clear of the past though I couldn't resist a brief question about one early role (The Shape of Things), since it had been a rare chance and my first to ever see an actor do a role on stage and then watch them repeat it on film. She found it, "a bit hard, that particular one" citing the need for freshness and spontanity in filmmaking and "...we'd said the words so many times before."  But we were there to discuss The Favourite, and spontaneity and freshness are in no short supply in that electric movie. She even shared how they managed to get them.

She hadn't yet been nominated when we spoke but the honors would soon, quite obviously, pile up including a BAFTA win for Best Supporting Actress and the Oscar nomination. Our interview, edited for length, follows:

NATHANIEL R: You've had such a strong handful of years now: The Deep Blue Sea, The Lobster, Disobedience, The Favourite. But you won an Oscar 14 years back or so and I wonder if at that point, before these recent peaks, you thought 'well, what now?' 

RACHEL WEISZ: I mean, it’s a thing [The Oscar] that you never think will happen to you. I don’t really feel like I can rest on my laurels and it’s all over now. I just don’t feel like that. There’s so much to explore. Hopefully I get better at my job. I think the more work you do… well, for me, the more I've done, the more I’ve figured out what kind of work I want to do...

Click to read more ...

10 Days til Oscar... The Past 10 Years of Stats

Happy Valentine's Day y'all ❤️. It's officially 10 days until the Oscars so it's a perfect time to go list crazy and look at the past 10 years of Oscar honors (2008-2017) for multiple top tens, don't you think? Not that we need excuses to go list-crazy. We make them up when they don't present themselves!  How have the past ten years been for you? We hope you'll share in the listing fun. In addition to ranking the Oscar winners we've notated whether the same achievements medalled in our own annual film bitch awards that year.

PAST TEN BEST PICTURE WINNERS RANKED 

1. Moonlight (2017) *silver medal
2. The Hurt Locker (2009) *gold medal
3. Birdman (2014) *silver medal...

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Cynthia Erivo as Harriet and the *next* Best Actress Race

That was quick. There are only four spots left in the next Best Actress Oscar race.

We kid, we kid. Academy Award nomination races aren't sewn up half as quickly as the internet always pretends they are. Nevertheless it's hard to deny that on paper Cynthia Erivo playing Harriett Tubman (there's your first still above) reads just right for major Oscar attention.

There are so many ways in which this seems likely without seeing a single clip. Let us count them...

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Who will win SAG tomorrow?

by Nathaniel R

Is the Oscar race as locked up as we think, or will SAG hold some surprises? Care to conjecture about what will win? I'll confess, perhaps foolishly, that I think we could be in for some surprises. Conventional wisdom will tell you that Close, Bale, Ali, and Adams will be the winners... though conventional wisdom will not solve the case of "who wins Outstanding Cast?" since the arguable Best Picture frontrunner Green Book and two most Oscar-nominated pictures Roma and The Favourite are not nominated in that category. With three heavy-hitters out, and Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asians, Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star is Born, and BlacKkKlansman as the nominees, that prize is something of a mystery...

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