The 6th Annual Team Experience Awards!

Chris here, on behalf of my fellow Team Experience writers! Before Nathaniel shares his Top Ten and Film Bitch honors (not to mention the Oscar nominations on Tuesday - eek!), we've polled all of the other writers here at The Film Experience for their favorites of the past year without our kind and benevolent leader. It's our 6th Annual Team Experience Awards!

You'll remember last year we awarded eventual Oscar Best Picture winner Moonlight with seven prizes, and this year the wealth is slightly more shared. We had a lot of readers asking to see what our full ballot of nominations would be, so this year we have opened it up to reveal our winner and four runner-ups in each of our categories. Our nomination leader is Call Me By Your Name with 9 mentions, and craft-heavy Phantom Thread and The Shape of Water are right behind with 8.

Our most awarded however was granted to one of our most discussed, Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird. Because as Lois Smith's nun ponders: aren't love and attention the same thing? Check out our winners...

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Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Name the "Best" Film and TV of the Year

by Nathaniel R

The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association (aka GALECA) have announced their annual Dorian Award nominations. We thought we'd share the list here since a few of us at Team Experience are members. Though you might feel like I determined the nominees singlehandedly (PFEIFFER ALERT !!!) I am but one vote among many so I'm relieved that other voters chose the perpfect thing, while voting.

Perhaps it's no surprise that Call Me By Your Name led the nominees with 9 votes. Shape of Water was close behind with 7 nods. What was a surprise was 5 nominations for the still wildly underseen French drama BPM (Beats Per Minute) already shunned by Oscar in the category it should have been frontrunning in. 

I personally don't vote in every category, abstaining from the ones I feel are most problematic (does anyone actually agree on what "camp" means in 2018?) or in categories where I feel like I have not seen enough (like documentary though I love almost all the nominees they named this year in that category.)  The list with a few notes is after the jump...

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All the Big Sick in the World Whilst Crying Over Globe Snubs

by Nathaniel R (and friends)

Tomorrow we'll have some group commentary fun with the Globe nominations but tonight let's cry ourselves to sleep about the things we won't see celebrated on Globe night. There's still time to say a prayer to your Higher Movie Powers that they won't be as seriously stiffed with SAG or Oscar. So today I asked friends of The Film Experience and team members to tell us about the exclusion that most upset them. Since no one said Jake Gyllenhaal in Stronger (my choice) I'm giving him the lead photo treatment here because he is amazing in that movie -- so vulnerable and lived-in and present and messy. He's one of our best working actors, despite his completely inexcusable lack of awards show love over the years.

In addition to collective snub tears, I've also corralled theories as to what happened with All the Money in the World and what DIDN'T happen with The Big Sick after the jump. Do join the conversation, won't you...

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European Film Awards - Much Love to "The Square"

by Nathaniel R

The annual European Film Awards have logged many frequent flyer miles over the years as they hop around to various host countries. Today they were held in Berlin Germany and multiple Oscar hopefuls in Best Foreign Language Film took home prizes. The Cannes Palme d'Or winner The Square won the most statues and Hungary's Alexandra Borbely who stars in the weirdly compelling On Body and Soul (reviewed here) took Best Actress. You can see all the winners after the jump...

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European Film Nominations: "The Square" and "On Body and Soul" lead

by Nathaniel R

Hungary's weird and wonderful ON BODY AND SOUL keeps collecting kudosOne of our favorite undersung awards bodies is back. The European Film Awards, a hodgepodge of vastly different cinemas that sometimes has surprising results, have released their nominations for 2017. As per usual they're the awards body with the most in common with Oscar's Foreign Language Film race with many of their nominees being submissions this year from their respective countries. As such it's worth noting that Hungary's dreamscape slaughterhouse romantic oddity On Body and Soul and the Palme D'or winning Swedish satire The Square are both looking strong heading into the Oscar race; they lead the field here, each with four nominations. Russia's Loveless and the latest Yorgos Lanthimos provocation The Killing of a Sacred Deer are just behind them with three nominations, though the latter was a miss in the top category for Best European Film where France's masterful ACT UP drama BPM (Beats Per Minute --  currently in release in the US -- why is noone seeing it? It's brilliant! --  struck instead. 

The ceremony moves each year and this time it will be hosted in Berlin, Germany on December 9th. Full set of nominees (links go to our reviews) including a France heavy Best Actress list are after the jump...

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