Almost There: Margaret Qualley in "The Substance"

by Cláudio Alves

In an awards season full of co-leads pretending to be supporting players, nepo babies, and festival hits, it's a wonder Margaret Qualley didn't get a nomination for her work in The Substance. Coralie Fargeat's film is up for five Oscars, being the current frontrunner in Actress and Makeup, a major triumph for a picture such as this, where body horror elements are remixed and reimagined for a made-in-France Hollywood satire. It's gross, like few star vehicles in the Academy's history, so outré as to be off-putting and bold as all hell. In that regard, its closest Oscar relative is Black Swan, whose Mila Kunis, like Qualley, got major precursor and critical support but failed to secure the AMPAS' seal of approval…

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MONSTRO BEST ACTRESS - Vote Daily!

by Nathaniel R

THE SUBSTANCE

We’re updating all Oscar charts this weekend (if we can manage) and of course we start by spotlighting Best Actress, the category we live for as actressexuals. As is silly tradition, we like to mush all the contenders together and see what we’ve got. A unique caveat: it feels a little weird to play this game in a year where one of the nominees comes from a movie that does create a creature, “Monstro Elisasue”, by fusing women together. ANYWAY… If you stitch all of this season’s Best Actresses together your Bride of Frankenstein beauty is a 47 year old raven-haired American actress (with family ties to the UK and Brazil) enjoying her first ever nomination. Read on for more craziness...

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A Few Thoughts on the Golden Globes

by Nathaniel R

Screenshot from the Golden Globes 

Did you watch the Golden Globes Sunday night? The show was (mostly) bereft of the kind of shocks we got in the pre-reform era but in a year where crystal Oscar balls are still foggy with possibility -- seriously, which film is going to win Best Picture? -- there was still inherent drama in the opening of envelopes. At least on the film side; the TV prizes were a complete snooze fest, merely rubber-stamping September's Emmy wins! Spreading the wealth should not be such a difficult concept for awards voters but we live in an age of monopolies and oligarchs so maybe abundance it's just not a vibe for the entertainment industry these days. 

Emilia Perez (4 wins) and The Brutalist (3 wins) were all the rage with Globes voters. But did anyone else get a boost heading toward Oscar nominations?

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Golden Globe Predictions, Anyone?

by Nathaniel R

The Globes often zig when people say they'll zag and true shockers are peppered all throughout their history. But times have changed. Since the HFPA have been shamed and named and restructured in the past five or so years, the voting body is quite different. They're likely to play things much much safer then they once did in an attempt to be respectable and predict the Oscars. But that's the cynical view. Any rounding off of their edges won't really even be conscious. When voting bodies become large (and their voting body is much larger now) they tend to default to whatever the 'buzz' is and lose the kind of personality that you can get with smaller organizations. It's why some festival juries and regional critics groups (a few of them at least) still exhibit something in the way of personality. Anyway, let's have fun guessing the Globes which start at 8:00 pm tonight after the jump...

BEST MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA

• THE BRUTALIST, A24
• A COMPLETE UNKNOWN, Searchlight Pictures
• CONCLAVE, Focus Features
• DUNE: PART TWO, Warner Bros. Pictures
• NICKEL BOYS, Orion Pictures / Amazon MGM Studios
• SEPTEMBER 5 Paramount Pictures

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Happy New Year from the Team Experience!

by Cláudio Alves

As the year draws to a close, here’s a final thank you for reading The Film Experience and engaging in this cinema-loving community. Have a wonderful time tonight and let’s all hope for a good 2025, even if the odds may feel against us.

Also, remember, you are one. Don’t make the same mistake as Miss Sparkle in The Substance. Then again, we should all enter the New Year with a Monstro Elisasue type of smile – broad, bloody, mad and maddening, bursting in ecstasy beyond reason and full of star power. Cheers!

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