Oscar Volley: Best Actress

Team Experience is discussing the various Oscar categories. Here's Baby Clyde and Juan Carlos Ojano discussing Best Actress.

CARLOS: A two-time Oscar winner gunning for her third, a rising star playing a Hollywood legend in a highly divisive film, a character actress getting an overdue recognition, a recurring nominee playing Steven Spielberg's mother, and an international star in the role of a lifetime in the Best Picture frontrunner. It's quite an exciting mix of actresses plucked from a highly competitive field.

But we would be remiss if we don't address the elephant in the room, to just get it out of the way...

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Oscar Volley: Let's dig into that Best Director field... who should win?

Team Experience is discussing the various Oscar categories. Here's Eric Blume and Nick Taylor discussing Best Director.

Portrait of a young director via THE FABELMANS

ERIC BLUME: Hi Nick! I'm excited to talk Best Director with you.  This year's line-up, while I'd swap out a name or two in there personally, is extraordinarily strong, perhaps one of our best ever?  Before we get to each one, who were personal favorites of yours that didn't make the ballot?

NICK TAYLOR: It’s a very strong lineup! Only one of the names Oscar picked would be close to my own ballot, but I see plenty of strengths in the work the Academy nominated, and the competitiveness of this field leading up to nomination morning means nobody coasted to their slots...

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Oscar Volleys: Best Film Editing might be a nailbiter this year

Team Experience is discussing each Oscar category in the lead up to the ceremony.  Here's Ben Miller and Eurocheese to talk Best Editing

Ben Miller: Well Eurocheese, we're back again.  Pre-nominations, Nick Taylor and I talked about Best Editing being more of an alternative Best Picture lineup.  Low-and-behold, all five Editing nominees are also up for Best Picture. Before we get to talking about the actual nominees, let's pour one out for films that should have gotten a notice in this category.   Personally, I thought the editing in All Quiet on the Western Front was pretty spectacular.  When it comes to coherent action sequences, my main gripe is a sense of place and atmosphere.  For a while, any action or war film was edited with insanity and incoherence.  God bless George Miller because Mad Max: Fury Road showed a first-class way to convey clear, heart-pumping action without throwing you out of sorts.  All Quiet isn't renowned for its action sequences, but when it shows up, it is crystal clear about direction, orientation, and presence.  

What film did you personally want in the lineup, no matter how unrealistic?

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Nom Reactions Pt 2: Lovely Craft, Headscratching Honors, Default Diane, and Sexiest Shortlist

We polled the team plus some friends of the site about their Oscar nomination reactions and wanted to share those little blurbs with you! (Here's the first four of eight questions if you missed those). Today's questions are...

1. What was your favourite non-acting nomination?
2. Which nomination was the biggest headscratcher?
3. Can anything be done about Diane Warren?
4. The sexiest category is ______

Our answers are after the jump and yours go in the comments...

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The BAFTA nominations are here!

by Cláudio Alves

Despite four nominations, this was a sad day for "Aftersun" | © A24

In the last two years, BAFTA managed to distance itself from the precursor norm, asserting an individual identity separated from the affairs of predicting the Oscars. Well, it seems such idiosyncrasies were a short-lived fad if this year's nominations are to be trusted. The weirdest thing about their latest slew of nominees is how much they align with expectations and repudiate the very possibility of weirdness. All Quiet on the Western Front leads the pack with 14 nominations, having been recognized in all possible categories apart from Best Actor. Next, we find The Banshees of Inisherin and Everything Everywhere All At Once, with ten each. Those are the only titles whose bounty amounts to double-digit nods.

Come discover the complete list of nominees, after the jump…

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