Team Experience: Personal Favorite Oscar Nods

While I update the charts I asked the team to share their single favorite Oscar nomination of the day. And I hope you'll pick a single nomination to praise in the comments to. What most delighted you?

And now the favorite things hoopla begins... 

Mad Max: Fury Road - Best Picture
Back in May, critics and cinephiles, myself included, fell in love with Mad Max: Fury Road. It wasn’t just lust or infatuation. It was the kind of love that breeds doubt that others could see in the movie what we saw. Perhaps for that reason, a chorus of moans immediately went up about how not only is the Academy so often forgetful of Spring films, but that Mad Max was probably too fun, too action-y, too daring, hell, too feminist, for the academy to acknowledge it come Oscar season. Then, over the course of the summer, it didn’t even become the blockbuster many expected it would. Domestically speaking, it barely recouped its $150 million budget. (That may sound like a lot, but in the summer of “gigantosauri,” as Mark Harris called it, it was runtish.) How wonderful then today, to see a movie as exciting as it is smart get its due. - Kyle Stevens

Lenny Abrahamson, Room - Best Director
Every moment is so carefully considered. His touch is so gentle that he earns every tear he's coaxed out of us by patiently setting up character and context. He makes Room feel so big and the real world so oppressively small. You can feel that the film was constructed by someone with a deep well of compassion and a profound understanding of what presentation the story demands to impact us. I had hoped that he could make it in, but so rarely does the director's branch award solid quiet observation. - Chris Feil  

more after the jump... 

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What's Next for the Spotlight Cast?

Manuel here talking about the Spotlight cast. If the SAG voting crowd can see beyond their cooky nominations, they might yet crown a handsome roster of winners. That’s what we hope happens, at least in the Best Ensemble category which, besides being quite testosterone heavy, doesn’t really feel reflective of the “best” of ensemble work that we saw this past year. Should the Tom McCarthy cast prevail though, we’ll at least know the Actors went to the right film and its talented cast.

But what are the actors behind the Boston Globe reporters up to next? Let's find out after the jump...

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Top 15 Most Hardworking Performers in 2015

Manuel here continuing our year end review.

Remember in 2011 when Jessica Chastain went from unknown actress to Oscar nominee in the blink of an eye thanks to the whirlwind of release dates that had her starring in over six films in that calendar year? It was as great a calling card as you could ask for and while Chastain had a relatively subdued year (Crimson Peak, The Martian), other actors gave her a run for her money in the “how many projects can I appear on in one year” race. Not that it’s a contest, but we’re fan of lists here at TFE even as we understand they’re more jumping off discussion points rather than monolithic assertions of quality or taste. And so find below a list of 15 actors who were extra hardworking and who you couldn’t have missed seeing as they were everywhere from superhero franchise films and prestige flicks to Netflix series and festival sensations.

The Martian cast had a busy 2015, but 2016 looks busier still for Damon, Chastain, Mara and Marvel boy Stan.

Rankings and inclusions were both arbitrary and subjective. Thus, they’re neither binding nor absolute (my personal fave and the inspiration for this post in the first place comes at #2). Feel free to tell me who I missed and whether you agree with our undisputed #1 placement who’ll be getting a special Gold Medal from Nat himself for their Body of Work this year.

15. Bill Murray (Aloha, Rock the Kasbah, A Very Murray Christmas)

14. Nicole Kidman (Grace of Monaco, Paddington, Strangerland, Secret in Their Eyes)

13. Chiwetel Ejiofor (Z for Zachariah, The Martian, Secret in their Eyes)

the ubiquitous dozen after the jump

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An IndieWire TIFF Poll

We'll wrap up our TIFF coverage tomorrow with the full index of reviews for now I wanted to point you to IndieWire where they've published their "best of TIFF" critics survey and the results are interesting but also disheartening since they remind us that US critics rush to films that are about to open rather than to films without distributors when they hit festivals. (I'll never understand this really.) They also don't seem to care about foreign language films - only one picture from their entire top collective top ten is in a foreign language (Hungary's Son of Saul) and you have to go down into the #13 before you see them crop up with regularity.

The already wildly overrated Charlie Kaufman joint Anomalisa is #1 just barely in a photofinish with the only marginally overrated Spotlight. Hee. Lots more on the actors and a distinct Oscar possibility after the jump...

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Women's Pictures - Jane Campion's In the Cut

Anne Marie's Women's Pictures continues with her month-long look at the films of Jane Campion.

Before you look at me askance for choosing the 2003 film In the Cut for this week’s Jane Campion movie, let me share a smattering of the comments people have made at TFE and on Facebook about it:

“if you're going to cover 5 of her 7 films anyway, why not tackle the absolute worst of the lot?”

“fyi don't listen to anyone who says IN THE CUT is a bad movie. it's fantastic & worth finding.”

“I don't like In the Cut but as far as failures go, it's definitely one of the more interesting/intriguing ones.”

“IN THE CUT is one of my very very very very favorites of ever in everdom.”

With such wildly varied responses, my interest was piqued. And now, having watched In the Cut twice, I must say: everyone is right. It’s a terrible thriller. It’s also a fascinating meditation on the complicated, kinky relationship between sex and violence, told from a woman’s perspective. It is the simultaneously the most and least Campion-like film we’ve watched this month. In The Cut is a messy, ugly, beautiful contradiction.

It also has naked Mark Ruffalo. You're welcome.

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