Oscar Night Winners: "Oppenheimer" and "Poor Things" Reigned

by Nathaniel R

Emma Thomas (Oppenheimer producer) hugs Emily Blunt after winning Best Picture. Screenshot from ABC

Another Oscar season has come and gone and we'll dig into the ceremony in a bit which for the first time in known history came in under its alloted air time.  Moving it an hour earlier was a good move! But for now the winners list. Oppenheimer emerged as the night's champ as everyone on the planet predicted but it proved less than a giant sweeper. Sweeps just aren't popular at the 21st century where spreading the wealth is the semi-norm for wins, if not nomination tallies. Still, since the first year of the "Expanded Era" (2009) when we saw an expansion of the Best Picture field and new voting rules, its seven wins place it in a tie for most Oscars with 2013's Gravity (which did not win Best Picture) and 2022's Everything Everywhere All At Once. 

The only other films to win multiple Oscars last night were Poor Things with 4 statues includly a tough race in Best Actress and The Zone of Interest with 2 statues including a not totally surprising (on account of how often the work was discussed) but still highly unusual win in the Best Sound category. More to come!

COMPLETE LIST OF WINNERS IN ALL 23 CATEGORIES

Picture Oppenheimer
Director Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Actress Emma Stone, Poor Things
Actor Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Supporting Actress, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
Supporting Actor Robert Downey Jr, Oppenheimer
Original Screenplay Anatomy of a Fall
Adapted Screenplay American Fiction
Cinematography Oppenheimer
Costume Design Poor Things
Production Design Poor Things
Film Editing Oppenheimer
Visual Effects Godzilla Minus One
Makeup and Hair Poor Things
Original Score Oppenheimer
Sound The Zone of Interest
Original Song "What Was I Made For?" Barbie
International Feature The Zone of Interest 
Live Action Short The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar
Animated Feature The Boy and the Heron
Animated Short War is Over!
Documentary Feature 20 Days in Mariupol
Documentary Short The Last Repair Shop

Nathaniel's Assorted Wonders (Top Ten Preamble)

by Nathaniel R

THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR © Netflix

PART 1 - In real life I am exceedingly punctual. The same is not true of my online listing life. But one of my goals for 2024 is rethinking and clarifying my lifelong need to talk about the movies. So stayed tuned but please follow on Substackd and Letterboxd and Instagram while I sort that out. I am hoping to return to writing, twice weekly. That's the goal. I've accepted that I'll never be able to do the daily churn again that kept the site lively. Bless Cláudio and the rest of the team who have filled in some of my gaps. The world has moved on (social media has replaced incessant blogging and consumption of blogging). Plus I also burned out trying to produce that much. But enough navel-gazing for the moment!

The next week at the site is dedicated to wrapping up my own long-running awards (now in their *gulp* 24th year) and talking about Oscar night (which is about to happen), so here are brief thoughts on some favourite film things of the year which I hope you'll use along with awards themselves as a 'recommended' guide when you're looking for something to watch...

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Best Picture in Black-and-White: 2023 Edition

by Cláudio Alves

Re-releasing films in black-and-white, whether in theaters or through physical media, has become something of a trend. This year, Godzilla Minus One prompted a new edit with color stripped away, revealing a new way to consider its post-war twist on the kaiju mythos. I understand why audiences and filmmakers get carried away by these experiments. After all, for the past few seasons, it's a The Film Experience tradition to re-think the year's Best Picture Oscar nominees in silvery monochrome, pondering what each flick would look like transformed.

This is an exercise that can reveal qualities in composition and lighting, as well as provide a reference for the role of color in visual storytelling. Sometimes, its absence makes no difference. In other cases, a movie can't work in grayscale… 

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Final Oscar Predictions!

by Nathaniel R

It's that time again. The Oscars are Sunday night so it's time to make those final calls. Oppenheimer is poised to win big but HOW big exactly? Clean sweeps have gone out of fashion in the past 25 years. The only "clean sweep" this century -- aka a movie nominated for a lot of Oscars that won ALL of them on Hollywood's High Holy night -- was 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Even more interesting than Hollywood's turn away from sweeps is that it's become common the Best Picture winner to NOT win the most Oscars. We like it when they spread the wealth but the overperformance last year of Everything Everywhere All At Once suggests that Hollywood may be entering sweep-mindset again.

We expect that Chris Nolan's atomic biopic Oppenheimer will have the biggest Oscar haul since Return of the King on Sunday though it won't break any records...

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The Academy loves power couples

by Cláudio Alves

Though Margot Robbie isn't up for Best Actress, she's nominated in Best Picture with her husband, Tom Ackerley.

It's Valentine's Day, and love is in the air. To commemorate the occasion, let's consider this year's Academy Award nominations through the prism of romance, searching for couples among the contenders. Recognizing lovers together has been an Oscar tradition since the very start, from Lunt and Fontaine's matching Best Actor and Actress nomination in 1931 to last year's Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin. Even so, this season feels especially prone to honoring couples. I could find six of them while perusing the list, including in the Best Picture race. Though they're not represented in the star-studded acting categories, they still deserve acclaim and attention…

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