Almost There: Denzel Washington in "Gladiator II"

by Cláudio Alves

The 97th Academy Award nominations weren't marked by many high-profile snubs. Sure, a few critical darlings failed to secure AMPAS' approval, but their absence didn't come off as a shock. Even so, as in every year, some folks came close to a nomination but likely ended up as sixth or seventh on the ballot. For the next few weeks, the Almost There series is making a comeback to celebrate those very contenders. Like last season, I'll pick one performance from each acting category, starting with Best Supporting Actor. And though Clarence Maclin probably came close to the Oscar nod with Sing Sing, let's consider another alternative – Denzel Washington's villainous turn in Gladiator II…

Click to read more ...

Contender Reviews: "September 5"

by Cláudio Alves

Since many of this year's Oscar nominees haven't yet been reviewed here at The Film Experience, I'll be going over a bunch of them in the coming weeks. Think of it as an AMPAS-minded sibling to Nick Taylor's series of Spirit Awards analysis. To start things off, let's go over the season's one lone screenplay nominee – Tim Fehlbaum's September 5. Once considered a threat for the Best Picture trophy by some major publications, the historical drama failed to meet pundits' expectations – its biggest miss was probably Editing. Today, it premiered on VOD, so it seems like a fitting time to consider the film…

Click to read more ...

Let's play the presenter game!

by Cláudio Alves

Over the past few weeks, we've heard news from the Academy about the 97th Oscars ceremony. For example, none of the Original Song nominees will be performed, a break with tradition that has caused some uproar within the industry. We'll also get to see the return of the Fab Five format for presenting the acting categories, where past victors introduce the year's nominees. In some ways, it feels like a welcoming of new faces to the Circle of Winners, though using these celebratory mini-monologues isn't to everyone's taste, especially when they came at the expense of proper Oscar clips. However, I confess that I am a fan, and just like last year, I invite you all to a game of conjecture. Let's see who'd be the perfect pairing for each nominee…

Click to read more ...

Oh, the long-windedness of Best Pictures!

by Nathaniel R

If THE BRUTALIST wins it will become the third longest Best Picture winner of all time.

Each Oscar chart is now up though details are not yet ironed out on some of them. We've talked about Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor as the charts went up, so now let's talk Best Picture. On the chart you can vote on your favourite daily and you can see the films ranked by all sorts of silly criteria (you're welcome to suggest other criteria) such as MPAA ratings, death count, horniness, release dates, the Bechdel Test, reviews, box office, my personal preference, and of course their running times. 

Oh the longwindedness of our current times! The average length of the Best Picture nominees this year is an astonishing 149 (2 hours and 29 minutes) which is not quite a record but close to it...

Click to read more ...

Best Supporting Actor - Strongest Lineup in Years?

by Nathaniel R

Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan in THE APPRENTICE © Briarcliff Entertainment

It's that time when you should start voting on the chart polls of "who SHOULD win?" We all know Kieran Culkin has the "supporting" Oscar locked up for his moody insightfulness and purposefully too-much lead performance in A Real Pain. But can we pause for a moment to appreciate that, Category Fraud aside, this is the best Best Supporting Actor lineup we've had in ages. There's not a bad or solid-but-unexciting performance in the bunch, just excellence across the board. Because I was so stunned at the quality of the shortlist, I had to look back through Oscar history to find its equivalent  - a year wherein there's not a single performance nominated that would look bad as a winner. I think you have to go back thirty years to either 1995 or 1993 to find a lineup as consistently strong. This message has been brought to you by a post-nomination viewing of The Apprentice a film I'd been avoiding for trauma reasons around the death of democracy. Strong is just excellent in the awards magnet role of Roy Cohn, a role that's already won Al Pacino an Emmy and Nathan Lane a Tony (both via Angels in America). Strong is so good that it's legitimately surprising that he's not even third best in the category...

Click to read more ...