One Award After Another

by Cláudio Alves

Jafar Panahi on the set of IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT | © Neon

In the blink of an eye, the awards season goes from a sleepy little non-starter into a breakneck race for gold. In the past few days, various organizations announced their prizes, so it's time to start doing more of these round-ups. Though, if things continue to go the way of these first few groups, you'll soon grow tired of reading One Battle After Another at the top of these things. PTA's critical darling won the top honor at the Gotham Film Awards, from the New York and Atlanta critics, as well as the NBR.

But that wasn't the only story of the past few days. Iranian dissident director Jafar Panahi has, again, been sentenced to prison, banned from travelling or making films. As the It Was Just An Accident auteur has been living outside Iran since his last travel ban was lifted in 2023, the proceedings were conducted in absentia, and Panahi remains free. However, he has said he'll return to Iran to complete his sentence after the season ends. May these awards and encompassing media circus provide a platform for the director to speak up before he is silenced once more…

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Oscar Volleys: Best Picture could be more multicultural than ever before!

The Oscar Volleys are back! Tonight, it's time for Eric Blume, Eurocheese and Nick Taylor to discuss the Best Picture race...

HAMNET, Chloé Zhao | © Focus Features

ERIC: Hi gentlemen, I'm looking forward to our three-way... to talk about the ten possible Best Picture nominees. We're just starting to get some clarity on early predictions, so we might as well add our own two cents regarding the big race. Do you both agree that the two absolute lockshere are One Battle After Another and Hamnet? It's fun that they are two very different films that generate very different feelings, OBAA being sort of the "head" movie and Hamnet being the "heart" movie? That's an oversimplification, of course, but I don't think it's untrue…

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Oscar Volleys: Best Actress or Jessie Buckley vs. the World

The Oscar Volleys are back! Tonight, it's time for Nathaniel Rogers, Cláudio Alves and Eric Blume to discuss the Best Actress race...

Nathaniel's last Best Actress predictions, from November 11.

NATHANIEL: Hello, my fellow lovers of all things actressing! I have been tearing through screeners and at the movie theater a lot this past week  (missing festivals is deadly when it comes to keeping up). So, I want to start this Best Actress volley by saying that I'm just now coming back down to earth after watching two movies, nearly back-to-back, that are about "performance," even when they're not directly about Acting. They were Sentimental Value (in a packed theater) and Hedda (at home, streaming). Renate Reinsve and Tessa Thompson are both gifted with the kind of "bring everything you got" roles that I'm sure a lot of actors would kill for…

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Pt 2: International Feature Race - Auteur Spotlight

by Nathaniel R

SOUTH KOREA's Park Chan Wook & Lee Byung Hun [image via Lee Byung hun's Instagram]

To broaden your appreciation of this year's Best International Feature Film Oscar race we already looked at some overall trivia. Before we get to the movie stars (the finale of this three-parter), let's look at some stats involving the artists behind the camera. It's auteur season! We're highlighting 8 directors due to their critical reputation, being a cinephile fetish object, or having previous Oscar history... or in some cases all three! We'll start with...

3 ICONS

• Park Chan-wook (South Korea's No Other Choice) 
Remarkably this 62 year-old auteur and Academy member has only been submitted twice by South Korea  despite a rich filmography...

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Oscar Volley: Best Director is an embarrassment of riches

The Oscar Volleys are back! Tonight, it's time for Cláudio Alves Eric Blume to discuss the Best Director race...

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, Paul Thomas Anderson | © Warner Bros.

CLÁUDIO: This early in the season, every race is somewhat volatile, prone to radical changes down the road to Oscar. However, I think that Best Director feels especially mercurial as far as nominations are concerned, though not for a lack of contenders - quite the opposite! Voters are spoiled for choice from a roster of strong candidates, all with mighty campaigns behind them, sterling reviews and eye-catching narratives. So much so that only PTA feels secure in his nomination bid, all but locked for the honor unless AMPAS pulls a 2012 on us.

Personally, I can't complain, even if he has been way more worthy of these plaudits in the past and should have already won a couple of Oscars - There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread come to mind. Of course, One Battle After Another is excellent, not some mediocrity destined to win apologies in the form of unwarranted trophies. The "River of Hills" chase sequence alone will surely be played in all tributes to PTA's career in a couple of decades. And yet, my mind can't help but wander to The Departed when pondering OBAA at the Oscars...

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