On Thursday August 26th, the next Supporting Actress Smackdown and its companion podcast arrive, with a discussion of the 1986 Oscars and the Supporting Actress nominees. You know what that means. For maximum enjoyment (re)watch Best Picture nominees A Room With a View, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Children of a Lesser God as well as The Color of Money and Crimes of the Heart and send in your votes by Tuesday, August 24th. Let's meet your fellow panelists, shall we?
JONATHAN DIAZ
Jonathan Diaz is a civil rights attorney, writer, and longtime TFE reader originally from Miami, Florida, and now based in Washington, DC. He is legal counsel for voting rights at Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and previously worked as a legal fellow at the National Hispanic Media Coalition He is also a frequent analyst and commenter on election and legal issues in the media, including for Univision, the Miami Herald, the New York Times, and CNN, where he was an election law analyst during the 2020 presidential election cycle. His writing on film and the Oscars has appeared at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Rough Cut Cinema (where he is a regular contributor), and wherever he can sneak it in on the CLC website. [Twitter | Letterboxd]
ROB KIRBY
Rob Kirby is a cartoonist and writer currently living in St Paul, MN. His books include Curbside Boys, The Book of Boy Trouble, the Ignatz-winning QU33R, and The Shirley Jackson Project: Comics Inspired by Her Life and Work. He is currently nearing completion of Marry Me a Little, a graphic memoir about getting (gay) married in middle age. He also writes reviews for Publishers Weekly and The Comics Journal. Fun Fact: he won the Oscar pool of 2014 with a perfect score. [Twitter | Instagram | Letterboxd]
LYNN LEE
Lynn is a government lawyer who spends most of her time outside work obsessing over arts and pop culture of all kinds. Her first love, though, will always be movies, thanks to parents who raised her on an eclectic diet of Ingmar Bergman, talky French films, 1960s musicals, Star Wars, and Spielberg blockbusters. You can find her occasional musings on movies and TV on her blog and right here at TFE. [Lynn's Articles]
CLAUDIO ALVES
Cláudio is a Portuguese film critic as well as a set and costume designer for the stage. He's worked in several small productions and is currently designing a show inspired by Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides. The Lisbon Sisters is a Mário Coelho creation and opens next month in Lisbon. Claudio also writes regularly for The Film Experience, Photogénie, and the Portuguese entertainment website Magazine.HD. Formerly, he's written for the streaming service Filmin, the Portuguese blog for Sundance TV, and participated in the Young Critics' Workshop at Film Fest Ghent 2017. He's openly gay, a fashion history geek with a passion for cinema, and the proud owner of a feline angel by the name of Maggie The Cat. [Twitter | Letterboxd | Claudio's articles]
HOSTED BY...
NATHANIEL ROGERS
Nathaniel is the creator and owner of The Film Experience. He is a member of Gurus of Gold, Critics Choice Awards, and the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics and a longtime Oscar pundit here at TFE. His writing has also appeared at other publications including Vanity Fair, Vulture, Slate, Towleroad, and Tribeca Film.
If you are a working actor, a renowned critic, film historian, a novelist, a comedian, or an arts professional of some kind, chances are good that he has meant to invite you to a Smackdown panel, or would have if he happened to know you were obsessed with actresses. [Twitter | Contact | Instagram]